Omnipotence Paradox

Thats actually a hobby of mine. I occasionally use mice though, chipmunks are more expensive.

What Future Man says is correct. This however is golden:

ANY attempt to say that something is beyond human understanding is equivelent to saying it is nonsense, or rather, it is equivelent to putting your underpants on your head, sticking two pencils up your nose and saying “wubble”.

Do you honestly supose our wetware can compute EVERYTHING there is?
Do you see our brain as a finished product capable of this?
We’re just monkeys, man, barely out of the caves.

Mythology was invented by people like you
Let’s just say Omnipotent=God

If God could deny his omnipotence, then he is not omnipotent.

If God is omnipotent, then he has the power to deny his omnipotence.

That’s the logic we are working with, not numbers or newtons, not moving things with your mind at a fraction of the force, those two statements are the ones we are looking at. Human perception doesn’t ever enter the equation.

Define Omnipotence: an agency or force of unlimited power

Unlimited, that’s the definition, therefore we don’t assign a number to it. It is endless. All encompassing.

There, now let’s not diverge into Indian Storytime.

I never said any particular person can understand all things now with the brains we have, like, in the quantitative sense. Just as no particular person knows every path of a computer processor. This is not the same thing as saying processors can never be understood in the qualitative sense, ie, the principles involved.

Nothing is hidden in logic, and there will be no discoveries, only an appreciation for what we already know.

Thanks you Mr Nostradamus.
Personally I don’t see us as having the knowledge as a species to make such predictions.
Even logic has a few holes in it, as useful as it is.

You misunderstand.

Of course, logic as a tool (logical language) is incomplete. This is not because logic itself, ie. the rational engine of our brains, is incomplete.

I would like to resubmit this to all of you who are indulging your personal interconnected and perosnal tangents… it has also been amended.

ReignofUtopia:

Yes and No. The problem with such a question is that the assumed argument behind it is internally inconsistent. If a being is omnipotent, then a rock too heavy for that being to lift cannot exist – by the definition of omnipotence being used. If such a rock did or does exist, then that inherently precludes the being from maintaining omnipotence in the first place.

Either option is possible, however they can’t coexist rationally or logically, and neither can the paradox (law of non-contradiction).

Logicians have come to the conclusion that omnipotence, as normatively used in discussions similar to this one are inaccurate, and should be used, such that: said being can do all things that said being can do. If we are speaking about a particular being: “God”, then we state that God can do all things within God’s power. (Introduction to Modal Logic [the logic of possibility and necessity]) What such a statement implies is meaningless because an affirmation and a negation of the consequent would be rendered illogical. Such a “paradox” (although it isn’t real), is a pursuit in semantics and not much more.

FR, i agreed with you the first time round. I only post in response to things i disagree with, fortunately, this still gives me plenty to do.

Very interesting posts, Oreso and Future Man both provided very well thought out assertions.

But all these posts beg a further inquiry: Why are people assuming physical properties of an omnipotent beign?

ie. If we accept that God exists, and we accept that God is infinite/omnipotent, we are not speaking of physicallity, are we?

Is not the paradox of equating ethereal to physical? God could create anything. But in all that any deity would do, it would exist outside the physical realm, and the physicality of lifting something such as a rock, is not valid, because a presence of divine force does not operate by laws of physicality? Yes or no?

not physical, logical.

you could phrase the problem without reference to physics if you like:
“a maze so fiendish, god couldnt navigate it”
“a curry so hot, god couldnt stomach it”
“a problem so complex, god couldnt solve it”
“an atheist so hardcore, god couldnt convince them”

That doesn’t work for me, personally, as logic is based upon human capability, which is less than adequate and subjective, which obviates the paradox based on an unsolvable, unquantifiable subjective.

hm? could you rephrase using more sentances so i know what your clauses are referring to?

The question can’t have a serious answer, from a human point of view, as we are restricted to our very narrow field of experience and understanding. We can only imagine the condition of an omnipotent being, or rationally build an image of this situation, but we will never be able to experience the omnipotent condition, and thus, will never be able to wholy understand the situation of the omnipotent being. I believe that the above-mentioned paradox is just an integrant part of the omnipotence, which the omnipotent being sees as natural. Only exterior observers, such as humans could see a paradox, whhere God sees none.
It is all a problem of our limited human condition, I guess.

See this post for questions to my response, - the “I guess”, in the last sentence, as I would make the conclusionary sentence an assertion.

Admittedly, this individual made simple what I over complicated. Clarity is obviously Dekeneu’s friend. Well done.

Can God bring forth his own non-existence ?

Mucius Scevola wrote:

What if it wasnt God who made Himself, but a random act of events spewed from infinite possibilities. God then, now in existence, created the universe based upon like principles, and in the image of Him. So maybe Hes not all powerful after all, it just appears so to us.

Whoaaa, Mucius… Now THAT is an interesting question-an extrapolation of the “rock paradox”. Is God that powerful to deny his own existence?
…though, if I think a bit more, I find that it’s only a sophism, only bigger than the original one. But I, as a sophist,will try to answer you. I guess my answer above is as valid for this question, as for the so-callled paradox:

Buuut, maybe you won’t be happy with it…Ok…Give me a little time…

M S wrote

God doesn’t exist from my understanding. God IS. Existence occurs within time and space and God is beyond time and space. I think you are assuming that God (IS) and creation (existence) are the same.

So God not existing would not bring forth his non-existence.

To begin with, I ought to make a distinguo: we must make a distinction between an unnamed, anonimous omnipotent being(of course, unique, but lacking personality) and God, probably the Christian God, you refer to.
An omnipotent being, if we consider its omnipotence, doesn’t have a beginning. There isn’t a point in time prior to which that being wouldn’t have existed, otherwise it wouldn’t be all-powerful(being limited by and subject to the rule of time). The omnipotent being has never emerged out of non-existence and cannot slip back into non-existence.
Leaving from the premises that something IS in the whole meaning of the word and covering all possible modes of existence, nonexistence is reduced to a meaningless concept. Something all-existent IS and so, nonexistence is and had never been but an ideatic negation of the original clause: “Something IS”, conceived by our human, limited minds, and appliable only to the phaenomena we can perceive. By this artificial construct which is non-existence, people mean that a certain phaenomenon has vanished from their range of sight. Actually, it never slips into non-existence, but turns into something else, takes another form. So, basicly, there is NO non-existence-it is only an appearance. This applies to phaenomena, which do not vanish, but transform themselves and to noumena, which, being eternal, don’t vanish, either, and is so much more valid for the omnipotent being.

I trust I have made myself obscure, in the previous post. However, I ought to speak about the Christian God, too.
The Christian God is not an alien God, who doesn’t involve in Its creation. Non-exitence is even further away from this god than from the omnipotent faceless being. This is a god of full existence, where to be means to love. The question

is meaningless in this case. The Christian god isn’t a presumed demiurgos who created the universe out of a whim and would like to deny itself out of boredom,but a loving omnipotent being, who wishes his rational creatures to reach a higher state of existence, not to slip into existence.
To sum up, your question is a result of the same old limited human condition.