Now for the philosophical point (remembering that I don't care what Catholics think, I only care about what makes sense - which seems very different). — Bartricks

:fire: You're on a roll amigo!

If a person is constrained by logic — Bartricks

Can it be said that logic frees rather than constrains? To be perfectly logical then is a divine attribute, oui? If so, the stone paradox is both a positive (god doesn't do irrational stuff) and a negative (god can't do irrational stuff).

Too, suicide, an exclusively human phenomenon (recall your previous coupla-months-old post) simply won't make sense to animals. Is our relationship with god of a similar character? Clearly, there's something inanimate about life - a stone, a plane full of screaming passengers, both follow the laws of gravity. How often do we stop and examine a worm, a bug? Do we feel any compassion for microbes (jains excepted)?

I don't think it is possible to go beyond or change the laws of logic when the concept is properly understood. — A Christian Philosophy

Do you agree that it is actual nonsense - an actual contradiction - to maintain that of two people, the one with less power is the more powerful?

I take it I do not need to wait for an answer, as the claim that "the less powerful is the more powerful" is a clear contradiction, and thus clear nonsense.

Do you agree that a person who is not bound by logic is more powerful than one who is?

Can it be said that logic frees rather than constrains? — Agent Smith

No. If one is not bound by logic - because one is its author - then one has a power that someone who is bound by logic lacks, namely the power to alter logic. There's no power one gains by being constrained by logic.

If so, the stone paradox is both a positive (god doesn't do irrational stuff) and a negative (god can't do irrational stuff). — Agent Smith

There is no paradox there. Can God make a stone too heavy for him to lift? Yes. There are at least two ways he could do this. He could divest himself of his omnipotence. Or, more impressively, he could make a contradiction true (by making a stone that is too heavy for him to lift and lifting it).

Too, suicide, an exclusively human phenomenon (recall your previous coupla-months-old post) simply won't make sense to animals. Is our relationship with god of a similar character? Clearly, there's something inanimate about life - a stone, a plane full of screaming passengers, both follow the laws of gravity. How often do we stop and examine a worm, a bug? Do we feel any compassion for microbes (jains excepted)? — Agent Smith

I don't know what you mean.

Well, truth is, logic does set down impassable boundaries, clearly demarcates no-go areas in re thought/thinking. It can be likened to a cage of sorts, designed as it were to keep us confined within what passes as reasonable/rational/logical. In that sense, it does confine/restrain/constrain/limit the mind.

This then takes us to a very interesting topic, in question form, what lies beyond logic? Many have attempted to answer this question and one of the answers might give you goosebumps; that answer is God.

Do you agree that it is actual nonsense - an actual contradiction - to maintain that of two people, the one with less power is the more powerful? — Bartricks

Yes.

Do you agree that a person who is not bound by logic is more powerful than one who is? — Bartricks

No - not if the idea of "not bound by logic" is itself nonsense. If the concept of logic is in fact the way I understand it, then the question is equivalent to asking "Do you agree that a person who is capable of [insert nonsense, meaningless noise] is more powerful than one who is not?"


Here is a quick explanation of what logic is, which may help to confirm we have somewhat the same idea about it. https://youtu.be/a-PZP_5DPK4?t=221
(Really it's about deduction but logic in metaphysics is equivalent to deduction in epistemology).

If someone has power over whether or not something is nonsense, then they have more power than someone who does not.

So once more: a person who can do more things than another is more powerful than that person. And it is a contradiction - so, actual nonsense - to maintain that a person who has more power than another is also the less powerful one of the two.

Again then: I believe in a god who can do anything. You believe in a god who can do some things and not others. That is, you believe in a god who is constrained by some mysterious external power source that he is not himself the source of (else he would not be constrained by it).

You simply don't believe in God, then. You can say you do. But you don't. For your god is less powerful than mine. And your god is not the one described in the bible either.

And when it comes to logic, assume that every argument you believe to be deductively valid I also believe to be deductively valid.

This is not about the content of logic. This is about what logic itself is. And what logic itself is is a set of instructions from Reason, yes?

if this premise - P - is true, and if this premise - q - is true, then you ought to conclude that therefore P and Q is the case, yes?

So it is a set of instructions about what to believe.

And instructions need an instructor.

And only an agency - only a mind - can issue an instruction.

So, Reason - the source of all the edicts of Reason (for that is why she is called Reason) - is a person.

And she will have power 'over' logic, for logic is no more or less than instructions she is issuing.

And thus, she will be omnipotent. And so she will be God.

You can believe in a person who is subject to Reason's will rather than the source of it, but then you believe in a god, not God.

I believe it is you who does not understand logic. For what do you think it is? A strange cosmic glue that binds even God? Is it a straightjacket that God did not design yet that he is in and that constrains him?

For your statements to be valid, we have to accept the possibility of a reality outside of logic. But I don't accept this premise, because logic dictates what can exist in any possible world; and anything that does not follow logic does not exist in any possible world.

A horse exists in the actual world.
A horse with a horn, i.e. unicorn, exists in a possible world.
A horse with a horn and not a horn at the same time does not exist in any possible world.
A god who can do x and not x at the same time does not exist in any possible world.