They are not arguments against God as such, they are paradoxes. Many Christians, for instance, maintain that God is maximally powerful but he cannot do the logically incomprehensible. God cannot make bachelors married men, for example.

My first question at religious education class when I was 8 - If God is good and ever forgiving why is there a hell?

Yes, but they have been used to argue against the existence of God. Which is what this thread is about.

Tom, I agree that most of them are very hard to comprehend. Because they eventually lead to a question where you are saying can God do and not do something simultaneously, which can be hard to comprehend.

The one that is easy to comprehend is the last one, about God letting evil happen.

How can a good god condemn people to infinite suffering in hell for finite offence/s. Infinite punishment will always exceed just punishment for finite offence/s.

Out of all the arguments I have come across, this one makes the most sense.

My first question at religious education class when I was 8 - If God is good and ever forgiving why is there a hell? — Tom Storm

How can a good god condemn people to infinite suffering in hell for finite offence/s. Infinite punishment will always exceed just punishment for finite offence/s. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Out of all the arguments I have come across, this one makes the most sense. — elucid

This is not an argument that God doesn't exist. This is an argument that God is not good.

This is not an argument that God doesn't exist. This is an argument that God is not good.

You're right, I was only talking about the God of Abrahamic religions, where goodness is a trait of God.

You're right, I was only talking about the God of Abrahamic religions, where goodness is a trait of God. — elucid

If you're saying if God is not good then God does not exist, that doesn't make sense to me.

If you're saying if God is not good then God does not exist, that doesn't make sense to me.

It's like the following scenario. Suppose someone says that you shouldn't worry about your car getting in an accident, because there is a person who always protects people from it. If you get in an accident, then it's logical to assume that there isn't a person who will always protect you from it.

This is not an argument that God doesn't exist. This is an argument that God is not good. — T Clark

I wasn't proposing it was an argument against God's existence, just a paradox/contradiction.

Yes, but they have been used to argue against the existence of God. Which is what this thread is about. — elucid

Really? I have never heard people use these logical conundrums as arguments against God's existence. That seems silly. What they use them for is disrupting people's idea of omnibenevolence or omnipotence. But I already addressed this in my response. How do you address this?

Well, these aren't proof, just some musings of English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822):

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?
If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?
If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?
If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?
If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?
If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?
If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest? — The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

, I'd suggest digging around out there for various commentaries on the things you list.

This is very nice. I forgot about Shelly's polemic. Last time I looked at this was the mid 1980's...

Those aren't arguments! Some of them might feature as premises in arguments against God, but they're not themselves arguments.

Most of them are just silly questions that admit of easy answers. I believe in God, so I'll answer them.

Heavy Rock:

1. Can God create a rock so heavy, he himself cannot lift it? — elucid

Yes. God is all powerful and so can do anything, including making a rock so heavy he cannot lift it. He can lift it too.

Immortal

2. Can God kill an immortal being? — elucid

Yes, see above answer. God can do anything. Anything. Thus he can kill an immortal being.

Perhaps you think that's a contradiction - that 'immortal' means 'incapable of being destroyed'.

But in that case the question presupposes God does not exist, rather than showing it. For God can do anything and thus if God exists no being is immortal.

Note too that even if it did involve a contradiction, that would not prevent God from doing it. For God can make contradictions true. (Banno thinks that means he does - but Banno not very brighto).

Numbers

3. Can God make a number equal to another number? — elucid

Yes. He can do anything. (Bit of a theme developing here).

Maybe you think no one can make a number equal to another number. But in that case you believe there does not exist a person who can do anything, right? So, you haven't shown God not to exist, you've just assumed it.

If God exists, then by hypothesis there exists a person who can do anything. So, if God exists there exists one person who can make a number equal to another number: God.

Geometry

4. Can God make a geometric shape equal to another geometric shape? — elucid

Yes, see above answer.

Larger than space

5. Can God make an eleven feet cube fit in a circle of a three feet diameter? — elucid

Yes, see above answer.

Endless

6. Can God eat all the infinite supply of apples in a machine that dispenses it one at a time? — elucid

Yes, see above answer

Evil

7. If God exists, why then is there evil in the world? — elucid

Because a good person allows other people room to exercise their own free will, and some of them use it to do evil and they get punished by being sent here.

Was that it? Was that the case against God?

I wasn't proposing it was an argument against God's existence, just a paradox/contradiction. — Tom Storm

It's something of a pet peeve with me. Anti-religion activists like Dawkins and Hitchens use it to cast doubt on the existence of God. They claim their arguments provide a rational case against God's existence, but, as I noted, it says nothing about it.

I can understand why the existence of evil or hell could lead someone to reject religious beliefs. Since this is a philosophy forum, I just wanted to be clear what it does or does not demonstrate.

I understand where you are coming from. I guess Dawkins and Hitchens operate as polemicists so philosophical soundness or coherence isn't their thing. I can't remember them using the argument as proof against God per say; just ammunition against the notion of the benevolent Christian God.

Most of them are just silly questions that admit of easy answers. I believe in God, so I'll answer them.

Heavy Rock:

1. Can God create a rock so heavy, he himself cannot lift it? — elucid


Yes. God is all powerful and so can do anything, including making a rock so heavy he cannot lift it. He can lift it too. — Bartricks

I don't understand. If he does lift it, he obviously hasn't fulfilled the first condition.

The first six questions are all about power - "Can God...?" The 7th and last question is about goodness. Could the two be related? Let's find out.

First off, all-powerful is a divine trait. It literally means the answer to all questions that go "Can God...?" is, luckily/not, "yes"!

The most common way of arguing for the nonexistence of God is to show that God entails a contradiction (e.g. the stone paradox or omniscience-free will paradox, even the so-called problem of evil and others). However being all-powerful has its perks - God enjoys immunity from the laws of logic.

That means God is a being (concept?) that's, literally, beyond the scope of logic. The preceding sentence (in italics) and this very statement, for the reason that I'm being logical, is too N/A (not applicable) to God defined as, among other things, omnipotent. The Zen concept of Mu seems to capture the state of my mind in re God as something not bound by logic. Mind you, I'm not claiming God is illogical; all I can say is that there's a very thin line between madness -illogical - and genius - (hyper) logical.

Just a few days ago, I discovered an interesting statement that produces the same effect (Mu) as God's omnipotence and it's a statement about logic. Coincidence? I don't know, you decide. This statement is: There are no good justifications = J. J is, in layman's terms, basically asserting logic is no good. We instinctively demand for justification for J but look at what J's saying - there are no good justifications - which, just like how omnipotence took God out of the domain of logic, does the exact same thing to J. In being ex-logical (outside of logic), J = God. Noteworthy is that just like an omnipotent God, J too entails a contradiction the instant we apply logic to it.

Where were we? There are no good justifications = God in the sense both are ex-logical and in that both imply contradictions are true. I wonder if God can exist in a paraconsistent logic or a dialetheism setting?, but that's another story. Viewing this equality in the simplest way possible, God is nothing more than a call to faith. Forget evidence, justification, logic, proof, they're all pissing into the wind (pointless). It's fides, fides and more fides.

Let's examine the other side to this story - there are good justifications = T. Again we're driven by habit/nature to justify T. Yet, to justify T is to presuppose T and we end up going round in a circle - not good, not good at all. Makes me we wonder why people find merry-go-rounds so enjoyable, so much so that they're willing to part with their hard-earned money just to do nothing (circling back to where they started). I digress, back to the main issue - T can't be justified for to do so is to commit the circulus in probando fallacy. Thus, logic which T is about has to be taken on faith.

A coherent picture now emerges. J = God = faith. Faith in what? Well, going by how enamored we are of logic, and given logic is unjustified, it seems we have faith in reason - a paradox in its own right. It's like the joke about a father who tells his son, "don't trust anyone." Should the son trust the father/not? The father means well for his son and that's precisely the moral of the story. You can trust a person who tells you not to trust anyone! :chin:

How does all what I said hang togther? Is it coherent? Does it make sense?

Let's go over what I said. God = there are no good justifications = faith (ultimately). Who's worthy of our faith? Reason for the "reason" that you can trust a person who tells you not to trust anyone. Reason reveals its own fatal flaw. "What a noble creature reason is", is one response; another would be, "how stupid reason is to let everyone know its weakness" The first is the heart talking, the second is what the brain would say. A lot more can be said but just make a note of the fact that, sometimes, not all the time, to be noble is to be foolish, goodness is just another name for idiocy. Adam, Eve, the garden of Eden, the apple, the snake, you see where this is going, don't you?

In essence, God is faith looking for something worthy of it. Reason by publicly declaring nothing is worthy of faith including itself then, paradoxically, becomes deserving of faith. A match made in "heaven" if you ask me.

You can't argue against God because if there's no faith (God), reason (arguments) has no leg to stand on. In other words, trying to justify the nonexistence of God (faith) is to blow the lid off reason's Achilles' heel.

Faith in the Faithless. God in the Godless.

I think it is even weaker (or confused) than you are pointing out (correctly). God could be good, but not all powerful. There could be complicated deity situations with good and evil entities in struggle. This is a bit like God lacking omnipotence - if one of the deities is called God and considered more central somehow - but it is an important subcategory. Even Christianity has a version of this. Then you could have a deity that has made mistakes and this deity could even be working on correcting them.

Then there is the whole: in some way perhaps incomprehensible to us there is a reason there must be evil and suffering. A lot of arguments against God or against God's goodness seem to presume that we can use deduction to KNOW that God is messing up morally or practically. I don't think this shuts down problem of evil arguments, especially since many theist apologists will act like they CAN in fact see the good that is hard for other humans to see in the presence of evil and suffering and if relevant the existence of Hell. But there is an assumption that we would know. Children can often logically conclude things that adults should or should not do and even use quite solid logic from their limited (in comparison to adults) perspective. Perhaps we are children in relation to the deity.

In practical terms I don't buy that argument. IOW I don't accept that it is all good really and I should accept that. But I think putting forward the argument that one can KNOW given X, God can't be good, is problematic if presented as a certainty (deduction).

And then of course the thread is extremely Abrahamic. Hinduism can't get hit in this way so easily by the problem of evil type stuff.

Further even within Abrahamism there are many believers who are not focused on all the omni- categories. Some medieval or later theologians started to come up with these perfect infinite qualities, but the kinds of language in the Bible say, can simply mean that God is, for example, unimaginably powerful. But there is no reason to assume this means God can bust logic.

Of course even logic depend on knowledge. We might have once ruled out category mixes that have been found in QM, at least many think they have. (this is not an argument that qm supports deities. It is an argument saying that what seems like a contradiction and thus deduction can demonstrate a certain conclusion around, may in fact not be a contradiction but it seems like one to our limited perspective.)

How can a good god condemn people to infinite suffering in hell for finite offence/s. Infinite punishment will always exceed just punishment for finite offence/s. — Down The Rabbit Hole

This is not an argument that God doesn't exist. This is an argument that God is not good. — T Clark

Which as @elucid alludes to, is a case against the most popular, including Christianity.

As an agnostic I'm not convinced of any arguments against a deist god.

Yes, it looks like the OP is presuming God exists, and listing Gods negative aspects.

I agree with @Bartricks. The statements listed are not arguments and they certainly do not prove that God does not exist, assuming this to be the intention of the thread.

And the other thing is that similar statements can be made about scientific claims without this "disproving" science.

The question - can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift? - is ambiguous. That is, it admits of two quite different interpretations ('de re' and 'de dicto'). The answer is 'yes' to both. But they are different questions, expressed with the same words.

An example to illustrate - can a bachelor marry? That question is ambiguous in the same way.

It could mean 'does the person who qualifies as a bachelor have the ability to marry?' To which the answer would be yes. It's not as if being a bachelor somehow prevents one marrying. A bachelor who met the woman of his dreams would be manifesting confusion if he said to her upon her proposing marriage 'I'd love to marry you, but I am a bachelor and so can't'

Likewise, 'can an omnipotent being create a stone too heavy for her to lift?' can be interpreted as 'does the person who qualifies as omnipotent have the ability to divest themselves of their omnipotence by creating a rock too heavy for them to lift - in other words, do they have the ability to go from being able to do anything to not being able to do something?' The answer to that is 'yes', for it is confused to think that being omnipotent prevents you from doing things. 'I'd love to create a rock too heavy for me to lift, but I can't because I'm omnipotent' is confused.

Then there's a different question that the same words can be used to express. And that is, can a bachelor, 'as a bachelor' - so qua bachelor - get married? With one exception, the answer to that question is 'no'. For a married bachelor is a contradiction in terms.

So, two very different questions expressed by the same words. And the answer to one is 'yes'and the answer to the other is 'no'.

Applied to 'can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift?' The second interpretation is 'can God, 'as God' create a stone too heavy for him to lift? In other words, can God be God at the same time as there exists a stone too heavy for her to lift?'

Now one might think that the answer to this version of the question is 'no'. For the state of affairs described involves a contradiction, no less than that of a married bachelor.

And many theists - stupid ones - would indeed say that the answer is no. But the answer is 'yes', for God can do anything and thus can create contradictory states of affairs. Many think not, because they think - correctly - that the law of non contradiction forbids this, and think - incorrectly - that the law constrains God. But God is the one exception - he is, by definition, all powerful and thus is bound by nothing.

It is, ironically, those who think God cannot create contradictory states of affairs who think something that violates the law of non contradiction. For they think a being who can do anything is at the same time unable to do some things. That's a contradiction. An actual one, not a potential one.

I think the law of non contradiction is true, and thus I think that God can violate it. And thus I think God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift, and lift it.

So, can a bachelor stop being a bachelor? Yes.

Can God divest himself of his power? Yes.

Can there be a married bachelor? With the exception of God, no.

Can God be both able and unable to do something at the same time? Yes. For God is by definition able to do anything, and thus it would be an actual contradiction to deny that God can violate the law of non contradiction.

What one has to understand is that the law of non contradiction is actually true, but potentially false. Or to put it another way, it is contingently true, not necessarily true. For if God exists there are no necessary truths, and it would violate the law of non contradiction to think otherwise.

It seems to me that the reason people decide to argue against god isn't to contradict the idea of god so much as it is to contradict a whole set of "affiliated beliefs" that go tend to go along with the belief in the idea of god (but are not necessarily logically entailed). If this is so, then atheism is really just one giant red herring.....

This is a really good post. You took my complaints about theism arguments and opened them up, broadened them in a way that's really helpful. You also put into words things about these types of arguments I have thought a lot about but haven't been able to articulate.

Have you seen the "Can God Make Mistakes?" thread?

A Person/Being cannot be Fundamental, for the parts would have to be more so.

Nor could even a particle be fundamental, as it is an excitation quantum of a field.

No 'God'.

The Summary of Some Disproofs of God
(Some from Victor Stenger)

THE NATURAL Where shall we find, or not, the Supernatural—God? We would find it doing super things that are beyond the natural. If we look everywhere and only find the natural, then the disproof of God lives.

BELIEFS IN THE UNKNOWN ARE UNGROUNDED BELIEFS UPHELD. A belief is that construct that states we consider something as true. But considering and knowing are two different words. One implies holding something up as true, while the other stands on the ground as being true. Indeed, that is the ‘hold up’, for a belief hangs in the air, because it is upheld by the owner of the belief.

THE ETERNAL UNCAUSED MOVER It could not be a Mind, for it would be an already defined and very complex composite system. In any system, the parts must precede. Thus, no God.

MASS AND MATTER ARE CREATED FROM ENERGY! The universe appeared from a state of zero energy, this being, of course, within the unavoidable and tiny quantum uncertainty. So, no miracle occurred.

THERE IS NO TIME-ZERO IMPRINT OF THE VERY HAND OF GOD! An expanding universe could have started in total chaos and still formed some localized order consistent with the 2nd law. At the Planck time, the disorder was complete; it was maximal. Thus the universe began with no structure. None. In fact it was chaos! There was no initial design built in to the universe at its beginning! There was no imprint left by a Creator.

BIBLICAL REVELATION IS UNREVEALING. Biblical prophecy is either vague, wrong, coincidence, a matter of ordinary prediction, or it can be more-simply explained as written after the fact. Humankind’s holy books are what one would expect if they were products of human culture.

IN THE ‘BEGINNING’… THERE WAS NO CAUSE! Physical events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause. That realm is causeless.

QUANTUM CONSCIOUSNESS. Einstein did away with the aether, shattering the doctrine that we all move about inside a universal, cosmic fluid whose excitations connect us simultaneously to one another and to the rest of the universe. Second, Einstein and other physicists proved that matter and light were composed of particles, wiping away the notion of universal continuity.

ENLIGHTENMENT DEISM. In 1982 a definitive series of ‘EPR experiments’ with this configuration was carried out by Alain Aspect. The results agreed perfectly with conventional quantum mechanics and thus ruled out any subquantum theory with local hidden variables.

THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE ARE NATURAL A principle of point-of-view invariance is equivalent to the principle of covariance when applied to space-time. These laws automatically appear in any model that does not single out a special moment in time, position in space, and direction in space. Back at the Planck time of the big bang, the universe had no distinguishable place, direction, or time: it had no structure; thus, the conservation laws apply.

OUR VALUES/LAWS/MORALS DO NOT COME FROM GOD AND/OR RELIGION. There are common ideals that arose during the gradual evolution of human societies, as they become more civilized, developed rational thinking processes, and discovered how to live together in greater harmony. Human and societal behaviors look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.

THERE WAS NO FINE-TUNING OF THE UNIVERSE. For fine-tuning, only ‘dimensionless’ numbers that do not depend on the system of units are meaningful. The Fine Structure ‘Constant, ‘a’, is not even a constant. There can still be long-lived stars if we vary the parameters and certainly the universe is not fine-tuned for this characteristic. The 7.65 million electron-volts needed for Carbon to form actually hinges on the radioactive state of a carbon nucleus formed out of three helium nuclei, which has over a 20% range to work with without being too high. The vacuum energy of the universe is not fine-tuned, for the large value of N1 is simply an artifact of the use of small masses in making the comparison. The Expansion Rate of the Universe in not fine-tuned since the universe appeared from an earlier state of zero energy; thus, energy conservation would require the exact expansion rate that is observed. Same for the Mass Density of the Universe. Looks the same as if there were no God.

THE VILE ARGUMENT FROM EVIL becomes that we rely on our own human instincts, these taking precedence over confusing divine commands, for these commands offend both our common sense and our reason. Observations of human and animal suffering look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.
Many disproofs of the supernatural;

Bart thinks god is not limited by logic, and hence those of us who are limited by logic tend not to engage with him.

It seems to me that the reason people decide to argue against god isn't to contradict the idea of god so much as it is to contradict a whole set of "affiliated beliefs" that go tend to go along with the belief in the idea of god (but are not necessarily logically entailed). If this is so, then atheism is really just one giant red herring..... — Pantagruel

Can you expand on this? The expression (from the Gospel of Matthew) 'Ye shall know them by their fruits' springs to mind.

Many Christians, for instance, maintain that God is maximally powerful but he cannot do the logically incomprehensible. God cannot make bachelors married men, for example. — Tom Storm

Yes, he can. To wit: Jesus, the eternal bachelor, to whom so many Catholic nuns are married.

Two parallels intersect in infinity ....

I like it. You're a poet.