Thrice the fool Bartricks is, once because you are indeed a great fool, twice the fool for engaging with Bartricks and thrice the fool for doing so repeatedly. — DingoJones

You're two-thirds right! And likely the third too because I grab too many tar-babies with both hands, Bartricks' thinking, as he presents it, such a tar-baby. But there are other tar-babies out in the world neither innocent nor harmless, racism, right-wing politics, religion when it slips its leash, denialism examples. What do you say is the right way to handle them? Logic? Argument? Justice? Force - violence - war? What do you say?

Bartricks' argument appears to run like this:
1) God is omnipotent, all-powerful, can do anything.
1a) God can make himself not omnipotent (after all, he can do anything).
2) God can make a stone so heavy he cannot lift it.
3) Were he to do so he would be not omnipotent.
4) He chooses not to make such a stone, and thus is omnipotent.

Gentle reader, apply the argument to yourself. Have you not been potent with respect to all that you do and have done, thus omnipotent? And of all the things that would make you impotent, have you not necessarily not done them - and thus your omnipotence preserved? It would seem that Bartricks' argument makes you God!

Lol, well Ill give you credit for trying but no Tim Wood I don’t do much tar baby grabbing myself. My comments purpose was to try and get you to stop feeding the troll, not an invitation for discussion. If I somehow, in some incomprehensible way, haven’t been clear: I do not believe there is any benefit in engaging with you, only cost. I think you are a dishonest arguer, and a fool.

But like…just stop fucking talking to that guy already. Its painful.

If I'm following correctly, B would disagree with #4. I believe B would say that God could make such a stone AND lift it if (s)he so chose - since (s)he is not bound by LNC.

Yes, that's right Hugh. If you'd been paying attention, you'd have noticed that I said God is by definition omnipotent. However, that's just a contingent truth about the word God. — Bartricks

To say that God is by definition omnipotent just is to say that he must be omnipotent. Unless we are merely speaking about the word 'God', that it just signifies the idea of something omnipotent and not an actual being. But then that word 'God' signifies a contradiction, since as the example of the stone shows, the very idea of being omnipotent is a contradiction.

The only clever things that come out of its mouth are ad homs. Which I have to say are top notch. — khaled

Seriously? You do set the bar low, don't you?

Maybe he would; there's no accounting for what B would argue. But what he wrote was that God could make such a stone, and that would make him no longer omnipotent, him not being able to lift that stone. But the "could," in not being realized leaves God omnipotent. His maintaining such an argument leaves me wondering just what he's about, and no answer flattering to him.

God cannot overcome logic though. can he? He cannot be both omnipotent and be unable to lift a stone. — Janus


Of course they can. They are omnipotent. They are bound though by the possibilities. If they could do everything, they can do nothing. If you can't lift a stone, then you can't. If you can't travel faster than light then you can't. If they could there lives would be chaotic. A whimsical fleeting existence. God's are not like that. Like the universe isn't, which they created in their image. Is their will free? Of course. If they don't force the wills of each other. — GraveItty

You are contradicting yourself. You say they are omnipotent and yet "bound by the possibilities" and "If you can't lift a stone, then you can't".

Omnipotence guarantees only all power that actually exists. God can still be all-powerful and not be able to perform the paradoxical.

One can do philosophy without having much of an acquaintance with the philosophical literature. The result, evident on these fora, is the repetition of errors already identified. — Banno

Ha! There is a bit of a Groundhog Day effect to our threads and a concomitant inability to acquire clarity despite problems being repeatedly identified and dealt with.

Gentle reader, apply the argument to yourself. Have you not been potent with respect to all that you do and have done, thus omnipotent? And of all the things that would make you impotent, have you not necessarily not done them - and thus your omnipotence preserved? It would seem that Bartricks' argument makes you God! — tim wood

What on earth are you on about? You think you can do anything? No you can't. You are extraordinarily limited in your powers.

An omnipotent being can do anything. That's what being omnipotent involves.

Everyone can do what they do. (Well, actually that's not strictly true - sometimes we do things we are not able to do, such as when we achieve something by luck).

But being able to do what one is able to do is not at all what being omnipotent involves.

I can do what I can do. But that does not make me omnipotent, for what I can do is very little.

God can do what God can do. But what God can do is, well, anything, as he's omnipotent.

Can God give up his omnipotence? Yes.

Can God give up his omnipotence and make it true at the same time that he has not given up his omnipotence? That is, can God make it true that he is omnipotent and that he is not omnipotent at once? Yep. Hard to make sense of that ability, admittedly - indeed, by its very nature we're not able to do so, for the tool we use to make sense of things is our reason, and our reason tells us in no uncertain terms that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. But that's just God telling us that. And God doesn't have to tell us it. He could tell us that if a proposition is true, then it is also false. And upon doing so, it would make sense to us that this is the case, for our sense-making mechanism would tell us it made sense. Or at least, it would if it worked, as it does in my case, but probably wouldn't in yours, as your reason is not tracking Reason herself at all well.

God can do both. That is, God has the ability to make a stone he cannot lift, and be unable to lift it. And God has the ability to make a stone he cannot lift, and lift it.

So, God has the power to give up his omnipotence. And God also has the power to make it true that he has given up his omnipotence and retained it at the same time. The former would just be consistent with what our reason tells us is possible, whereas the latter would not be. But what our reason tells us is possible is no restriction on God, for God is the author of our reason.

To say that God is by definition omnipotent just is to say that he must be omnipotent. — Janus

No it isn't. Show your working. How the hell did you get to that conclusion??

The definition of a term is a contingent truth about it.

Bachelor means 'unmarried man'. That's just contingent. It doesn't have to mean that. It just does.

And you certainly can't get from that, to the conclusion that bachelors lack the ability to have wives.

Likewise, God denotes an omnipotent person.

And by definition, an omnipotent person can do anything. That too is a contingent truth about the meaning of the word omnipotent.

But you can't get from the fact Mike is omnipotent to the conclusion that Mike is incapable of being anything other than omnipotent. That would be of a piece with stupidly thinking that if Mike is a bachelor, then he is incapable of being anything other than a bachelor.

Omnipotence guarantees only all power that actually exists. God can still be all-powerful and not be able to perform the paradoxical. — theRiddler

No, that's false. If God is Reason, then God will not be bound by the laws of Reason, for they are his laws to make or unmake as he pleases.

Now, that God can do what our reason tells us is impossible, such as making square circles and such like.

Clearly a God who can make a square circle is more powerful than one who is otherwise identical but can't make a square circle, yes?

And thus if God is Reason, then God will be all powerful - for God will be able to do anything at all.

And as God is all powerful, then God is Reason. For a god who is not Reason will be bound by Reason and thus will be less powerful than a god who is Reason. A god who is less powerful than another has no business being called omnipotent. But a God who is Reason is all powerful, for there is no higher authority than Reason.

The definition of a term is a contingent truth about it. — Bartricks

Rubbish! The definition of the God that we are discussing necessarily involves omnipotence, toss that and you have a conception of some other kind of God. Which is fine: Whitehead's God for example is neither omnipotent, omniscient nor omnibenevolent.

What follows from that is that since the idea of omnipotence necessarily involves contradiction, the idea of an omnipotent God is also contradictory and hence incoherent.

Rubbish! — Janus

Good point. Well made.

Show your bloody working.

Words mean what they mean 'contingently', not of necessity.

Sure, we could have had any other word instead of 'God'. That is trivially true But the idea we have which is signified by that word (or at least the particular sense of that word relevant to this discussion), which determines the definition of the word 'God' we are using, and the conception of the being God the word is taken to refer to, necessarily involves omnipotence, otherwise it is a different conception, a different God.

Grandiose, but to me signifies nothing but the peacefulness of poetry, which God is.

What?

I'm just saying, I'm a gnostic, and in my experience, God is not extreme.

I know enough to know that I can't comprehend it, but am aware of a higher order. We need to be fair with this higher order as well. Come as a friend. Instead of all this. All this is nonsense. God (however loaded that word has become) is a friend in every sense of the word.

Omnipotence guarantees only all power that actually exists. God can still be all-powerful and not be able to perform the paradoxical. — theRiddler

Yeah, that's the usual explanation, and it has this singular advantage over Bart's illogic: it is coherent.

I know this sounds fanciful, but since encountering God, I won't even name it. There is a world unseen, and that's all I'm comfortable saying.

Back in the day I would have said "God is the sum total and expression of everything." Which some do believe, and perhaps is correct. To be honest, I dare not say it, though.

Yeah, that's the usual explanation, and it has this singular advantage over Bart's illogic: it is coherent. — Banno

Oh really. First, it is not the usual explanation - it is contemporary theist philosophers who tend to try and understand omnipotence in terms of being able to do all things logically possible, as opposed to just all things. It has not been 'usual'. Descartes believed as I do. So did Jesus. (With God all things are possible.....not God can do all possible things). So contemporary Christian philosophers at least, are being both dumb and heretical.

The idea that an omnipotent being can do only those things it is logically possible - and at that, logically possible for him - to do is patently absurd, as a moment's reflection reveals. For it makes God constrained - constrained by logic, this now strange forcefield that exists independently of God and limits what he can do. Clearly a god unconstrained by logic would be more powerful than an otherwise identical god who was constrained by it - or can you not even see that?

Peter Geach has a relevant essay on the topic - Omnipotence. Even if one accepts the idea that philosophers do not need to read philosophy, one might enjoy it.

Geach considers four theories of omnipotence, to dismiss each in turn, in the end in favour of god being not omnipotent but almighty. The four are:

• "God can do everything absolutely; everything that can be expressed in a string of words that makes sense; even if that sense can be shown to be self-contradictory..."
• "...a proposition 'God can do so-and-so' is true when and only when 'so-and-so' represents a logically consistent description"
• "...'God can do so-and-so' is true just if 'God does so-and-so' is logically consistent."
• "...whenever 'God will bring so-and-so about' is logically possible, 'God can bring so-and-so about' is true."

Bart seems to be an adherent of the first sort of omnipotence.

For my part I would go along with the dismissal of each category of omnipotence, and the conclusion that omnipotence is incoherent, but just not bother with the need to go further.

@Bartricks

I feel your fascination with omnipotence is a sign that what you're really interested in is paraconsistent logic and its more "violent" twin dialetheism. You might find this thread right up your alley :point:
Logical Nihilism. It's @Banno's thread and coincidentally Banno's post is the latest.

Let me go further.

"God can do everything absolutely; everything that can be expressed in a string of words that makes sense; even if that sense can be shown to be self-contradictory..."

Then they can do very little, as not everything can be expressed by strings of words. God can do oranges or blue, for example.

"...a proposition 'God can do so-and-so' is true when and only when 'so-and-so' represents a logically consistent description"

Not true. They can do a logically inconsistent dance. Logically undescribable.

"...'God can do so-and-so' is true just if 'God does so-and-so' is logically consistent."

Again untrue. God can do so-and-so even if so-and-so is logically inconsistent, like many people, like you, do.


"...whenever 'God will bring so-and-so about' is logically possible, 'God can bring so-and-so about' is true."

Boring. And untrue again! Obviously.

— Banno

But hey, the writer is a lover of logic, so how else could God be for him?

So did Jesus. — Bartricks

Are you comparing yourself with Jesus now? All hail the second coming! Your inception of time is rather naive. It doesn't display a great knowledge of time. And that's why you are so confused. Knowledge and the truth about time can set you free!

I don't know what you mean. Sounds a bit buddhist.

Yes, Jesus and I agree about omnipotence. Jesus said "with God, all things are possible". He did not say "God can do all that is possible". So yes, I am comparing myself to Jesus. And to Descartes as well, who defended the view. Note, that does not mean I think I am Jesus, or that I am Descartes, or that I think Descartes was Jesus. Though Banno, yourself, and just about everyone else on this site who isn't me, would think all of those things were implied by what I said, and then a whole load more besides. .