About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Friday, March 26, 2010

“Anything is possible.” No, not really


There are a few phrases that really annoy the hell out of me, one being the oxymoronic “compassionate conservative,” which I will leave for another day. One of the most irritating is the disturbingly commonplace and superficially commonsensical “well, you know, anything is possible.” Now, I understand that this is often said by optimistic people who mean well, and that most of us don’t go around thinking precisely about what we are saying all the time, but that’s the point: perhaps from time to time we should think about what we are saying a bit more carefully.

Clearly, not anything is possible. It is pretty easy to come up with examples of things that are not possible: it is not possible for me both to be and not to be (pace Hamlet); it is not possible for me to levitate; and it is not even possible for me to be in Rome at this moment, because I’m in New York writing this essay.

Those three examples are not picked at random, they illustrate three distinct classes of impossibility recognized by philosophers: the first is an instance of something that is logically impossible; the second is an example of physical impossibility; and the last one is an illustration of contingent impossibility. These three types of impossibility are nested within each other, like this:


The idea is that some things are contingently impossible, but physically and logically possible. To go back to my examples, the reason it is not possible for me to be in Rome right now is because I happen, contingently, to be in New York. But if I were in Rome, I certainly wouldn’t be violating either the laws of physics or those of logic.

Levitation, on the other hand, falls under a stronger type of impossibility, because it would, in fact, violate the known laws of physics. It still wouldn’t be logically inconsistent, however, because there is no logical contradiction in imagining a universe with different natural laws, one in which levitation is, in fact, possible.

In this hierarchy, then, the strongest type of impossibility is the logical variety: if something is logically impossible (like me being and not being at the same time), it is a fortiori both physically and contingently impossible. There is a caveat here, pointed out by philosophers like Willard Van Orman Quine: we may, from time to time, discover facts about the universe that might make us reformulate our understanding of logic. For instance, while it is impossible (physically and logically) for a macroscopic object to both be and not be, there are quantum-level phenomena that seem to violate this type of logic (think of the dual nature of light, both particle and wave). However, the tricky thing with quantum mechanics (besides the fact that few people really understand it and many more regularly abuse it), is that it is still not at all clear how the equations ought to be interpreted. While the math is indisputable, and so are the empirical results, it may be that light, for instance, is simply something whose nature is so alien to us that the best we can do is to conceptualize it as dual, and is in fact something human thought and language can’t wrap themselves around.

As a philosopher, of course, my favorite type of impossibility is the logical variety, and as an atheist the example I get a particular kick out of is the paradox of omnipotence. The best rendition of it is by J.L. Mackie, in an essay entitled “Evil and Omnipotence” published in Mind back in 1955. It is superb, and still very hard to best. The basic idea is that there seems to be something paradoxical about the very concept of omnipotence, which may indicate that the idea of omnipotency is intrinsically incoherent.

The argument is usually presented as a variant of the following: can an omnipotent god create a mountain that he cannot move? If you answer “yes,” it looks like god can do something that he cannot undo, which means that he is not, after all, omnipotent. If you respond “no” then you are immediately acknowledging a limit to what god can do, so again it turns out that he is not omnipotent. Try getting out of it, you’ll either laugh all the way to your logic class (if you are an atheist) or get a really bad headache (if you are a theist). (The funniest variation of the paradox is due to that immortal philosopher, Homer Simpson: “Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?”)

It would seem, then, that an omnipotent god is a logical impossibility. Since logical impossibilities are stronger than physical and contingent impossibilities, it follows that there cannot be such a thing as an omnipotent god. Oops. So the next time someone says something as inane as “anything is possible,” ask them about the paradox of omnipotence: you will kill two birds with one stone, showing both that not anything is possible and that the most common type of god worshiped nowadays is a contradiction in terms. Then go out for a drink to congratulate yourself on a job well done.

77 comments:

  1. it may be that light, for instance, is simply something whose nature is so alien to us that the best we can do is to conceptualize it as dual, and is in fact something human thought and language can’t wrap themselves around.

    Given this, is it possible that an omnipotent god could in fact create a mountain that he could not move, and we just don't understand it due to our own limitations? The idea seems no different to me.

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  2. Is this a Venn-diagram? In that case I think you got the nesting backward. In your diagram, everything that is contingently impossible is also logically impossible. Clearly that is not right.
    Everything that is physically impossible is contingently impossible. And everything that is logically impossible is physically impossible. So logic should be the innermost core of the diagram and contingency the outermost oval ... I think.
    But maybe you didn't mean this to be a Venn-diagram. Maybe some other interpretation of the diagram is needed ?

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  3. Ok, I think I got it. Your diagram is not the collection of things that are logically (or physically or contingently) _impossible_, but the rather the collection of things that are (logically, physically and contingently) _possible_. In which case you get the nesting right ... I think.

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  4. Massimo, in your diagram, shouldn't logic be at the center, and contingency outermost? If something is inside the contingency set, then it needn't be inside the logic set, right? Or are these not so much sets as... what?

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  5. Thank you for this! I've always hated that phrase (usually folled by a shrug). It's up there with, "My philosophy is..." followed by something that is clearly NOT philosophical (like being on time or whatever).

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  6. Massimo,

    Before you “go out for a drink to congratulate yourself on a job well done,” I’d like to ask you whether it was just a straw-man that you’ve defeated.

    The Biblical understanding of omnipotence certainly does not include God doing illogical or contradictory things. Instead, omnipotence is a matter of God doing anything He wants to do.

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  7. Of course the common reply to this line of reasoning is to amend the definition of omnipotence to mean can do any thing that is logically possible. Then the theist might say once god creates the un-liftable stone it is logically impossible for him to be able to lift it.

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  8. Another one: te exception that proves the rule.

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  9. What the omnipotent God was devised to do was create a mountain that you cannot move but he could if he wanted to.

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  10. Massimo has fallen for the temptation to reductively define omnipotence to its most absurd limit: the omnipotent being must be able to do absurdities and logical non-coherences, or it is not omnipotent.

    This is a tenet of Atheism, not of deism or theism. So by shooting at a false target, one not claimed, Massimo has merely been seduced by a Red Herring. It's old and not original, and hardly worth the effort of expungement.

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  11. In my experience, the phrase "anything is possible" (or similar statements, like "you can never know what is going to happen" - another nonsense phrase) is used to inject a qualitatively irrelevant fact into a discussion that should be quantitative.

    What I'm referring to are discussions of this form:

    Person A: "I'm not going to do G because X is almost surely not going to happen. The odds are just so low."
    Person B: "It's still possible that X will happen; you can't be sure. So you should do G."

    I got a 3.1 GPA in high school and a lousy SAT score, so the chance that I would have gotten into MIT as an undergraduate was essentially nil; it would have taken an administrative mistake for me to have been admitted, and I'm pretty sure an institution as important as MIT works hard to avoid mistakes of that kind.

    So what if I were to tell somebody (a couple of years ago) "I'm not applying to MIT, even though I'd really like to go, because it's almost impossible that they'd accept me"? Somebody might reply "you can never tell the future; you might as well apply." It's like the actual chance of the given event occurring does not matter at all.

    It's as though what matters is whether an event can happen or cannot happen, and thus a 99.99 percent chance is just the same as a 0.01 percent chance; after all, both events can happen!

    A further example of this sort of ridiculous thinking is taught in high school sex-ed classes. Instructors will say "abstinence is the only sure method of preventing pregnancy" as though this were some particularly important fact.

    Let's say that the chances of getting pregnant with one year of condom use are 3% of the chance without using a condom. Since that percentage is not zero, does that mean that you should forget about condoms and just stay abstinent? Nope! If you use condoms, you're not that likely to get pregnant, and you can enjoy the immense pleasure that comes from having sex with another human being.

    Again, odds matter. But people love to get distracted with thoughts of what is "possible".

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  12. There always seemed to be something fishy to me about that omnipotent god moving the mountain paradox.

    But I'm not quite sure what it is.

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  13. Massimo,

    Wouldn't it be better to use Mackie's paradox as a way to tell your theist pals that they've given you no information?

    When you tell them that describing god as omnipotent is the same as not describing him/it at all you might start them thinking... that's if you're looking for converts to reason.

    ---

    On a more pedestrian level, I guess you'd be in accord with Dylan's intent when he sings, "It's all good."

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  14. All,

    first of all, apologies for not having gotten to comments moderation for the entire day, I was kept very busy by my hosts at the University of Manitoba. And since I still receive death threats on this blog, I need to keep the moderation active...

    Christof, et al.,

    yes, you got it right, the diagram is about logical / physical / contingent possibilities, not impossibilities. Should have made that more clear.

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  15. Plea for Hamlet's logicality: surely his doubt was "to be OR not to be" - eminently logical, not "to be AND not to be". Perhaps the confusion is with the beginning of Dicken's "Tale of two Cities" - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" etc......

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  16. "Seduced by a red herring", Stan? errrrrr...

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  17. I agree with those who've pointed out that theists have a pretty handy dodge of the Mackie point in a definition of omnipotence in terms of ability to do anything logically possible.

    However, this is not to say that the traditional notion of god is logically coherent. The three main qualities attributed to God (omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness) taken together are incompatible with the existence of suffering. Theology has never adequately dealt with the problem of evil.

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  18. I agree with earlier comments, which suggest that it would be uncharacteristic of the biblical God (YHVH) to create a mountain that he could not move.

    But, then, the Hebrew Bible is dominated by narrative, poetry, and law, and the New Testament (notwithstanding its attempts at logic in Paul's letters) is not much different in that regard. In other words, these are by no means formal or rigorously argued philosophy texts, as we might recognize.

    Furthermore, although, from all biblical accounts that I can recall, YHVH is a pretty damn powerful deity (indeed, as powerful as one gets), no explicit claim of omnipotence (or of any of the other "omni" attributes) comes to mind, let alone a rational defense of it.

    On the other hand, the Jewish and Christian traditions did not end when their respective versions of the Bible were canonized. So long as any theologian, at any point in history in either tradition, claims that God is omnipotent, the Mackie paradox serves as a ready reply (similar to the Euthyphro dilemma, with respect to the Divine Command theory of meta-ethics).

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  19. In keeping with The Monkey's comment about suffering, I recommend this book, written from the perspective of a biblical scholar and a former evangelical Christian.

    The author lists numerous attempts in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to explain why we suffer, and (despite the book's subtitle) he does actually identify one attempt that he can agree with; i.e. even though, nowadays, he is an agnostic (although, with respect to the biblical God, I would argue that he is really an atheist, like me).

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  20. Good post, Massimo - forces me to reconsider and revise "Anything is possible" to "Anything that can be imagined is possible".

    So I can imagine you in both Rome and NY, I can certainly imagine you levitating etc.... The reason the problems with acting on these thoughts lie in the constraints of a single known universe, earth gravity and whatnot.

    People were not postulating multiverses and integrated forward and backward flow of time as applied to an event and similar things in the early Renaissance. But if those had been the topics du jour at their salons, then by now some of those thoughts would have turn into technologies enabling you to be and not to be courtesy a multiverse. Adding multi-directional time flow to multiverse theories could shed light on what is happening when we dream, or otherwise have vivid pictures of things that are not 'real'.

    I've already stated on a number of threads the other key reason something accepted by the imagination, and accompanied by a desire to implement make it a strong candidate for possibility. The thing is already 'real' in your head, just in a different format.

    @Ritchie - While I too consider the odds, they are irrelevant to possibility. In your case the likelihood of an administrative screw-up in getting into MIT is only one half of the issue to be considered. Financial instruments carry all sorts of quantifiable risk, but tell us nothing about risk appetite. That is the other half of the picture. How bad did you want to go there, and how much would a probable but not impossible rejection have hurt?

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  21. "Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable." - C.S. Lewis

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  22. Yes, a perfect example of why C.S. Lewis is one of the most overrated writers of the 20th century...

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  23. I see others did indeed use the response I referred to or one similar.

    The first thing I would point out is that this not a frivolous or petty objection to omnipotence. Since omnipotence is not something within our daily experience it is reasonable to try to be precise about what it means. The most common sense meaning is simply "can do anything" without any qualifiers. With the objection we see clearly that the theist cannot , logically, mean that.

    That is not the end though. God is supposed to be understood to not just be the proper name of a being but a description of a being. A being that must have certain properties. The next objection we will run up against can be stated in the question "Can God sin?" If not then there is yet another restriction on the meaning of omnipotence. We aren't talking about the same concept we were when we started.

    It seems that it has to be a stronger restriction than just merely choosing not to sin. Imagine the case if God did sin. He would then no longer be morally perfect. Since that is a defining characteristic of God we would have the case that this being is no longer God. But, God is supposed to eternal so it has to be that God is simply unable to sin not that he chooses not to.

    Once all such objections are answered we typically end up wit ha definition of omnipotence similar to was Mann proposed. God can do whatever _he wants_. Or, more accurately, God can do whatever is consistent with both logic and his other properties. But this is an extremely weak definition of omnipotence.

    Lets define a nullipotent being as a being that cannot do anything at all. Let's further define a nulliGod as a nullipotent being that doesn't _wish_ to do anything at all. Inaction is one of his properties. Based on the definition we have for omnipotence now we can say that nulliGod is omnipotent!

    The net result of following all these logical objections is that omnipotence is reduced to meaningless.

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  24. Vmounts has it licked. It's not that one can't work around the objections to omnipotence, it's that doing so constrains god more and more and more.

    So do objections based on the problem of indifference (nee the problem of evil) - it's not that a god who allows suffering is logically impossible, but every "excuse" you make sticks your neck out a little more.

    For instance if god had morally sufficient reasons for allowing the holocaust, then he is an extreme moral consequentialist who treats people as means but not ends. He would push the fat guy onto the tracks. He would murder somebody to harvest their organs and save 5. So you've rescued god, but turned him into something not obviously worth worshiping.

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  25. vmounts0820 said: ...omnipotence is reduced to meaningless.

    Interesting argument, but (as I tried to convey in an earlier comment) I really don't think it's as devastating to theistic belief as you or others might think.

    Again, inasmuch as we base our conception of God on the biblical tradition(s), we may find much to criticize (as, indeed, well over a century of modern biblical criticism and liberal theology demonstrates). But I'm not convinced that omnipotence is even a biblical claim, let alone a universal claim of the Abrahamic religions. (Simply put: God can be the biggest, strongest Bad Ass in the universe, and yet still be rather weak in many respects, logically speaking.)

    That's not to suggest that it doesn't deserve criticism in its own right, or that it's a complete straw man. (After all, we've probably all witnessed believers ascribe "omnipotence" to their deity at one point or another.) But the argument against it only goes so far, and by no means proves (a priori) that all conceptions of God are meaningless or incoherent.

    Implausible? empirically unsubstantiated? primitive, naive, or hubristic (e.g. in their common personification of ultimate reality, or in their common portrayal of humanity as the Deity's center of attention)? I would agree on all counts. But that's a different tack altogether, and a more complicated one at that, involving (a posteriori) knowledge drawn from the modern sciences, history, journalism, personal experience, etc.

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  26. Maybe then, said God with a chuckle, all I need to be to make the world work is relatively omnipotent.

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  27. jcm,
    I don't see that we have much disagreement. The argument I put forward is more about what properties can logically be assigned to a god who has certain other proerties, rather than existence per se. I think if one drops omnipotence then they could still argue for a God that lacks that property.

    I do think that omnipotence is out of the question for the god that some monotheistic theologians claim to believe in.

    I hate to beat a dead horse but I think this is interesting so I would like to go one step further. Lets say we try to rescue omnipotence by appealing to a notion of greater and lesser degrees of power. Clearly theologian god is more powerful than nulliGod so lets try this.

    weakOmnip = the ability to do anything consistent with logic and other properties.

    strongOmnip = the ability to do anything consistent with logic and other properties AND there is no being we can conceive of with greater overall power.

    Now there are 2 problems. One is deciding between different sets of powers. Is a god that can write great poetry greater or lesser than one that does great math.

    The other is more serious for theists. Given the two below gods which has greater power?

    TheoGod: weakOmnip + morally perfect + eternal (as long as he doesn't "kill himself" by sinning)

    SinnerGod: weakOmnip + eternal

    It seems pretty clear that SinnerGod is more powerful. He can do more things while still maintaining his eternal existence. So, I think we can conclusively rule out giving TheoGod the property of strong omnipotence, through logic alone.

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  28. As usual Massimo, I agree fully with everything you say, but there is one exception:

    "In this hierarchy, then, the strongest type of impossibility is the logical variety:"

    You kind of dodge this, but what if we were to observe you in Rome and NY at the same time? What if everyone observed this? What if you observed yourself to be in both places at the same time?

    Wouldn't observation then overrule currently accepted logic?

    Or as you wrote, "however, because there is no logical contradiction in imagining a universe with different natural laws"

    Why can't I imagine a universe with different rules of logic? (I would argue that I can, rules of logic are only accepted because they reflect observation).

    Like I stated, I agree with the overall thrust of your argument, but I still think you give philosophy a special pleading that it has not earned.

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  29. vmounts0802:

    No prior disagreement. I just wanted to stress that theology - even in its ancient or "classical" period - is not monolithic. So, as with any moving target, lodging an attack on it is trickier than it might seem on the surface.

    That said, the "morally perfect" attribute you assign in your latest example to TheoGod does indeed limit his actions. But perhaps SinnerGod's actions are also limited, only to a different set of behaviors.

    Allow me to draw upon the Euthyphro dilemma, which (in modified, monotheistic form) is: "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?"

    In the former horn of the dilemma, TheoGod may seem more limited in his actions than SinnerGod, but not because he is necessarily less powerful than SinnerGod. Rather, he simply chooses one set of behaviors (the morally good) over another (the morally bad) because, well, that's the kind of deity we imagine him to be!

    Okay, in fairness, a believer might draw upon TheoGod's superior powers of knowledge or compassion to explain why he chooses good over bad. In this sense (of possessing additional or more acute attributes), we might even say that he is more powerful than SinnerGod.

    Now, in the latter horn of the dilemma, there really is no difference between TheoGod and SinnerGod, because whatever either of them does (or does not do) is "morally good" by definition, whether we puny mortals approve of those actions (or inactions) or not. This is what's known as the Divine Command theory. It is essentially a "might makes right" type of theology, and one with a very long tradition (and plenty of support from the Bible).

    So, in either scenario, I'm going to have to disagree with your logic on this one, but only on technical grounds. I certainly share your intuition that there's something deeply unsatisfying about theology, but (at least in my case) I think it stems from a combination of empirical (i.e. not enough evidence) and emotional (i.e. I prefer that God not exist) reasons.

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  30. I suppose that a scholar of the Judeo-Christian religions could tell us at what point omnipotence and omniscience became the predominant view but it is obvious from reading the old testament that God was not considered to have these attributes. There are instances where he does not realize certain things until late in the game or has things pointed out by prophets. The bible even indicates that there are other gods and that this one is merely meaner and stronger but doesn't say strong to the point of omnipotence. In fact, he is in a millenia-long battle with Satan and cannot defeat him.

    I see that MP likes to go with the omnipotence argument but I prefer the omniscience argument. (Not that it ever works on "true believers"). According to the Bible, when God created Adam he then created Eve as an afterthought. In other words, God didn't know that he would need to create a mate for Adam until after Adam was created. Ergo, God is not omniscient. Or, God actually is omniscient and did plan ahead to create Eve in which case the Bible is not accurate. Fundy's head should explode at this moment but it doesn't because their circuitry is miswired to begin with. Arguing these points with a theist is sort of like what is said about the 2nd LoTD - you can't win, and you can't even break even.

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  31. The "anything is possible" claim hides another, more absurd claim:

    "We humans are exceptional. We can do anything we put our minds to."

    Many in science are techno-optimists who don't take a literary/historical view seriously--the tragic view.

    There's much to be learned from myths and stories, though none of them is literally true.

    The message is that control is an illusion. Humanity really can't control its fate.

    For example, while individuals can decide for themselves whether to reproduce, the human species cannot control its numbers. We'll continue to increase the population until we simply can't anymore.

    Another example: when humans find a rich resource, they will use it up. We're currently about halfway through conventional oil reserves, for example, and there's nothing we can do to assuage the human appetite for energy. Everyone wants in on the goods, and we'll burn it all up, every drop that is economically feasible to extract from the ground, but not at the RATE that we've been able to burn it historically.

    This is the "peak oil" argument, and that will be the tipping point for the collapse of the human population.

    We're subject to the laws of nature, including ecological laws, not author of them.

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  32. This is why I was happy that, growing up as a Mormon, I didn't have to deal with the silly "omnipotence" concept. Although, conversationally, Mormons might disagree with this point, Mormonism eliminates omnipotence by placing God as a real being in a real universe that has real, existing physical laws that God cannot modify, but must work within. In fact, Mormonism leaves open the possibility that God is an evolved title and being, and that there are many such in the multiverse. Mormon scifi is an extant genre, but it has only weakly examined the philosophical possibilities opened up by these ideas. Scott Card might have done this a little in his Ender's Game series, which is all possible, at least, in the Mormon universe.

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  33. @mikebendz:

    To criticize extreme techno-optimism does not make it wise to endorse the opposite stupidity, any more than the cure for being on fire is drowning yourself. The tragic view or the utopian view in isolation is silly. We can "control our future," just not all aspects of it. Examples: CFCs (which cause the ozone hole problem) are now at manageable levels.

    "For example, while individuals can decide for themselves whether to reproduce, the human species cannot control its numbers. We'll continue to increase the population until we simply can't anymore."

    Malthus predicted exactly this to have happened ~100 yrs ago; it didn't. Meanwhile, the population bomb has largely been defused due to urbanization & consequent low birthrates; it'll peak at 8 billion in ~2050, then fall precipitously - too much, in fact.

    "Another example: when humans find a rich resource, they will use it up... We're subject to the laws of nature, including ecological laws, not author of them."

    Will they? Maybe. Possibly even *probably*. But not *definitely*.

    We are subject to the laws of nature, yes. However, there is a qualitative difference with humans - strong future prediction skills. The lynxes and hares can't look ahead to the coming famine; we can. Maybe we'll fail, but in principle we don't have to.

    To treat "humans cannot control their future" as somehow generally true is needlessly dogmatic & more or less equivalent to elevating "can't teach an old dog new tricks" cliches to the level of fact.

    I'm for engineering the future, and I'm not that interested in hearing about human hubris and inevitable failure. It has about as much worth as flagellating yourself in shame for your sins - fine, now what are you going to *do* about them?

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  34. Massimo and others here appear have in common this assumption that "We're subject to the laws of nature, including ecological laws, not author of them."
    But then the laws of nature are not necessarily nature's, if they come from our attempts to make the events to be expected from "natural" causes predictable. Made most importantly from an unwritten or unspoken assumption that natural events do operate with some form of regulated purpose, and with consequences that nature's forces must anticipate and avoid. Or at least consequences which, in some past segment of time, aspects of the universal body and persona failed to avoid for lack of an ability to anticipate, and somehow "learned" to behave themselves through a trial and error process. Trial and error that could not work without either a conceptual purpose or some conceptual "trier" to exercise it.

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  35. "It has about as much worth as flagellating yourself in shame for your sins - fine, now what are you going to *do* about them?"

    I don't see what bringing in the antiquated idea of sin has to do with ecological fact.

    Is it a "sin" for the amoeba to bloom until the pond enters eutrophication? Does the lynx "sin" when it over-preys on the hare?

    The "future prediction skills" of humans are mythical: we actually suffer from "steep discount rates" in our skills.

    Also: there is no central "human" consciousness watching out for us, only collections of populations.

    As far as what one should *do*, that's easy:

    We'll do what we've always done.


    - As for pointing to our mental failures with scorn or dismay, we might as well profess disappointment with the mechanics of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. In other words, the degree of disillusionment we feel in response to any particular human behavior is the precise measure of our ignorance of its evolutionary and genetic origins.
    - Reg Morrison, The Spirit in the Gene

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  36. Interesting to see the theists standing in line here to dilute the divine attributes. But the illogic of theistic concepts does not stop just there. Ask yourself this:

    Can god feel pain if he's perfect?
    Can god want if he's perfect?
    Can god feel love if he's complete?
    Can god sin if he has absolute moral and all-good?
    Does god experience weight, feel gravity or is he unbounded by physical force?
    Has he ever experienced sickness?
    Has he ever felt guilt, jealousy, hunger, uncleanness, nausea, abandonment, unable to understand, restricted in his capacities, bored (I doubt that one, 'cause he waited some 8 billion years to create earth), incomplete, unfulfilled, tired, angry, lost?

    If yes, how is all that possible for an absolute all-mighty perfect being?

    If no, then how on earth can man be a creation in his image if we are forced to conclude that all these things that define our human identity are alien to him?

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  37. Mann's Word'

    I noticed that you failed to answer the paradox. Is it because you know that the question is basically just a double edged sword? Massimo pretty much illuminates the true ridiculous nature of the concept of omnipotence. If God can create a mountain that even he can not move, then he is not omnipotent. If God can't create a mountain that even he can not move, the he is still not omnipotent. Saying that God can do anything he wants to do isn't going to answer this paradox, its avoiding the question completely. I don't think that you're unable to answer the question, I think you're unwilling out of fear of de-glorifying your image of God. My personal take on this paradox is that it is based on the concept that anything can be created. Thermodynamics basically proves that to be impossible. Even in the bible, God didn't create man from thin air, he created man out of mud. Interestingly enough, thats not that much different than the what science has found. Scientists speculate that all life on Earth evolved from a sort of primordial ooze. So for this paradox, the answer is no answer because the question contradicts basic physics. Nothing can be created, only transformed.

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  38. @Dusk Summers
    Where was your thermodynamics when mud was supposedly created before God got his hands on it?

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  39. If anything was supposedly created, and Gods omnipotence exceeds the laws of thermodynamics, then I guess you have an answer as to whether or not it is possible for God to create a mountain so big that even he couldn't lift it. Unfortunately, any way you try to reason it, an omnipotent God is a logical impossibility. Thats only if you can answer a question that has no answer.

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  40. In genesis 1, its states that in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. Strongs concordance shows that the word used to descibe create is bara'. The word is most often associated with shaping or fashioning, unfortunately, no where does it say that the word is associated with materializing. I can create a work of art out of marble, that doesn't mean that I materialized a statue out of thin air. It would seem that even scripture agrees with thermodynamics.

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  41. Thermodynamics that supposedly prevents life to be "created" from mud, didn't prevent mud from being there for life to make pies out of. Has mud always been with us then, transformed from some other something that always had to be someplace? Maybe even before the great regulator somewhere came up with thermodynamics? Or are nature's laws Godlike in and of themselves?
    Speaking as some have of placeholders, thermodynamics as invoked by all sides of the creation debate is a doozy.

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  42. It seems to me that this is only a paradox if you aren't thinking temporally.

    Think of it this way: say there was a queen who (as queen) had the power to make any law at all. Could she make a law stating that she is no longer the queen? Of course. But after that law took effect, she could not undo it, because she would no longer be the queen. That's perfectly consistent; there's no paradox in it at all.

    So an omnipotent god could create a stone that he could not move, but he would no longer be omnipotent after creating the stone.

    Of course you could push the "paradox" further and ask whether an omnipotent god could create such a stone and remain omnipotent. But that's the same as asking whether that god could be omnipotent and not omnipotent simultaneously. The result is not an irresolvable paradox but a mere self-contradiction, yielding a simple answer: no.

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  43. Artie, if one were to accept the commonly mistaken biblical misconception that life was created from existing matter, rather than transform, then yes, thermodynamics does supposedly prevent than from happening. What I find odd, is that even though many creationists hold that life was somehow materialized from nothing, research into the translation of the word used in the Genesis tell a completely different story where Genesis seems to be more of a beautifully constructed scientific metaphor that completely agrees with a law that hadn't even been discovered, rather than a bad episode of "I dream of Genie"(as if one exists). In the end, even the bible doesn't agree with creationism.

    Scott: If an omnipotent God created a stone that even he couldn't lift, the stones omnipotence over God nullifies Gods omnipotence. But if a stone God created exceeds Gods omnipotence, this doesn't nullify Gods so called ability to create. So it is possible for God to create another stone that exceeds the omnipotence of the previous stone, there by nullifying the previous stones omnipotence. The paradox lies in omnipotence exceeding omnipotence itself. For God to be omnipotent, nothing can exceed him, but if something can exceed him, like it has in this scenario, than he was never really omnipotent to begin with. Look at the stone in our example. Is it possible for a stone to be omnipotent, yet in our example, the stone exceeds God and becomes omnipotent over all. The fact that omnipotence exceeds omnipotence in our scenario question whether omnipotence is even a valid concept, or mans futile attempt to understanding infinity.

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  44. DS,

    What you say about stones being omnipotent doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The fact that our hypothetical god can't move a stone doesn't make the stone omnipotent.

    But ok, say this god were to make another god, god2, who was somehow even "more omnipotent" than god1 was -- perhaps in the sense that god2 can do things to god1 against god1's will. How does that conflict with my argument? God1 was omnipotent, now he's not.

    To rephrase, why does omnipotence have to be a necessarily eternal attribute?

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  45. I've included this post in the latest Philosophers' Carnival. I hope that's ok!

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  46. Nice categorisations of impossibility.

    In other news, I actually disagree with the "anti-omnipotence" argument at the end of the post, despite being an atheist.

    My argument is that the sentence "create a rock that God can't lift" fails to meaningfully define an action. So it's not that "create a rock that God can't lift" is an action that God can or can't do, it just doesn't describe an action altogether.
    Asking "Can God create a rock he can't lift?" is like asking "Can God agdag?" - although we can't say that God CAN agdad, until we define agdad as an action, it's not something he CAN'T do either.


    So my argument that "create a rock that God can't lift" fails to meaningfully describe an action? It's because I think "rock God lift" fails to meaningfully describe an object, because it contains a contradiction. As omnipotence is part of God's definition, "Rock God can't lift" clearly contains a contradiction, and that this stops it from meaningfully describing an object.

    While I think there are plenty of good arguments against God out there, I think that this one is just word play!

    Thanks for reading. :)

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  47. Daniel,

    Your argument makes sense to some degree, but how would you overcome this objection:

    God can make rocks. In fact, he can make an infinite set of rocks.

    God can also lift an infinite set of rocks.

    For every rock that god makes, can he lift that rock?

    Does this answer the question of whether a rock he cannot lift is in the set of rocks he can make?

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  48. Hey there.
    Cheers for the reply.

    "God can make rocks. In fact, he can make an infinite set of rocks.
    God can also lift an infinite set of rocks."


    I find these premises fine.
    "Infinite set of rocks" basically means a number of rocks that if you tried to count them you would never run out. God can create them and God can lift them, no problem.

    "For every rock that god makes, can he lift that rock?"
    Again, I see no problem.

    "Does this answer the question of whether a rock he cannot lift is in the set of rocks he can make?
    Here I'd say "rock that God cannot lift" fails to describe an object due to there being a contradiction within it. As it fails to describe an object, i.e. as it doesn't describe a rock, it cannot refer to any particular rock within the set of infinite rocks.

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  49. Hi Daniel,

    Can you please explain how god can lift the universe? Surely you know what a universe is? And before you start explaining away please define what object god is since I agree we should clearly identify the objects we use in sentences with identifiable objects of reality.

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  50. Hey Fujaro

    With "lifting the universe", I'll put forward the same complaint I did with "creating a rock God can't lift" - I don't think it describes an action. To lift something is to move an object within spacetime, and I don't spacetime itself can be an "object within spacetime".

    For any argument "Can God do X?", it will all depend on whether X describes an action. If it does then God can do it. If it doesn't describe an action then it's not an action God can't do. I don't find omnipotence problematic at all.


    In regards to definition of God, I've come across various incoherent conceptions but I think I can construct one that makes sense.
    God would be a mind/intelligence and whatever God wanted to happen would happen.

    e.g. If a ball falls in accordance with the law of gravity then it's because God willed it, and if God prefered then the ball would start floating instead.

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  51. Daniel said: For any argument "Can God do X?", it will all depend on whether X describes an action. If it does then God can do it.

    Even if two of God's actions work at cross purposes to one another? I think that's an implication of Mackie's paradox.

    After all, isn't our concept of "action" based on our experience of agents (e.g. ourselves) effecting changes in the environment? If so, then this whole notion of "God" performing actions seems highly anthropomorphic (surprise, surprise). More to the point, so long as we can imagine a person performing an action that prevents him/her from performing some other action, then it seems that the same logic can apply to God.

    I know that I can think of examples from personal experience, where I've built or assembled objects that I cannot lift (e.g. furniture). Sure, I could destroy or disassemble the object and then lift some or all of its lighter parts. But Mackie's paradox seems to refer to the whole object (i.e. the entire mountain), and treats "omnipotence" as the claim that God (unlike me or anyone else I know) can lift any product of his labor, no matter how large or heavy.

    I understand that the classical theist wants me to believe that God is unlike me, and as long as he limits himself to the claim that God is stronger, knows more, or senses more than I do, I can easily grasp what he's saying (which is not to suggest that I believe it). But the claim that God can perform all actions, no matter what the prior circumstances, seems to mystify my concept of "action" to the point where I no longer recognize or understand it.

    In other words, the claim is incoherent, as Mackie suggests.

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  52. "Even if two of God's actions work at cross purposes to one another? I think that's an implication of Mackie's paradox."

    Can coherent description of an action do this?
    The example of "Create a rock that God can't lift" required us to refer to the object "rock God can't lift", but that description contains a contradiction, so fails to be a meaningful description.
    If you can find an example of an action that causes this paradox while remaining meaningful then fair enough.
    I don't think you will find an example.
    I think the paradox relies on the incoherence of the action claimed, otherwise it wouldn't be a logical impossibility in the first place.


    "More to the point, so long as we can imagine a person performing an action that prevents him/her from performing some other action, then it seems that the same logic can apply to God."

    I disagree.
    If the person's disability to do the second action is due to them having a limit or weakness that God doesn't have, then the same example clearly won't apply to God.

    "the claim that God can perform all actions, no matter what the prior circumstances, seems to mystify my concept of "action" to the point where I no longer recognize or understand it."

    Imagine an event you'd like to happen.
    Now imagine you had a magical power so it would happen just by you wanting it to happen. Then you'd be omnipotent - you'd have the power to make anything happen.

    Would you have the power to create a "rock you can't lift"?
    Since the description "rock you can't lift" contains a contradiction (because you have magical power to lift anything), it would fail to refer to an object at all.
    So "rock you can't lift" wouldn't be an object that you can or can't create - it would just be a meaningless description.

    Make sense?

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  53. I think we can to go a more global scale, forgetting gods and rocks.

    It seems the question we really care about is: can an omnipotent being temporarily or permanently suspend all or part of his/her omnipotence?

    Of course, once a part of the omnipotence is suspended, it's not OMNIpotence anymore... but that's just semantics.

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  54. Daniel, I'll put it this way: if God cannot create an object that is too heavy for him to lift, then he is even more limited than I am.

    It might be tempting to think of my ability as a weakness, but why should it be? I can create (or, more precisely, form or assemble) objects that are greater than I am. What a power I possess!
    If I drop that object from a height, it will have more impact on the ground than I will, but I am still its mover and maker. Without me, the object might never exist or serve any purpose.

    On the other hand, the object can also be used against me by others. For example, if someone confiscates it and drops it on me, then it can do me great damage. So, in that sense, I have to admit a weakness.

    Do theologians allow for such weaknesses in God? If so, and the concept of "omnipotence" allows for them, and I see no problem. (Indeed, as I said in earlier comments, I have yet to encounter this problem in the Bible.) It is only if one insists that God allows of no weaknesses of any kind that we run into trouble.

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  55. Yo Val.
    I pretty much agree.
    If God could suspend his omnipotence then during that time he would not be omnipotent.

    jdm:
    "Daniel, I'll put it this way: if God cannot create an object that is too heavy for him to lift, then he is even more limited than I am."

    You mean you can create an object that is too heavy for God to lift? :-p

    I get the feeling you're using the variable "he" to equivocate.
    Let's take "he" out of the sentence and we'll see what's really being said:

    jcm can create an object too heavy for jcm to lift.
    God can create objects too heavy for jcm to lift.
    (including those that jcm cannot create)
    I don't see God being more limited that you here.

    "Do theologians allow for such weaknesses in God?"

    Theology being so diverse, it wouldn't surprise me if there were atleast a few out there.
    I'd recommend the theologian allow for God to have weakness for different reasons.
    It might give them a chance with the Problem of Evil.

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  56. Daniel said: I get the feeling you're using the variable "he" to equivocate.

    I certainly did not intend to. Let's try it this way:

    Proposition 1:

    a) jcm can create an object that is too heavy for jcm to lift;

    b) God cannot create an object that is too heavy for God to lift;

    c) ergo, jcm possesses a power that God lacks.

    Proposition 2:

    a) jcm can create an object that is too heavy for jcm to lift;

    b) God can create an object that is too heavy for God to lift;

    c) ergo, both jcm and God lack the power to lift all objects.

    In both propositions, God is lacking some power, so if we add the following:

    d) to possess the attribute of "omnipotence" requires that one possess all possible powers

    then it follows that God cannot be omnipotent.

    The solution, it seems, is for theologians to stipulate a more limited definition of "omnipotence".

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  57. Cheers for substituting the "he"s - it definitely makes the argument clearer.
    My disagreement lies with proposition 1:

    "a) jcm can create an object that is too heavy for jcm to lift;
    b) God cannot create an object that is too heavy for God to lift;

    c) ergo, jcm possesses a power that God lacks.


    I agree that:
    a) jcm can X
    b) God can't X
    c) Therefore jcm has a power (x) that God doesn't have.

    Is valid.
    But only if X is the same each time.

    If we set X to "create an object jcm can't lift" we'd have an action that jcm can do but God can do also.
    If we set X to "create an object God can't lift" then we'd have an action God can't do, and jcm can't do either.*

    So I don't think your argument in proposition 1 manages to establish that jcm possesses a power that God lacks.

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  58. Daniel, I certainly agree that God (as conceived in classical theology) can lift anything that I can create. The "power" that I referred to in the first proposition is a relative one; i.e. X = "create an object that oneself cannot lift." The relation between the creator and the creation, in this case, is judged by weight.

    But I think the point here is that the creation introduces some new, insurmountable challenge for the creator. As I suggested earlier, the power to create such challenges for oneself may strike some folks (including yourself) as a liability or a weakness. In a sense, I suppose it is. But doesn't it also say something about the potency of one's power to create? After all, if I am not limited to create only objects that I can lift, why would God be limited to create only objects that God can lift?

    As I see it (and, as I imagine, some theologians might see it), to suggest that God is in any way limited (let alone limited in a way that not even a mere mortal like myself am limited) is tantamount to heresy. But if I'm wrong about that, then the topic is a religious non-issue and is a mere game of logic.

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  59. The "power" that I referred to in the first proposition is a relative one; i.e. X = "create an object that oneself cannot lift." The relation between the creator and the creation, in this case, is judged by weight.

    This relationship doesn't display a "power" or "ability" that God lacks. It simply states that there are objects that you can't lift but no object that God can't lift. For any clearly defined action X (i.e. clearly stated with no variables), if it's not an action God can't do, it's not an action you can do.
    Your arguments seem to require variables such as "he" or "oneself" to sound plausible. When the variables are substituted for direct referents there's a clear non-sequiter.


    As I suggested earlier, the power to create such challenges for oneself may strike some folks (including yourself) as a liability or a weakness.
    No, just an incoherent suggestion.

    After all, if I am not limited to create only objects that I can lift, why would God be limited to create only objects that God can lift?
    Because:
    "Object jcm can't lift" = coherent description
    "Object God can't lift" = incoherent, and therefore meaningless, description
    The limit isn't in the power of the creator, it's in the description of the objects being described.

    Your argument tries to make "object jcm can't lift" equivalent to "object God can't lift", but they're clearly not equivalent.



    btw, just so we're clear where I'm arguing from:
    I'm an atheist who has no theology and no interest in defending one.
    I'm debating because I think these word-play paradoxes make for lousy arguments and that we'd be better off without them.

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  60. Daniel said: "Object God can't lift" = incoherent, and therefore meaningless, description
    The limit isn't in the power of the creator, it's in the description of the objects being described.


    I suppose that's where you lose me, as that statement seems both coherent and meaningful to me, which makes me wonder why you disagree.

    Perhaps you mean to suggest that it's a ridiculous question whether or not God can lift a mountain. That might be so, given a certain definition of "God", but that doesn't render the question meaningless. Rather, it suggests a ready answer to it: namely, mountains are, by definition, able to be lifted by God. That seems valid.

    But it begs the (more abstract) question:

    Is there any creative action that God can perform (which, of course, assumes that God is a type of agent who can perform actions), which thereby introduces a new, insurmountable challenge for God?

    If so, then God is weak with respect to that particular challenge (if not others, as well). If not, then God is limited to certain types of actions.

    Either way one answers the question, God's freedom is somehow constrained, which is at odds with "omnipotence", in the sense of "having unlimited power; able to do anything" (Cambridge online dictionary).

    I presume that's what Mackie and Massimo were getting at. If so, then I have to agree with them: the paradox is real.

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  61. I suppose that's where you lose me, as that statement seems both coherent and meaningful to me, which makes me wonder why you disagree.

    Okay.
    I'll line out my argument here.
    I hold that "create a rock God can't lift" isn't an action God can't do. Instead it's an incoherent phrase that fails to define an action.

    My argument is because the object "rock God can't lift" is an incoherent definition of an object. That's because the phrase contains a contradiction. i.e. "Rock God (who is omnipotent so can lift anything) cannot lift"

    So because "Rock God can't lift" contains a contradiction it fails to meaningfully describe an object. Therefore, any sentence that contains this "object" fails to coherently describe an object. The action "create a rock that God can't lift" is such a sentence.

    If you accept the argument so far, I then propose that all of the omnipotence paradoxes include such incoherent descriptions, as they are the source of the paradox. My challenge to you would be to find one that doesn't.

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  62. I hold that "create a rock God can't lift" isn't an action God can't do. Instead it's an incoherent phrase that fails to define an action.

    But it does define an action. Your assertion that God can do the action is valid (which, of course, is not the same as being true), but then so is the opposite assertion that God can not do the action (whether it be true or false). In other words, the statement need not be plausible in order to be coherent. It need only be clear enough that a reader or listener can understand it — and I believe I understand it.

    As the history of theology demonstrates, the problem lies not so much in "God", which is flexible enough to withstand various definitions, including a "most-powerful" (as opposed to "all-powerful") version. Rather, the problem lies chiefly in "omnipotence", which brings to mind paradoxical situations, like God willing Himself out of existence and then willing Himself back into existence. It makes no sense until we reject (or redefine) the divine attribute of omnipotence.

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  63. But it does define an action. Your assertion that God can do the action is valid (which, of course, is not the same as being true), but then so is the opposite assertion that God can not do the action (whether it be true or false). In other words, the statement need not be plausible in order to be coherent. It need only be clear enough that a reader or listener can understand it — and I believe I understand it.

    So you agree that if it was incoherent then that would nullify the paradox?
    Then I just need to show you that it is incoherent.
    And I agree that it's not enough for it to be implausible, as that's different to incoherent.


    The reason I say it's incoherent is because it contains an internal contradiction. It contains the object "Rock that God can't lift" which is self contradictory as the God in this paradox is defined as omnipotent.
    When a description contains a contradiction it fails to give a fully coherent description. Whatever scene you imagine will not meet the specification in some way.
    If I asked you to imagine an "married bachelor" you might imagine a married man (who is not a bachelor) or an bachelor (who is not married) but there's nothing you can imagine that fully meets the specification.
    This is why descriptions with an internal contradiction are incoherent.



    The reason why you think you understand it might be because you imagine a scene that is a bit like it, but doesn't literally meet the specifications of the sentence.
    Perhaps you were imagining a scene where there is a an object "Rock God can't lift"; in which case you are no longer imagining an omnipotent God and are no longer adhering to the sentence you are supposed to be understanding.
    The contradiction makes it logically impossible for you to imagine the action at it's word because whatever scene you imagine will not meet the specification. This is because the description has a contradiction within it, so is incoherent.

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  64. Daniel, thanks to your explanation, I think I now recognize one of our differences, and it boils down to the semantics of "God."

    Perhaps owing to my personal background (e.g. as a former theist who maintains a curiosity about religious philosophy, history, and sociology), I tend to assume a broad definition of "God"; i.e. one that accommodates not only liberal theology, in which God is not necessarily claimed to be omnipotent, but also (as per my earlier comments in this thread) a rather conservative biblical characterization of God. (In other words, where does the Bible claim that Yahweh is omnipotent, as opposed to being greater than other deities or the only Deity?) Given a basic knowledge of the current spectrum of Judeo-Christian belief, I think that is a fair assumption.

    But, that difference aside, I agree that the phrase "rock that omnipotent God can't lift" contains an internal contradiction, similar to your example of a "married bachelor".

    After all, I think we agree that I am not able to be both married and unmarried simultaneously. But I have to ask: would it make any difference if I were omnipotent? In other words, does "possessing all powers" include the power to be both married and unmarried simultaneously? Not without running afoul of logic (e.g. the principle of contradiction), of course. And I think that's one of the points of a paradox: to demonstrate that we cannot always literally mean what we say.

    In Mackie's example, God might be a very powerful agent (relative to mere mortals like ourselves), but theologians cannot literally mean that He is omnipotent unless they wish to defy logic. Some (e.g. the more mystically inclined) might not mind that; but others (i.e. more rationally inclined) do, and may want to consider abandoning the claim in favor of a more modest one (e.g. God is most-, rather than all-, powerful).

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  65. I'm also open to broad definitions of God, but given that this paradox was related to omnipotence, I took it for granted that the "God" in the paradox is an omnipotent one.


    I see you've agreed that the action described in the paradox contains an internal contradiction. It seems our disagreement is over the consequences of this contradiction.

    After all, I think we agree that I am not able to be both married and unmarried simultaneously. But I have to ask: would it make any difference if I were omnipotent? In other words, does "possessing all powers" include the power to be both married and unmarried simultaneously?
    If "Becoming a married bachelor" was a coherent action then I would agree that being unable to do it is due to a lack of power.
    However, the internal contradiction makes it an incoherent description, so it no longer describes an action. So it's not an action one can't do, it's just a sentence without a literal meaning.

    Do you agree that the internal contradiction makes the sentence incoherent, without literal meaning?
    If so, such a sentence could not provide a counter example to omnipotence, as such a counter example would need to be a coherent action with a literal meaning.

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  66. Daniel: I do not take if for granted (a priori) that the God in Mackie's question (i.e. Can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it?) is omnipotent. I simply recognize (with some goading from philosophers) that, if this God character can create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it, then He cannot be omnipotent. It is only upon further reflection that I recognize that, even in the opposite scenario (i.e. where God cannot create such a rock), He cannot be omnipotent, which thereby suggests that there's something fishy about this term "omnipotence", in that its use appears to run afoul of the principle of contradiction.

    I suppose that, if I insisted upon reading omnipotence into the question, I might see the exercise as you do (viz. as pointless gobbledygook). But then it's so clear to me that all I have to do to rescue these statements is to stop trying to read omnipotence into them. That seems to me like a valuable insight, which was almost surely Mackie's point.

    Moreover, I think it's fair to label the situation a "paradox" (as in "a situation or statement which seems impossible or is difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics"). After all, it is either impossible or difficult to understand (to say the least) how a God can simultaneously possess both the power to create all things (including things He can't lift) and also the power to lift all things. Since He clearly can't have both, it is paradoxical to claim that He is omnipotent.

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  67. Ran across you blog while surfing.

    By way of introduction I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian Priest.

    This kind of discussion seems to me to exhibit a fundamental flaw in logic: If the Creator of all exists, the Divine Person(s)/Divine Nature completely transcends, and thus is not subject to, human reason. If God exists, God is the Reality and all of creation is subject to that Reality.

    To say "God is omnipotent" may be one human way to try to reason about God, but such statements are inherently limited and ultimately inadequate. Human reason is not greater than God (if God exists). Attempts to comprehend God by human reason will always come up short. God may be known but remains beyond knowing. God completely transcends human understanding of omnipotence. We may know some of God's attributes, but God remains beyond explanation. In the Orthodox Church, if we make a "positive" statement about God, we make a corresponding "negative" statement, i.e. knowable/unknowable; explainable/unexplainable; comprehensible/incomprehensible; etc. In this discussion we may say that God is omnipotent but it is clear that God is beyond our understanding of omnipotent. If god is a figment of human imagination, then god is subject to human reason. If God exists how unreasonable it is to try to make God subject to human reason.

    As to the existence of God, atheism is no more (perhaps much less) logical that belief in a Creator. You would have me believe that matter and energy either are eternal or spontaneously generated out of nothing and in either case randomly produced the order we see in the universe. It seems much more reasonable to me that God exists eternally rather than matter and energy. Spontaneous generation makes no sense to me.

    Reason cannot explain the origin of the universe. Whatever one chooses to believe is a matter of faith. One could reasonably posit that atheism requires much more faith than believing in a Creator.

    email is

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  68. Scott: Your senerio is based on the misconception that God can materialize anything. If God is the some of all existence, God cannot make another God because there isn't enough matter to do so. Scientific deduction tells us that nothing can be created, only transformed from one state to another. So creation wasn't a matter of materialization of life, but transformation and manipulation of matter from state to another. all existence is God. All energy comes from God. God cannot create he can only transform. So creating a God greater than himself is impossible because he is all matter and all existence and is therefore bound by the limitations of himself. Omnipotence is a concept that is attempts to bound God by some human standard, as if God has to be a singular being in order to be considered an entity. My thoughts are, What if we exist in God? What if we are a cell in the body of God in a existence greater than we can imagine. The universe is constantly expanding, like a growing being. What if we are smaller than even atoms. What if we're quantum. Even the bible agrees that God cannot materialize, he only transforms matter from one state to another.

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  69. Val Schuman, you said "once a part of the omnipotence is suspended, it's not Omnipotence anymore" but if omnipotence can be suspended, then it was never really omnipotent to begin with. This is why omnipotence is a human concept because it makes God out to be infinite as if he exceeds creation. It makes God out to be an entity who exists outside realities both current and alternate, universes that span the farthest reaches of the multiverse, and existence itself. If God is the some of all energy and matter in existence, God can be finite and the subject of creation can be simply explain by thermodynamics and not some ridiculous notion that God "poofed everything into existence like some magic genie. Omnipotence is a flawed human concept. The word only exists because we created it.

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  70. You forgot to take into account infinite power with the omnipotent God, If "God" does have infinite power he could make a mountain he could not move, then be able to move it due to infinite power, then again make the mountain too heavy to move, and this would contenue to infinity. so "God" could infact make a mountain so big he could not move it, and then move it.
    -CFM

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  71. I know I'm a bit late on this one!

    I think that omnipotence paradox when expressed as "can an omnipotent god create a mountain that it cannot move" is too subtle for some to see.

    Maybe if it was expressed as "can an omnipotent being destroy itself" the contradiction would become more obvious.

    However, regardless of the particular form, Fr Philip can invoke the usual hypocrisy by saying "Attempts to comprehend God by human reason will always come up short" while conveniently forgetting that this applies to the very claim of there being a god in the first place.

    Then after committing his special pleading, he has the audacity to say that atheism is perhaps less logical than belief in a god!

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  72. Hi David:

    Interesting, I think you and I are in agreement that omnipotence and gods don't mix, but you are also making a case that gods don't even exist.

    To that I say - Prove you or anyone else exists first. Then argue against "anything that can be imagined is possible".

    After those two wrinkles are ironed, let's return to the subject of gods.

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  73. A human cannot walk on a sea and cannot fly like a bird, IMPOSSIBLE for him/her, that is all

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  74. I thought you might like this take on things:

    http://thebioguy.blogspot.com/2012/04/inconceivalbe.html

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  75. I for one have seen somebody levitate. The human mind is capable of so much, yet so many people don't realize it. This essay was brilliantly writen but I would say it's false. As I previously states I've seen an Indian Shaman levitate before my very eyes during my travels. Some things merely cannot be explained. As for the being in Rome and New York at the same time idea, it is possible. Although you wouldn't be in both places physically. You can leave your body through Astral Projection, it's somewhat like a form of meditation. Your spiritual body could be in Rome, while your physical body would still be in New York. Really though you can't say that anything is impossible. The only thing that I know is impossible is the possibility that something is impossible. Also this goes back to "To be or not to be". It is impossible yet its a possibility. I think I've made my point.

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  76. Hi.
    I witnessed the following discussion that my friends had:

    Defender of Theists(T): You should try it, because anything is possible.
    Anti-theist(A): Then could your deity create a mountain that even he could not move?
    T: Yup.
    A: But then he's not omnipotent, is he?
    T: Yeah.
    A: So anything isn't possible.
    T: Anything is possible.
    A: But that's not logical considering the example given before.
    T: It is logical
    A: ?? Huh??

    T: My deity is currently omnipotent. If he decided to create a mountain he could not move, he would still be omnipotent. But once he creates the mountain, THEN he would stop being omnipotent. But right now, he's omnipotent.

    A: Are you being serious?

    T: Just take a moment to reflect. You asked if it was possible for my deity to create a mountain even he could not move. The answer is yes. What you did NOT ask is this: "if my deity decides to create a mountain, that even he could not move, would he still be omnipotent? If so, how? If not, then would your religion fall apart, considering that one of the rules has been changed (the omnipotence of my deity)?"

    A: Okay, I'm asking that then

    T: The answer to the first question is that, if the mountain was created, the god would no longer be omnipotent. The short answer to the second question is "not necessarily".
    Explanation: God's omnipotence is not technically one of the rules per se. The 'rules' are that we are the product of intellegent design. We must follow certain laws in order to determine which 'class' we end up in: the good class - i.e. heaven - or the bad class - i.e. hell. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned any burdens on the deity. That's because the only job of the deity is to sort out into the classes.

    Me: ha ha ha, okay guys...

    T: What I mean is that it is a descriptive character of the deity. The religion itself does not stipulate that the deity must be omnipotent. Rather the religion describes the deity as omnipotent. Just to even out this point: Let's say you think I'm wrong on this part - that the term 'omnipotence' is not a characteristic of the deity itself but rather a term in the 'contract' of the religion. Even if that point of view is right, the religion - or the contract, whichever you wish to call it - remains in force.

    The religion does not stipulate that the deity will forever be omnipotent. To explain: The texts themselves do not use the term omnipotent, it is the scholars who do. The texts say that the deity can do whatever he wishes. They do not say that the deity can do whatever he wishes all the time. Just currently. In fact, it is quite possible logically, to argue that the deity has lost all power last year and has not been omnipotent for one whole year.

    Then I left.

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  77. i also think much things are possible , truth i do sometimes truly believe anything is possible u just have to want REALLY bad
    like i was able to grow myself ,like i actually did maybe cus am 17 but it did happen wither
    p.s am 6.2 feet

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