cbostrum (04/08/83)
Re: djhawley on omnipotence: A first remark; I do not intend to forever argue this with obvious holy rollers, since I have learned it is usually not worth the trouble. But... David is claiming that it is logically impossible that an omnipotent being be able to satisfy himself. It is not easy to make sense of the notion of omnipotence, fer shure, and it seems he is just throwing it whatever qualities he needs to get his religion going. How is it logically impossible to be able to satisfy yourself if you have enough power? I agree you cant make a stone so big you cant roll it, even if you are omnipotent, but recall that even Descartes had so much trouble with omnipotence that he allowed this. And some modern philosophers do too (eg Goldstick at UofT). Anyway, to me what David says seems clearly wrong. He can fix this by dropping that God is allpowerful, which I would be willing to accept and move on to other incoherencies. Another point we have is that Godis subject to some external factors; those which are forcing him to please himself (by such ridiculous means as getting lessor beings to worship him!). There is little way a being subject to such emotional hangups could be considered omnipotent. Awaiting more incoherent Xtian apology and slowly losing patience, Calvin Ostrum David note: "incoherent" is not a pejorative, but a factual.