phw (08/06/82)
After reading much about free will vs. determinism (much :=: vast
amounts), I thought i'd bring up another bit of philosophy that has
plagued people for a long time, i.e., if God (substitute whatever word
is appropriate) is all powerful and can to ANYTHING, then can He create
something he can't destroy (uncreate)?
Anyone want to perform a feasibility study on this project?
Pat Wood
{ucbvax, decvax}!harpo!mhuxv!phwbj (08/07/82)
God (whatever it is) is often attributed with the power to do anything *in the Universe he created*. An action refered to as "something he can't destroy" is not an action defined in the created Universe, but rather the Meta-Universe containing God and his creation. God does not have unlimited power in the Meta-Universe. B.J. decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj Herbison-BJ@Yale
ARPAVAX:kalash (08/07/82)
Sure, Himself.
djj (08/08/82)
Isn't this question (can GOD create something he cannot uncreate) equivalent
to the following (from Smullyan's book, I think):
What is the result of the following collision:
An immovable (by anything!) post is hit by a
unstoppable (by anything!) cannonball?
The answer is fairly obvious; the two fundamental assumptions are contradictory
and cannot both exist at the same time. A similar argument suffices for the
GOD problem. If "God is all powerful and can do ANYTHING", "ANYTHING" must
include the ability to destroy.
Another angle:
1) GOD creates item # 1 which he cannot destroy.
2) GOD creates item # 2 which can destroy item # 1.
.
.
.
n) GOD creates item # n which can destroy item # n-1.
n+1) GOD can destroy item # n.
Waiting for the heat,
Dave Johnson
BTL - Piscataway
(...!mhux*!pyuxcc!djj)evritt (08/21/82)
Can God create a stone He cannot lift? I believe that this
question can be restated, "Can God create a stone which cannot be
lifted by any agent whatsoever including God?" Further I take it
that God is considered to be omnipotent. I suspect that how we
treat the relationship between omnipotence and God will solve the
problem of whether or not our original question leads us to a
contradiction or not.
First, here are replies to earlier discussions of the paradox.
I see no reason to refer to a "metauniverse" as B.J.Herbison
(decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj, August 7) did. Whether one wishes
to include God in this universe or not, what we are interested in
is whether He could perform an act which would limit His powers--in
this case create a stone which He could not lift--in the realm of
humanly observable phenomena. The realm of potentially observable
phenomena could (at least loosely) be equated to our universe, and
this is the realm we are interested in. Whether God could be
limited in some realm outside of the universe is not of interest
here.
Dave Johnson's (!imux*!pyuxcc!djj, August 7) discussion is
interesting but not really applicable to our point. If God created
something which He had no power to affect then nothing He could
later create would be able to affect it. Otherwise we would say
that God did indeed have the power to affect the thing he created.
For our purposes it will suffice to speculate on what it means for
God to create something that no agent could affect. I admit it
would be interesting to speculate on what would happen if God
created a ten pound rock that He could not lift, but unnecessary.
(For example, in the above case, does that mean that God could not
cause a human to pick up the rock? Could God ask someone to pick
up the rock? Would God know that someone would pick up the rock
before they actually performed the act?)
Here is my point. If at some time God is omnipotent and God
then decides to create the stone that no force in the universe can
lift including Himself, then from that point on God would no longer
be omnipotent. Omnipotence implies the power to remove itself.
The only problem arises in the relationship between God and His
omnipotence. If a defining characteristic of God is that He is
forever omnipotent then we have a contradiction. If He performs a
self-limiting act He looses His omnipotence, but His omnipotence
must be forever, that is, never lost. If God can perform a
self-limiting act, He is no longer omnipotent, but He must always
be omnipotent. If God cannot perform a self-limiting act He is not
omnipotent, but He must always be omnipotent. That is a dilemma of
the first order.
If one accepts the dilemma one has two options: Either reject
the premise that God is forever omnipotent, or reject the premise
that God is forever. In other words one can say that God can
remove His omnipotence and no longer require omnipotence as a
defining characteristic of God, or one can say that God can, in a
figurative sense, commit suicide and change Himself into something
that one would not define as God.
I realize I have to admit to at least one assumption I have not
stated. The big assumption I make is that God is subject to time
as we perceive it. I will try to avoid jumping into the middle of a
dangerous debate but none-the-less note that I find it difficult to
speak of God or anything acting independent of the notion of time.
In conclusion, if there is a God and He is understandable to
humans in a rational non-contradictory way then He is most likely
not omnipotent. At least omnipotence is not one of His necessary
properties.