Scholasticism - It Will Make Your Head Hurt

If he was truly omnipotent, he would create the stone he could not lift, and then lift it.

If this sounds like an unreasonable answer, that's because it is. Illogical questions call for illogical answers. Omnipotence is illogical in nature, and therefore allows illogical things to take place. I don't think logic is the basis of religion. If it were the basis, religion wouldn't exist.

 

Not my intention, I was simply trying to get the point across that once you realize the fact of saying "God is omnipotent" all fallacies are negated by this one fact, logical or not.

Also, as I stated God would obey logic in my reasoning, logic says that because he is omnipotent anything outside of the realm of possibility in his doing is pointless.

If you said that that doesn't make sense because say if I can't do something but you can then this would arise the same fallacy, yet if god is omnipotent then there is no higher bar, he would be the all encompassing entirety of possibility. Making anything outside these bounds rather pointless to wonder.

 

The whole thinking behind this is illogical, it cannot be done therefor he is not omnipotent. But either way, wouldn't he not be omnipotent? So there is no right answer, just the fact that it just proved everything people say wrong.

 

The answer provided by sophisticated theists tending towards this conception of god is that a rock which cannot be lifted by the being is not metaphysically possible.

 

And you continue to contradict yourself and provide only circular reasoning...

You cannot make ANY logical statement concerning the incomprehensible, and the fact that you are claiming knowledge on the incomprehensible means you are making assumptions. (this is assuming that there is such thing as the incomprehensible...which is another fallacy in itself)

Your last paragraph is just circular reasoning.

 

Actually no I haven't.

Which is the incomprehensible idea you are talking about? The knowledge I'm using is that I understand what a challenge such as creating something and lifting an object and relating it to an omnipotent being. Every aspect of this problem is understood and clarified to the point of rationalization and logical thinking. Otherwise yes it would be pointless.

Actually it isn't because of the fact we are talking about an omnipotent being.

The fallacy would go as such "Bill can do everything, therefor bill can make a stone so large not even he can lift it" This is a failed analogy in both ways. However, when the premise of an omnipotent being is exactly the meaning of omnipotent, that they can do anything. It is no longer a fallacy.

 

The question is pointless, because you can't argue with any certain logic that an omnipotent being can exist because for it to exist it would have to exist outside of logic. You can't use the concept to describe the concept as you are doing - you can say he is omnipotent because he is omnipotent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

 

Well first of all, the original idea of this thread is that an omnipotent being ALREADY existed for the possibility for the situation to arise. If the idea of this was "an omnipotent being can't exist" then there would be no point of it and it shouldn't have been created. Please think about the point of the thread before posting something completely obvious.
Since we have already stated that God is REAL, and therefor existing in our plane of logic and reality then it is already configured that him being omnipotent is therefor also possible in our reality.

No since again you misunderstood the point of the thread which was to determine whether and omnipotent being can create a rock he cannot lift.
If the point was to determine the possibility of an omnipotent being then maybe you might have actually added something of importance.

Yes I do know what circular reasoning is.

EDIT: Just went back and read your original post....

(Assuming God is an omnipotent being, but remember that this is not a discussion of the existence of God. In this problem God is assumed to exist and has all power over everything.) Fucking kidding me?

 

I don't understand this at all. "God" is based off of many different faiths, all with different beliefs. And the idea that he is "all powerful" generally means.. all powerful.

 

Well, I think if we can extrapolate the definition of omnipotent to mean simply: can do anything. Then, given that what we are asking the omnipotent being to do something, he is clearly not omnipotent. While I can see where you are coming from, in asking an entity that exists outside the realm of reality to do something consistent within the realm of reality is a bit frivolous in itself, it would be a more precise definition to say that they can do a lot of things, as opposed to everything.

It's a bit like saying that, assuming you have a square circle, given that it is a shape, and all shapes can be made to be 3 dimensional, can you make this square circle 3D. While yes, you can make any shape 3D, you cannot possibly have a square circle to begin with, much like you cannot have an omnipotent being.

Let's say the Universe weighed 1kg. If you then asked Bob to lift 2kg, he would say no. This does not negate the first premise however. You've qualified what Bob can do:

Bob can lift the weight of everything, WITHIN THE UNIVERSE. As opposed to:
An omnipotent being can do everything. You haven't asked for a task outside of it's scope, everything means anything.

Since there is an unavoidable contradiction, you can simply conclude that therefore there cannot be an omnipotent being, and thus, not an omnipotent God. Since reality has no contradictions (law of non-contradiction) any being that seems to contradict itself is a product of imagination.

I'd apply the law of identity there. You will still need to answer the question, can this entity perform that task. The entity cannot both perform, and not perform the task (Law of excluded middle).

Something that is infinite cannot possibly exist in a finite world, for which we reside in. It is therefore deducible that this omnipotent being simply doesn't exist.


If we were to really abide by the point of this thread, then the simple answer would be yes, but we don't know how.

 

You're arguing simple wording. Instead, let us say the following: Is the notion of an omnipotent god coherent? Examine the following seeming contradiction...

 

Why does there even have to be such a thing as an object that can't be lifted? We as humans put that label on things because we do not have the means to lift some very heavy things, but in this case you assume God can lift anything so to God, there is no such things as an immovable object.

 

Since god is omnipotent, he has power over the rules of physics and logic, including the power to make it not apply to him, it follows that if he should do so, he is able to do logic defying things, such as draw a circular square.