If something could be completely omnipotent, then it ought to be able to stop any sort of logical conclusion from obtaining, correct? — maplestreet

Yes.

This too is my gut reaction, but I'm still curious if anyone has to say anything against this or its relevancy

In simpler terms, if I was all powerful... could I make myself powerless? By definition, yes. By logic, no. Because once you became powerless you could not become all powerful again. How can a powerless entity become omnipotent? The only way I can see that being so is if all powerless entities were actually omnipotent in hiding, a dormant omnipotence that is unknown, yet to be realized.

Having the power to make yourself powerless is not the logical equivalent of exercising the power to become powerless.

You can have the power to make yourself powerless without using that power and you are not powerless until you use that power, at which point you would no longer be all powerful.

The order of operations here avoids any contradiction, that and that fact that having the ability to do something is not the logical equivalent of actually doing that thing.

Not quite, something that is not all-powerful could still be all-powerful, because if it were all-powerful in addition to not being all-powerful, this alone guarantees that it could stop the conclusion of having the law of identity violated from obtaining that such a being did not exist. Hence, such a being is possible.

I don't know if an omnipotent being is possible or not.

I don't care.

My point is that having all the powers is not the same as using all the powers.

Just because you can do something does not mean that something will get done.

For example it is not a contradiction to say I have the power to commit suicide, even though I have not killed myself.

Yup, and I agree with this part of your comment. I just disagreed with the "at which point you would no longer be all powerful." part.

I said this would be true only if you exercise the ability to be powerless.

If you are without power, then by definition, you cannot also have all the powers.

As long as both are not true at the same time, there is no contradiction.

because if it were all-powerful in addition to not being all-powerful — maplestreet

that doesn't make sense. as m-theory said "If you are without power, then by definition, you cannot also have all the powers."

As long as both are not true at the same time, you can not be both. Just like you can't be male and female, or for the room to be completely dark when it is lit up with light..

"If you are without power, then by definition, you cannot also have all the powers."-Of course. You are saying

P-->not Q (by definition of P)

I am simply pointing out that also,

Q-->(P AND Q) (by definition of Q and entailment)

Non sequitor. The truth of m-theory's definitional observation does not contradict my statement that

Q-->(P AND Q) (by definition of Q and entailment)

That is simply the combination of omnipotence and entailment. If you are omnipotent, you can be mae and female, simply because you can stop entailment.

I think the idea of omnipotence is misunderstood to mean that one can do anything.

I believe rather that omnipotence means that one could do anything that is logically consistent.

Even with 'logical consistency' there is no omnipotent being.

We prove what does not exist by showing a logical contradiction, expressed as "P and not P, at the same time. eg: the ball is on fire and is not on fire at the same time. This is how we prove what is impossible.

The proposed gods of Christianity, Islam, Judaism are all claimed to be omnipotent. Omnipotent is to be able to do all things. We need to parse what omnipotent means, to be fair to the religious... to mean "able to do all possible things", because we know that god cannot do what is impossible.

It is possible to form a rock and it is possible to lift a rock. Can the omnipotent being form a rock that cannot be lifted? If yes, then the omnipotent being is not omnipotent (P and not P, at the same time) because it cannot lift the rock. If no, then the omnipotent being is not omnipotent because it cannot form the rock.

All logical options are covered, the answer to the question is either yes or no and either way it is impossible for that god to exist. If a god exists, and it is possible, then god is not omnipotent. This argument proves that the proposition "the Christian god exists" (or Muslim or Jewish) are false and not belief statements. Belief statements are not false anymore than they are true. No myth, assumption or opinion (the 3 belief types) are proven true or false. What is true or false is not a matter of belief.

Omnipotence (and other omni-attributes) are not to be construed as positively defined. It is not as if there were a virtual list of "possible actions" and the omnipotent being would be able to do all of them. Omnipotence is rather a negative attribute -- the omnipotent being is one which lacks any kind of extrinsic limit / boundary to its actions.

In other words, if an omnipotent being does not do X, it is because of an intrinsic constraint -- there are no extrinsic constraints on the actions of an omnipotent being.

If God does not create a rock which cannot be lifted, this is not because of an extrinsic limitation.

In traditional theology, there are two ways to interpret this state of affairs. One, which I call the Muslim* one, is to say that God's power trumps God's rationality (which is our own rationality too). In other words, God can very well create a rock which cannot be lifted, and if we say this is a contradiction, that's our problem. God's ways are not our own. The other, which I call the Scholastic* one, is to say that God's rationality (and our own) trumps God's power, i.e., that God's reach does not extend to creating rocks which cannot be lifted, because this would be contrary to reason, and reason (aka Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity) is God's being itself.

Note that in both accounts God is omnipotent (i.e. lacks extrinsic constraints).

* Muslim vs. Scholastics are merely useful placeholders. There are exceptions in both traditions which would be more comfortable in the other team. But the majority in each school follows something close to what is outlined above.

Contradictions set limits to what can be meaningfully said; they do not constrain the world. If God doesn't fit into your way of talking, it's your problem, not His, just as if you can't get your head round wave particle duality, quantum mechanics isn't going to conform itself to your limitations.

I thought that omnipotent means able to do all
possible things; not able to do all things, period.

If something could be completely omnipotent, then it ought to be able to stop any sort of logical conclusion from obtaining, correct?

For example, to say that something omnipotent could make itself not omnipotent wouldn't pose any sort of difficulties, because any sort of implications from this dual state of impossible affairs could simply be stopped. Because why would an omnipotent thing not have the power to stop the force of a conclusion, or even the power to make something completely unintelligible and unvalidatable become sensible and resolve to some truth value? — maplestreet

I agree. Omnipotence doesn't have to follow rules, is complete freedom, and the word ''impossible'' simply has no meaning.

It's a singularity for those of us restrained by limits imposed on us by the physical and the psychical. Like physicists, simply clueless about what happened before the big bang, omnipotence, in its full manifestation, is simply incomprehensible.

In a sense, then, omnipotence is as meaningless as division by zero. It's possible to write down the word, ''omnipotence'' just as it's possible to write 5 ÷ 0 BUT it's meaning is simply beyond human comprehension.

I don't understand the root of the problem. Perhaps it's got to do with self-reference like the liar's paradox.