It was a pleasure to read. In its own terms, the logic seems irrefutable:
As you might anticipate, good sir, I do indeed disagree. But before I address my reasonings for this I might preface by saying that although this particular point you bring up seems incorrect to me, there is another formulation which does indeed seem to follow the same conclusion, and with great reasoning as well. Have you ever heard of the argument from modal collapse?Yet I disagree, because the omnibenevolence of God is not considered.
Presumably, by the term "God" we are speaking of the Creator of the Heaven and the earth, and not just some random omnipient hanging out in no-space. Indeed, there needs to be a Creation for Him to be benevolent toward. One cannot be good or bad alone.
All that so, God's omnipotence is hampered by his omniscience and benevolence
according to your limited understanding perhaps. — MAYAEL
I'm saying Existence is necessarily at least as real as you and me. So if Existence is necessarily Omnipresent (which It is because it exists everywhere, including in dreams), then something Omnipresent is necessarily at least as real as you and me. — Philosopher19
Our universe is just a part of Existence. Wouldn't it be better if the whole of Existence was perfect rather than just part of it. If only a part of Existence is perfect whilst the rest of it is imperfect, then Existence is not perfect because it can be/exist better. — Philosopher19
Perfection is perfectly satisfied when unrepentant evil suffers. If this was not the case, then there would be nothing evil about being evil. If I committed evil and Existence was such that I did not suffer a loss of goodness as a result of this (so I did not get a headache, or go to prison, or Hell...depending on how extreme my evil was), then there was nothing evil about me being evil. If evil people wen to heaven and good people went to hell, then that's case of it literally being evil to be good and being good to be evil. That is semantically inconsistent with the semantic of Perfection, Existence, good, and evil. — Philosopher19
It's only evil/bad for x to be evil/bad because it leads him to a loss of goodness consequentially (despite it not immediately seeming that way). If it did not lead to this, then one cannot say that it's evil/bad for x to be evil/bad. It's only bad/evil for x to be bad/evil when it's actually bad for him to be this way (as in it's against his best interest). — Philosopher19
Many thanks for the pleasant comment. Those were quite rare in the forum I used to post on, so it is a very welcome change. — Questio
Instead, as a Thomistic Aristotlean, I instead affirm classical theisms definition of God as being *actus purus* or pure actuality itself, being ultimately simple, ultimately powerful, and ultimately necessary. — Questio
Second, as I've claimed in my last post, to be omnipotent is not to have the power to do anything (which I hope to have demonstrated was absurd) but rather to do whatever is intelligible. — Questio
Now, within God there is no real divisions; as such God's omnipotence IS his omnibenevolence which IS his omnipresence which IS his intellect which finally IS his will, which IS pure actuality. — Questio
Now, because what is perfect in every manner, such as pure actuality, cannot, without being marked with unintelligiblility, move or act in accordance with imperfection, he thus cannot do a lot of what men can do. — Questio
However, this is not out of any lack of ability, but rather because any imperfection or wrong or anything of the sort (such as wrong reasoning) is always (in Thomistic thought) a deprivation of what is perfect, good, and so forth; to be doing such things isn't a positive gain but a negative loss. But it follows that there is, from this deprivation, the possibility of having such a thing. Thus, to do what is imperfect aligns with potential being, while to have is in alignment with actual being. — Questio
I don’t see how these two follow from your or bartricks’ arguments either could you explain?
Being a master logician would mean that you can tell, given premises, whether or not the conclusion is valid, not that you know everything.
Similarly, “knowledge is power” is hand waving. An omniscient person still couldn’t lift an airplane. If omniscience really did lead to omnipotence then "omnipotence" would be obsolete as an attribute of God and wouldn't have been mentioned — khaled
A mind free of fallacies never makes mistakes i.e. the art of gaining knowledge would reach its zenith. That being the case, omnipotence is just around the corner. — TheMadFool
Secondly, omniscience implies knowledge of how to produce a desired effect and that's just another way of saying that with omniscience one can become omnipotent. — TheMadFool
You need to be an expert to recognize one. — Bartricks
If you can't imagine it, then why believe in it or assert it as possible??Let us imagine a God so powerful, that he could make an entire universe from absolutely nothing. A square circle would be child’s play to such a being.
As a human. I can’t imagine how either of those things could be done, but who am I to judge those whom believe it is possible? — Present awareness
Just around the corner is vastly different from omniscience. No amount of infallibility will allow you to deduce the current population of earth for example. Or what I’m thinking of right now. You need premises and an established body of empirical observations for an infallible logician to be useful in the least. Which is, again, vastly different from an omniscient person who would know exactly what I’m thinking of right now without requiring any extra data (because omniscience is precisely possessing all the data there is and will be) — khaled
False. Some effects could be impossible to produce in practice but not in theory. For example: reducing entropy. It is technically possible for every atom in the room you’re in right now to move in such a way so as to go to a corner and become a lattice and you would suffocate. But the chances of that are astronomically small. And there is no way to artificially produce that effect without increasing entropy elsewhere.
But an omnipotent person would just be able to command that to happen. An omniscient person would only know that it is extremely unlikely, and that there is no artificial way to produce it and so would not be able to produce it or hope for it.
Or a simple example: A perfect logician cannot bicep curl an airplane when asked to and given no prep time. A God can.
An even simpler argument for why omniscience doesn’t lead to omnipotence is if it did then omnipotence would be obsolete. It’s like saying “Khaled is a being with brown eyes, who also has eyes”. The latter follows from the former and so requires no mention. — khaled
You may need to make adjustments to the story but not so much as to miss the point of this story. — TheMadFool
He knew that unborn calves in a fetal position would have their tails curled up with the end resting on the forehead [assume this is true] — TheMadFool
abilities explicable within the existing framework of knowledge. — TheMadFool
And that point is? I honestly have no clue. — khaled
This knowledge is not deducible even to a perfect logician, if he is not given premises it can be deduced from is the point. Which is why a perfect logician is not omniscient. — khaled
So could your omnipotent God cause entropy to decrease? If he can't even do that (bring about a theoretical possibility but a technical impossibility) then what kind of God even is that? He/She/It wouldn't be able to do any more than a sufficiently rich and intelligent person with a lot of time and resources, and I struggle to call people like that omnipotent Gods. — khaled
As for me, god's omnipotence is a matter of knowing how the universe works and working, as they say, within the system — TheMadFool
I believe that there are limits to human imagination, however, I also believe it is possible to imagine a being or thing which does not have limits. All sorts of Gods have been imagined by all kinds of human cultures and who’s to say which one is right or even if any of them are right? — Present awareness
There will not be more than one omnipotent being. This is because otherwise one could frustrate the other and thus neither would truly be omnipotent. — Bartricks
God exists because imperatives of Reason exist and require an imperator - an imperator who will be God. And that imperator will be able to do anything - including things he forbids - because they're his imperatives. — Bartricks
The problem is that you're going to have to beg the question to make a case against me. That is, you're going to have to assume that Reason restricts an omnipotent being before you can show that it does. And that's question begging. — Bartricks
As to forward the idea of any entity or reality that can exercise the power to bring about self contradictory state of affairs would itself rely on consistency, cohesivness, intelligibility in order to be forwarded. However, that these things can be undermined results in the idea or argument which leads to such a conclusion to be defeated, as what supports the theisis that reason can reveal any truth if reality maybe unintelligible and thus "outside" the scope of reason? Indeed, any justification through rationality would itself beg the question. Of course, the only option left then is to reject the premise that leads to such result, for there is no gain for either Ockhamist, nor Scotist, nor Cartesian or even atheist in entertaining this idea, except of course the most extreme of skepticisms — Questio
It most certainly does mean that he is limited by something above him. — Bartricks
you think he can't will that a four sided triangle exist. Even I can do that!! — Bartricks
And you are, of course. The 'divine intellect' is not God. It's God's intellect. My intellect is not me. It's my intellect. — Bartricks
And what does "God only acts in accordance with his intellect" mean if not "God does what he does"? — Bartricks
You are just like the rest and think of God as straightjacketed. That's conceptually confused. It's also, of course, offensive to God - telling everyone that he can't do this and can't do that...the cheek of it!! — Bartricks
Enjoy it while it lasts! I like to start from a place of good will and fine manners - but have found that as a discussion becomes an argument, it becomes a matter of battling ego monsters - and the gloves come off, good Sir! — counterpunch
Right? — Bartricks
God exists because imperatives of Reason exist and require an imperator — Bartricks
And that imperator will be able to do anything - including things he forbids - because they're his imperatives. — Bartricks
Just around the corner is vastly different from omniscience. No amount of infallibility will allow you to deduce the current population of earth for example. Or what I’m thinking of right now. You need premises and an established body of empirical observations for an infallible logician to be useful in the least. Which is, again, vastly different from an omniscient person who would know exactly what I’m thinking of right now without requiring any extra data (because omniscience is precisely possessing all the data there is and will be) — khaled
My good friend, it seems as if you have a bad case of thinking yourself superior to two thousand years of Christian theistic thought and reason. Which is fine, I'm okay with that, and encourage it to some extent. Just don't claim me to be a man subverting the traditional idea of God with a much cooler and hip "new" concept, for St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, and St. Anselm would like a word with you. — Questio
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