Because I know the law of non-contradiction is true. — Bartricks

If the law of non-contradiction ceases to obtain in light of god's decision to simultaneously kill and not kill himself, how will you know?

Note, you are not answering any of my questions, yet I have the good grace to answer yours, even though yours are as rubbish as they are insincere.

Anyway, here's my answer - I may not know of it. If I did, however, it would most likely be either by a rational intuition to that effect, or perhaps I may come to believe that the law of non-contradiction no longer obtains in a manner that God approves of, and that too would then qualify as an item of knowledge.

Note, you are not answering any of my questions, yet I have the good grace to answer yours, even though yours are as rubbish as they are insincere. — Bartricks

What a benevolent human being you are.

Aside from the litany of verbal abuse you've wreaked on your forum neighbors.

What a nice bully you are.

I may not know of it. — Bartricks

So it might have happened long ago.

All done here.

Take care.

So it might have happened long ago. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes. It hasn't though. We're going around in circles and it is entirely your fault.

You sound preposterous to me — ZzzoneiroCosm

I can only hope you're eight years old. What have you done to your mind and to your character, my friend? — ZzzoneiroCosm

God is a person? A PhD in ludicrosity? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Answer the question or shut your mouth, doc — ZzzoneiroCosm

Total nonsense and more evidence that you have no philosophical credentials — ZzzoneiroCosm

Don't hand it out if you can't take it.

Note too that I have all along been arguing things, whereas all you've been doing is asking questions you don't care to understand the answer to.

God can do anything - that's what being omnipotent involves. And as God can do anything, he can kill himself. Even someone who thinks God is bound by the law of non-contradiction can agree to that. You have provided precisely no reason - no philosophical defence - of your scepticism about this. All you have done is express your view that I am a preposterous person because I am saying things you don't immediately understand and lack the humility to think that may reflect a failing in you and not your interlocutor.

Don't hand it out if you can't take it. — Bartricks

Your abuse doesn't bother me because I know your heart: you're a pompous, ignorant bully.

I abuse you because you're a bully. Good night.

I abuse you because you're a bully. — ZzzoneiroCosm

No, you started it with this:

You sound preposterous to me — ZzzoneiroCosm

Until that point I was simply arguing a point, albeit robustly. But those who are no good at philosophy are, in my experience, incapable of taking criticism of their views as anything other than personal attacks (and thus think it fine to make a personal attack in reply).

I love it when someone attacks my views and love it if the attack is a good one. Love it. You might want to try it some day. Attack the view, not the person.

— Bartricks

Sorry. Not interested. You're a bully and I'm only interested in abusing you.

I'm only interested in abusing you. — ZzzoneiroCosm

And you're bad at that too. Which is a shame - I like a good insult almost as much as I like a good criticism.

I never give up, so once more: suicide would only be ruled out for God if God exists of necessity. Yet if God exists of necessity, then he will lack an ability that even we seem to have, namely the ability to cease to exist. Manifestly someone who lacks an ability that the rest of us have cannot at the same time be omnipotent. Thus, God does not exist of necessity and thus God can commit suicide. And that's true regardless of whether God is constrained by the laws of logic or the author of them.

I like a good insult — Bartricks

That's evident.

Insults - it's true of any art - require - practice, practice, practice - and you are - pondscum narcissus - concertmaster.

Enjoy the darkness you have created.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a final, devilishly friendlier note: read more broadly and more skeptically. Your trust in yourself is misplaced.

Take care.

:up:

There appears to be a rather disturbing connexion between (omni)potence and logic in re (the law) of noncontradiction. If I'm correct, there was a time when constitutions contained a clause that stated that some individuals (monarchs and some others) are above the law which, to me, means such persons were capable of contradictions: it could be illegal to kill, but they could (with impunity).

So yeah, power does allow one to defy logic(al aws). God, being a king (of the kingdom of heaven), it is his prerogative to both obey AND disobey the laws of logic. In other words, reasoning with God is to ask for the impossible.

Throughout the history of philosophy, there has been two primary approaches to a more formal and technical understanding of (i.e. philosophical) omnipotence as depicted in theology.

These two approaches are the Thomistic approach & the Cartesian approach, respectively after Aquinas and Descartes.

• In the Thomistic approach, omnipotence is the ability to actualize any logical potential, or bring about any logical state of affairs. Impossibility & violating logic is not part of an omnipotent being's ability, because impossible potentials do not exist, and because (in Aquinas's theology), logic is of God's rational and orderly nature.
• Descartes thought otherwise. Thus, omnipotence, as conceptualized by Cartesians, is the ability to actualize any potential whatsoever with no qualification on being in accord with any system of logic. This means that unlike a Thomistic omnipotent, a Cartesian omnipotent can bring about square circles and so on.

Keep in mind that these interpretations are tools, and so it is not necessary that one interpretation is correct and the other isn't, rather, they're done such that philosophers can interact with this concept, and different religious faiths may see omnipotence in different ways. In other words, the "correct" interpretation is indexical to the theology at hand.

But regardless, there's another distinction that's important here, and it's whether there can be an omnipotent being such that its omnipotence is accidental to itself. In these cases, presumably, that being can survive removing its omnipotence, because its omnipotence is not an essential component of its identity.

However, in the cases of an essential omnipotent, to remove its omnipotence is to remove its essence and effectively kill itself. Notice that both the Thomistic & Cartesian interpretations of omnipotence (without God inserted) wouldn't confine this because no logical contradiction is explicitly evident. The issue is that Thomists argue that accidental omnipotence isn't a thing, and that omnipotence can only possibly be true of God, such that God is also necessary. This is because Thomists commit to a doctrine known as divine simplicity (DDS) that makes it so God is atomically simple and has no proper parts. What this entails is that all of God's attributes (omniscience, omnipotence, necessity, etc) are actually one attribute and it's simply our mind that fails to capture this unity when thinking about God.

So given DDS, there isn't such a thing as omniscient but not omnipotent, or omnipotent but not necessary. To say there's an omnipotent being is to also say there's an omniscient, necessary, etc being because all of these attributes in our language are different intensions that fixate the same extension. The interesting part about this is that since necessity is true of this being, then its non-existence would be a logical contradiction, so it can neither remove its omnipotence nor kill itself (a Thomist would say both of these are the same thing!)

However, while a Cartesian may admit of DDS, and may even come to agree with the Thomist that this self-destruction is actually a contradiction, a Cartesian would say an omnipotent can still bring it about because it is not bound by any laws of logic. The stark point of contention in the theology here is that a Cartesian may be inclined to see logic as something that might "rule over omnipotence," whereas Thomists understand logic itself as a result of the orderly & rational nature of that being which is omnipotent.

So ultimately, it depends on the type of omnipotence you're using. To a Thomist, no, but to a Cartesian, yes.

Hope this answers your question.

The problem with the idea of omnipotence is that there are many contradictory scenarios which must co-exist with each other, so that omnipotent being must have experienced everything including resurection after death. As everything is possible, there is no impossible so everything can be done, which means things can be undone.

You call other posters idiots but you've changed your own views from discussions here. You now say God can't both exist and not exist, contradicting previous idiotic statements by you in the past. Live and learn

I don't think I have ever called someone an idiot. I think God has the ability to exist and not exist. But he just exists.

I have thought about this before. Assuming that we are talking about an omnipotent creator God, then if he DID have the power to kill himself, he must have chosen not to, or else nothing would exist. If he chose not to, then he must have decided that he likes/loves himself. So, if this kind of God exists and if it's possible for him to kill himself, then God's self-love is a necessary prerequisite to existence.

This then provides a motive for creation. If God contains the potential for all else, and if he loves himself, then it makes sense that he'd want to create everything that could possibly exist out of his self-love. If every existing thing is a partial manifestation of the infinite God trying to manifest himself, then you would predict a very big and very old universe (or possibly infinite multiverses).

If it were possible for God to add to himself, I would think he would probably do that. But if he's infinite, that might not be possible. It might be the case that infinity + 1 = infinity. According to Christian theology, there is no difference at all between the Father and the Son except that the Son is "begotten". If it's possible for God to "beget" a son, then it might not be possible for God to "beget" two sons, because they would actually be identical (the same being). And then they also teach that the Holy Spirit "proceeds", but I'm not sure what the difference is. Anyway, if God loved himself, and if it were possible for him to make more Gods like himself, then you'd expect something like the Trinity. Then all the rest of creation is necessarily finite and imperfect, because otherwise it would be literally impossible for God to create it.

This thread outlines one (of many well known) problems with the concept of omnipotence (and omniscience) as it is casually applied in religious contexts.

Being omnipotent implies God could stop killing himself, or if he did kill himself, being omnipotent, he could resurrect the moment he dies, hence he is alive again as he has always been. It is not really a problem for him logically or otherwise.

Yes, you are right, and even further, God could actually totally cease to exist and just make himself exist again if we ascribe to him powers beyond what is logically possible. He could also take away his own omnipotence and kill himself and still exist; a God like the kind you describe can do all kinds of neat things. Like square a circle or generally make two logically contradictory things true at the same time, although that last one could go unnoticed by humans quite easily.

But what if he sequesters his omniscience with his omnipotence? He would presumably be able to regain his omniscience with his undiminished omnipotence, but how would he know to do so, especially if he gave himself artificial memories or something? What if he had gone even further and created a device that would reset his own mental state or jam his powers whenever there is a chance that he might discover the truth or act in a way requiring omnipotence? If he could locate or find knowledge of this device, which would presumably have been created before he lost his omniscience, he might be able to escape this self-inflicted fate, but that might include wandering the universe almost forever.

If God is also omniscient, then he would know how to be omnipotent and omnipresent as well. Hence knowledge is power. That's why we all read philosophy suppose.

Surely if a being is omnipotent, then he can reincarnate himself too. — Corvus

This is not the same as:
Surely if a being is omnipotent, then he must reincarnate himself too.

This is Matt the same as:
Surely if a being is omnipotent, then he must reincarnate himself too. — Patterner

When you say "he must", it implies he is under obligation or duty to do something. Being omnipotent, God is under no such limitation. "he can reincarnate himself" implies God has Free Will to please himself in deciding or acting.

If God can reincarnate himself, then it implies that his body is not the biological body like humans. Because no biological body can be reincarnated in the same body when died and perished from the world.

Oops. Typo. Matt = not.

My point is that just because said omnipotent being can arrange to be reincarnated doesn't mean they must.

I do not see that there is any philosophical puzzle here. The answer to the question is surely just 'yes'? An omnipotent person has all abilities. Therefore, they have the ability to commit suicide.

What philosophical problem is that answer supposed to raise? I am not yet seeing it.

I do not see that there is any philosophical puzzle here. — Clearbury

There are many possible questions emanating from the statement relating to God's power and existence, which are theological and logical paradox in nature. But if you are coming from the Humean vulgar state of mind, of course, there is nothing visible or problematic here.

For example, one could start with a question, if God really existed. If so, what kind of existence it would be. This question alone could take thousands of pages for discussion. And further ensuing questions and debates on all the paradoxes of self killing possibilities, or impossibilities and resurrection debates ... etc it could be quite a large topic.

But obviously it is not an interest to your type of philosophy, and you are not seeing anything in the topic. That is perfectly fine, and natural. Thanks for making clear on your stance of the state of your mind.

I am just asking you to explain what is philosophically puzzling about any of this.

If I say that I am sat in a chair, that is not philosophically interesting. No puzzle that needs resolving is raised.

An omnipotent person can - has the ability to - commit suicide. What puzzle does that raise? Is there any reason to think God lacks that ability? If there is no reason to think God lacks that ability, then what puzzle is there? If there is reason to think God lacks it, what is that reason?

I don't see why an omnipotent being couldn't commit suicide. I agree, there's no puzzle.

I disagree with the assertions that an omnipotent being can do paradoxical or logically impossible things. I don't know why that would be. Perhaps this being could create a reality in which a square circle is not a contradiction, although I don't know what such a reality would be like. Similar enough to our own that such concepts exist, but where they can both be embodied in one item? I'm skeptical.

But no amount of power can make such a thing in our reality.

An omnipotent person can - has the ability to - commit suicide. What puzzle does that raise? — Clearbury

The OP is not asking about an omnipotent person, but omnipotent God. The first puzzle is what type of existence God has. If God has biological bodily existence like humans, then perhaps self killing is possible.

But if the existence of God is non-bodily existence such as force or spirit, then self killing would be impossible, because force and spirit is outside of the boundary of physical death.

So I would have thought, you could have started discussing the nature and type of existence of God.

Is there any reason to think God lacks that ability? If there is no reason to think God lacks that ability, then what puzzle is there? — Clearbury

How can one kill someone who is omnipotent? Omnipotence means that it is powerful to win, resist or make anything possible. If omnipotent being could be killed either by itself or others, then it means that the omnipotent being was not omnipotent, hence it is a paradox to believe that omnipotent being could kill itself.

If I say that I am sat in a chair, that is not philosophically interesting. No puzzle that needs resolving is raised. — Clearbury

There was nothing in this thread saying you have sat in a chair. Can we say that God exist? If it does, in what form does it exist? Which God are we talking about? What is the concept of omnipotence? Is it a logically sound concept? Or is it just a religious myth?

But if the existence of God is non-bodily existence such as force or spirit, then self killing would be impossible, because force and spirit is outside of the boundary of physical death. — Corvus

I don't see any reason to assume this. We can't know such things about a being of force and spirit. And we don't know that death cannot come to non-physical things.

How can one kill someone who is omnipotent? Omnipotence means that it is powerful to win, resist or make anything possible. If omnipotent being could be killed either by itself or others, then it means that the omnipotent being was not omnipotent, hence it is a paradox to believe that omnipotent being could kill itself. — Corvus

I imagine killing an omnipotent being would be more than somewhat difficulty. I don't know why an omnipotent being couldn't kill itself.

These things seem to be axioms of your position. But I don't think they are valid.

These things seem to be axioms of your position. But I don't think they are valid. — Patterner

You made your counter claims on the assumptions, but you have not given out any logical or evidential arguments on why your claims are valid, and my assumptions are invalid.

Remember this is The Philosophy Forum. We are not into making emotional claims saying you just don't think they are not valid with no reasons, no logic and no evidence supporting your claim. Doing so would be just opening up your psychological state.