Can't. We would never be able to tell if a being that came to us was just ultra-powerful, or truly omnipotent. A sufficiently powerful being could just seem omnipotent.

At a 45 degree angle to piss off the motorists, obviously.

Any way I please, I imagine.

Really God could make me have any brain-state, but that doesn't mean that all of those brain-states are the same.

You need to explain why omnipotence implies that God cannot deliberately select a measurable course of action. God could know that if they stimulate my brain the right ways, I'll black out and smack my face against my desk. Or they could stimulate my brain so that I feel intense pleasure. I perceive those things, so, to me at least, the consequences of God's actions are measurable. Or they could do anything to my brain, and I will likely perceive it, and, thus, it is measurable to me.

Why can't God walk with measure?

It was a joke.

Exactly. And having no measures means impotency. — EugeneW

So why wouldn't God's actions be measurable? It's like the walking/circle example I gave. Infinite choices doesn't imply that one cannot deliberately choose a course of action, provided there are parameters or measurable consequences.

God could make my head explode right now, if she wanted. That's pretty measurable.

Its over, Eugene, Bartricks has the high ground.

Eugene, you aren't making sense. Read my reply to you earlier in the thread.

I'm just messing with you.

But we have no idea what logical deductions are valid or not according to your view of God. Any random deduction could be absolutely worthless because its negation could also (secretly) be true. We are just groping in the dark, really.

Yeah, just too bad God is a monster who lets people suffer gratuitously. :joke:

You are pretty clear in your reasoning, I don't get why some of the smart people on this forum don't understand your arguments.

To generate 'explosions' and other such logical dramas one would have to assume the reality of necessity. Yet the reality of necessity is incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent being. Not necessarily incompatible, of course. Just actually incompatible. And thus as an omnipotent being exists, we can safely conclude that there are no necessary truths (including that one). And so if - if - the omnipotent being made a true proposition false at the same time, this not create any explosion, for it remains down to the omnipotent being whether any other propositions are true and false at the same time. — Bartricks

So God could theoretically just choose to make there be no other contradictions, or could choose to make any contradictions they want to be true, true. Got it.

But insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent is to insist that being omnipotent essentially involves an inability - the inability to not be omnipotent. That just seems incoherent to me - indeed, it asserts a contradiction. For how can one say that an omnipotent being is able to do anything if at the same time one insists that there is something that the omnipotent being cannot do, namely divest themselves of their omnipotence? How is that not to assert P and not P? We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true. — Bartricks

We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true. — Bartricks

So we just dismiss this contradiction because it goes against our preconceptions? Doesn't it mean god can't be omnipotent? Or something? I mean, surely the principle of explosion or something like that wouldn't follow. But then again God could just make this contradiction not true, or so you claim.

Maybe God exists, has thought about this, and has smoothed it over?

I guess what I'm saying is that if the consequences or parameters of a decision or course of action can be measured, we could theoretically have chosen otherwise; it could have been different.

I don't think the ability to choose between infinite options would render one incapable of choosing. Like you said, one could walk straight in infinite directions starting from a center point, but one would always be walking a measurable distance, and could say at what angle one was walking at if a circle was projected with its center at the center point from which one began walking, with the radius being the line along which one walks.

The existence of infinite options does not mean that one cannot choose a course of action, or could not have chosen a different course of action, or could not have chosen no course of action. After all, you could have chosen a different angle or distance.

But what about the argument that she must be omnipotent in possible worlds too in order to be truly omnipotent? I'm making the argument that if she divests herself of her omnipotence she must necessarily have never been omnipotent - but only in the possibility of her actually taking the route of making herself not omnipotent. It seems to me my argument still stands, unless God violates LNC or chooses to be omnipotent and not omnipotent at the same time.

I also address the contingency in which God violates LNC and makes herself omnipotent again in another thread. I haven't gotten any feedback on it, so I don't know if my reasoning is solid, though.

To put it another way, God is no more bound by the principle of explosion than he is by any other principle. He can make the law of non-contradiction false. So he can make the principle of explosion false too. — Bartricks

But the principle of explosion would be true globally, if not for god, right? How would logical deductions suddenly become valid if LNC doesn't apply for a pair of mutually exclusive propositions? Would God not have to fix the contradiction to make the principle of explosion not true?

Thanks for responding, Bartricks, I appreciate you.

I'm sure I'm not, I just didn't read it anywhere, not trying to plagiarize or anything. I don't know if hardly anything I've written is truly original.

Part of the fun is trying to figure this out on my own, at least partially.

Who knows. I don't really even care.

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence. — EricH

I think it is less so that God is omnipotent and not omnipotent over the sum process, but rather that God can restore her omnipotence at any time, regardless of current status. If God decided to make a contradiction such as: "God is both omnipotent and not omnipotent" true, the principle of explosion would follow and we could then prove any statement or its negation true. Or maybe I'm wrong - I just read about deductive explosion today for the first time.

edit: Whether or not the deductions would be true, I don't know. But it seems to me some logical systems would be all messed up.

second edit: rather, the systems wouldn't be messed up; we would just not be able to rely on logical deductions anymore, I think.

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence. — EricH

I think my argument stands so long as God is bound by LNC, but yes, otherwise it appears to defeat the OP. I'll have to think about this. Thanks for reading and understanding the OP.

Btw, you know what D-kers are? — EugeneW

No, what are they?

What they mean is mental illness, mostly schizophrenia, but often manifests itself with religious symbology and themes. I dont think they meant religiosity is a mental illness, nor saying religious people are mentally ill.
I mention it because “sociopath” seems a pretty drastic take on the comment. — DingoJones

I don't think he is actually a sociopath, I just think that his intense desire to be regarded as a big brain atheist manifests as verging on anti-social behavior.

I regret creating this thread, especially since no one has addressed the original part of my OP.

lmao

Why the fuck does that garner a :100: ? You come across as a genuine sociopath, 180. I'm done with you. Shit all over this thread if you want, you'll be getting no more attention from me.

Likening religiosity to mental illness is taking it a little too far. And since when is mental illness characterized as having faith? Where is the connection there? Do you even know a mentally ill or religious person?

Maybe there is an element of randomness that brought the laws into existence, or is baked into the laws that could give rise to the universe? I'm no physicist, or even a philosopher, so I'm kind of pulling this out of my ass.

The answer to 'whether or not "God" can "divest" itself of its "omniscience"' amounts to a distinction that makes no difference so long as your conception of "omniscience" admits of logical impossibility / self-contradiction — 180 Proof

But it doesn't. If you were reading the posts and read the OP you would see that I don't think God can do something logically impossible. You are being very stupid for someone with such a great vocabulary.

Why couldn't the laws of nature have been eternal and have given rise to the universe?

Why does the universe need an original cause rooted in supernatural creators?

Hash this out somewhere else please. This is totally unrelated to the OP. I made no fideistic claims in this thread and neither did TC. No one is proselytizing.

God could do that, or just actually divest themselves of their omnipotence. I think he (they identify as male I think) is saying god could do both those things (one of which is become omnipotent again). I did a search of "law of non-contradiction" and couldn't find B mentioning it.

Do you think that this has ramifications for the argument I make in the OP?

If it came from God, who created God? Is it turtles all the way down? Have you done any research on this?

No.

You are trying to elicit some sort of response from me. But I'll go along.

We have no reason to believe that God exists. No one has ever come up with a compelling argument for God's existence that hasn't been shot full of holes. So, I just disregard supernatural claims. It's that simple.

I agree: God, if they exist, is a monster.

At least you have a sense of humor, sort of.

Why isn't anyone even addressing the original part of my argument? Is the premise that controversial?

↪ToothyMaw "Omnipotence" does not entail 'doing what's logically impossible to do'; that's an ad hoc, arbitrary assumption – magical fiat. :sparkle:
— 180 Proof

And if you think differently then it is just a question of us holding different presuppositions. We differ. Which means we can move on. — Tom Storm

Is it logically impossible for god to lift an unliftable rock? Of course. What Bartricks is saying is that the unliftable rock contradiction doesn't mean God isn't omnipotent.

Sweet Jesus, dude, just stop. You don't need to smash every religious person you come across.