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One of the most popular misconceptions concerning what it means to be omnipotent is the idea that in order to truly be omnipotent, one must be able to do anything that can be supposed, including the logically impossible. This way of looking at omnipotence is so obviously absurd that It must be concluded that omnipotence can only be rationally described in terms of having the ability to do anything that is possible. Life is omnipotent unless you use the word omnipotent in a patently absurd manner.
This way of looking at omnipotence is so obviously absurd that It must be concluded that omnipotence can only be rationally described in terms of having the ability to do anything that is possible.
Yeah, this makes sense.
Life is omnipotent unless you use the word omnipotent in a patently absurd manner.
I think I get what you are saying here. I personally think "life" would be replaced with "nature".
The paradoxes claimed by atheists concerning omnipotence involve setting one feature of God against another feature of God. This cannot happen, as all Gods are believed to be sovereign over the universe or over certain elements of the universe by different faiths.
If the features of God don't work together it is ok to point that out. If you give something enough features it can't exist. For instance, if you say something is visible to all and can't be seen, you have created an impossible thing.
The omnipotence paradox is logically invalid.
This part is true, but doesn't relate to what you are saying. The omnipotence paradox simply says that a being who can do anything possible can't do impossible things, which is not a paradox, but a definition.
Well omnipotence would require for the person to be capable of doing all things. The omnipotence paradox seems to contest this idea. Are you familiar with it?
Lack of evidence? Neither me or my opponent have a "lack of evidence". I asked him a question. Please answer or contest my comments. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
I'n familiar with the supposed omnipotence paradox, but I'm really confused as to why it is even being brought up. Its been show as not being a paradox multiple times for many years.
Why are you confused? It's completely relevant and bound to be brought up. I haven't seen anyone successfully clear the paradox without running into more trouble.
Well, what does 'omnipotence' mean? If it means that God can do all things that can be done, then God cannot do the logically possible, which is what the church has historically believed. Few people think omnipotence to mean that God can do the logically impossible. In other words, He would be incapable of making the rock that is greater than He can lift. Think about it; if omnipotence means, "the ability to do all things," but a 'married bachelor' is not really anything, since it is an analytic contradiction, do you think it is something, being nothing, that can be done by God? Not at all. However, if 'omnipotence' does mean that God can do the logically impossible, then He can do the logically impossible. That means that He can make the rock that is greater than He can lift, and be able to lift it, since He is able to do the logically impossible. So, there really is not paradox here. Its been shown as false for many years; the problem is that most people on the internet don't know a lick about philosophy, especially that of religious philosophy.
I would define omnipotence as a being capable of doing everything.
Does that really make sense as the definition though?
Everything meaning all that exists. So I grant you that part.
This is where all forms of the paradox are lost. You have to ask yourself can your example exist. If it can't exist, it is not capable of being done, so an omnipotent being can't do it. You only address the list of things that an omnipotent being can do, which is allowed to have a limit without destroying omnipotence.
Now if I were to replace the word "lift" with "move" would the paradox fit?
No, that isn't the issue. Use one of his favorite example, the 4 sided triangle. Can an omnipotent being create a 4 sided triangle?
I don't believe it's possible for anything to be able to do anything. The laws of physics really can't be broken, or at least I haven't seen them be. I guess as a human, with a 3 dimensional mind, I can't fathom a creature that can act outside of those dimensions.
An example I can recall a while back was for God (he who owns a monopoly on omnipotence) can not create a triangle with four sides.
Or perhaps a better one, that I believe was referenced in the bible was the paradox of God creating a rock so heavy he could not lift it. On one end of the spectrum he just limited himself, to not being able to do something (lifting the rock) or he was already limited in the sense that he couldn't make said rock in the first place.
In conclusion, I don't believe their is because their is no reason to believe there is. It has not existed, and would create a paradox if it were to exist (the omnipotent being).
An example I can recall a while back was for God (he who owns a monopoly on omnipotence) can not create a triangle with four sides.
According to Merriam Webster everything is first described as "all that exists". If a 4 sided triangle doesn't exist then it cannot qualify as a thing. If omnipotence means capable of everything then the 4 sided triangle approach is useless. Does that make sense to you?
Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it? Yes.
"Lift" refers to moving an object within a gravity well away from the source of gravity; on earth, lifting something would be moving it upwards, away from the center of the earth. In our solar system, lifting something would be moving it outwards, away from the sun, etc.
As such, in order to create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it, he would merely need to create a rock so massive that it contained the entirety of all matter in the universe within it. In that case, the only source of gravity would be the rock itself, and it could not be lifted by definition because of that.
This would not be a limiting factor on Gods power, as he would still be able to MOVE the rock; the inability to lift it is pure semantics in this case.
Interesting. I wouldn't have expected that "paradox" to fall with such ease. I see it is no longer a paradox. If I were to replace "lift" with "move" does the paradox recreate itself?
Consider first that an actually immovable object is logically impossible. Even an object of infinite mass could be moved with the application of infinite energy. Making allowances for an object being actually immovable is somewhat in the same territory as a 4-sided triangle, one would think.
Discarding that for a moment though, and assuming the object cannot actually be moved (eg, inertia was beyond infinite, so no changes in it's velocity or vector are possible even with the application of infinite force), remember that movement is relative. An infinitely powerful being met with this rare exception could still effectively move it by simply moving the rest of the universe relative to it. Even if that's not technically movement, the end result is the same, is it not?
Moving an 'immovable object' could also be accomplished by deconstructing it at any scale, moving the component parts, and reassembling them, assuming that it is the object itself that is immovable and the property is not necessarily shared by its components parts and sections.
On a somewhat related tangient: Omnipotence to me doesn't necessarily mean the processes themselves need be unlimited; wouldn't simply being able to bring about whatever result one desired be sufficient, regardless of the means used to do so? Certainly, it would be sufficient to call oneself omnipotent, and have ones followers believe it as such, even if it isn't true omnipotence by someone else's definition.
Anything is possible, but at a certain point the improbability of that possibility being actualized makes it safe to assume it is not true. There is no rationale or evidence to my knowledge that indicates this omnipotence is reasonably probable to support a belief in its objective existence.