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 Omnipotentce Paradox (3)

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Nomoturtle(857) pic



Omnipotentce Paradox

this one is mainly for creationists, but if you are not theistic thats fine just don't antagonise anyone. this itself is not an attack, i just want to hear honest answers people have come up with in resolution to any particular omnipotence paradox.

some are:

unliftable stone: to create a stone so heavy the creator cannot lift it

unsolvable puzzle: to create a puzzle that is unsolvable so that the creator cannot solve it

free will: to give people free will so that the creator cannot know or act over that being's free will

 

if you look at a seperate paradox, please share

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Did you intentionally target theists to troll them? Well here's a response from an atheist.

Regarding the unliftable stone:

Note the usage of the word 'lift.' To lift something, specifically, means to move it further away from the local source of gravity. Making a rock that was impossible to lift would therefore be as simple as creating a rock so massive that the center of gravity of the entire universe is within its mass; under such circumstances no form of movement could be said to be 'lifting' the rock; it is impossible not due to a limitation on the omnipotence, but due to the definition of the word.

If we want to expand this to include movement, the omnipotent being would simply need to aggregate all existing matter and energy into the rock in question. Motion being relative, if the rock in question was the only physical object in existence, it could not be said to be in motion at any time. This is again not a limitation on the omnipotence, but due to the definition of the word; any forces at work on the rock would cause no relative motion to anything else due to a lack of anything else, but the rock itself could still be freely manipulate by the omnipotent being, just to little effect given the lack of a second object for comparison, and the lack of anything to interact with whatsoever.

Regarding the unsolvable puzzle

This depends on the definition of puzzle we're using. The most basic literal definition is a toy, game, or something similar intended to be reconfigured towards a 'solution.' This is the definition implied when you say 'create a puzzle;' other forms of puzzles (like unsolved mathematics problems and the like) are not created so much as discovered. The existence of one or more solutions is an intrinsic requirement for something to be called a puzzle in this sense of the word. From this, we could say that this is impossible not due to any lacking on the omnipotent beings part, but rather due to the definition we've attached to the word puzzle. Simply put, an unsolvable puzzle is not a puzzle in this sense of the word.

It could also be argued that if individuals truly have free will, and the omnipotent being in question is benevolent, that creating free will itself constitutes an unsolvable puzzle for the omnipotent being. This of course assumes the 'strict' definition of free will that I don't believe anyone seriously believes, as I'll touch on next. Even then, this would only call omniscience into question; not omnipotence.

Regarding the free will issue

I don't believe it's seriously asserted that free will means that an omnipotent being cannot know or override the will of the entity in question. The only ones I've ever seen making such a claim were intentionally trolling. Most serious believers assert that the omnipotent being knows the will and is fully capable of overriding it, but typically does not.

Even so, I'll bite. This scenario would not represent a paradox. It would represent an omnipotent being consciously ceding control over the entity in question, and by extension ceding its omnipotence, as the being could not be said to be omnipotent any more once this has been done. This does not devoid the previous omnipotence or create a paradox; it's just going from total control over all creation to total control over all creation except this tiny little piece.

If one claims that free will is real and that no hypothetical formerly omnipotent being can interfere with it, and then goes on to claim the being is omnipotent, then one is making a nonsensical claim. I've only rarely seen this claim made; most of the time, free will is asserted as a choice made by the omnipotent being, which could in theory be undone at any time.

Keep em coming!

There are plenty of problems with numerous forms of theism, but you're never going to convince anyone that their religion is logically impossible- especially with poorly thought out 'paradoxes' like these that only seem to exist so that an atheist who thinks he is more clever than he really is can give himself a pat on the back.

Nomoturtle(857) Clarified
1 point

actually i anticipated atheists to attack theists on this particular debate. i didn't say atheists couldn't post anything, only that typically you would have some atheists that gloat upon finding anything that could be represented as a disproof of god, which is what i didn't want. i even specifically said this is not an attack. i honestly enjoy hearing the abstract ideas that come with the answers to these sorts of questions, and didn't want to see a bunch of idiots posting crap like "haha this is why im right".

unliftable stone: but said being does not need to aggregate matter, rather create new matter of an infinite density and mass. this way your concept of motion only being relative is unbroken, even if i don't agree with it. although that is a solution if you were trying to bypass the actual paradox. a good one too.

unsolvable puzzle: sorry, this one isnt so clear. i meant that the puzzle has a solution, but is so complex the omnipotent creator can not solve it.

free will: again, interpretation. im not sure but i think you got it wrong. this one is really just a confliction of ideas, similar to this:

lets say your rule is to always do what you want and to never do what you don't want. then you come across an action that you want to do, but in doing so something will inevitably happen that you don't want. you cannot follow your directive here. for a regular person they would choose the better of the two options and suffer a consequence. however for an omnipotent being they should be able to follow their directive no matter the obstacle. however they can't.

im not trying to convince people that their religion is logically impossible, these are supposed to be a brain teaser or a problem to be solved with a religious twist and as i said earlier i enjoy the abstract thought that goes into it. whether someone does or doesn't start thinking their religion has illogical implications is of no concern to me.

i am however glad that you are not the sort of atheist i dislike nor the one you described as me. as far as i have seen you are rare in that sense. you did sort of take them a bit too literally, wordplay is a poor workaround as words are only designed to convey thoughts. try to understand the thoughts behind the words rather than the words themselves and i'm sorry the paradoxes were copied poorly.

liked your unliftable stone

thousandin1(1931) Clarified
1 point

I maintain my stances regarding the stone and free will, and don't see much in the way of rebuttal to those beyond 'i disagree' here, unless you'd care to elaborate or establish a specific case?

And regarding the unsolvable puzzle- thank you for clarifying- an omnipotent being would similarly be able to create a puzzle of infinite complexity- whether or not he could solve it is not dependent on omnipotence, but rather omniscience. Puzzles are solved through knowledge and reasoning, not through power. In other words, an omnipotent being unable to create such a puzzle would be a technicality due to said beings omniscience; if the being lacked omniscience, the infinitely complex puzzle would be unsolvable.

My ultimate point is that none of these are true paradoxes, and I'd like to see others. True paradoxes, with the exception of fiction, are rather rare (none at all, really, in concrete reality, and rather rare upon any kind of scrutiny in the world of speculation/hypothesis/theory.

1 point

The first 2 aren't paradoxes. They are just impossible. Omnipotent doesn't mean being able to do anything, it means being to do anything possible.

Nomoturtle(857) Clarified
1 point

omnipotent: having unlimited power/having great power or influence

paradox: a statement or proposition which, despite sound reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems logically unacceptable or self-contradictory

thousandin1(1931) Clarified
1 point

omnipotent: having unlimited power/having great power or influence

This definition makes it even less paradoxical. A politician has great power and/or influence. I don't believe a politician could create a rock so large that he couldn't lift it, though he could certainly operate machinery to carve out such a rock. Unlimited electrical power would be extremely beneficial to the world, but similarly would be unable to call a rock into existence so large that it could not be lifted via any usage of electrical power- though given a sufficiently large deposit, one could similarly be carved out. I don't believe these cases are paradoxical, and they technically fit that definition.

Nevermind the fact that omnipotence itself is ridiculous- even if, say, the christian god was real, I wouldn't believe him to be omnipotent. I believe others would draw that conclusion. This seems to stem from the whole "through me, all things are possible" bit (paraphrased), which doesn't necessarily imply omnipotence- 'all things' could be limited to all things that the audience could conceive of, and being able to bring about any result does not mean that one is capable of employing any and all means to accomplish such. I don't believe that omnipotence would be a requirement for the christian god- merely a level of power far beyond what humans can wrap their heads around. Close enough, and it's not like gods going to tell primitive man "Yeah, I can do everything but make a huge ass rock." He'd probably just say everything.

Cartman(18192) Clarified
1 point

Unlimited powers does not mean you can do things that are impossible. Something that is impossible can't be done by definition.

Stickers(1037) Clarified
1 point

Just to be clear though, the two definitions that you and Cartman have are not mutually exclusive. The best way to derive a definition of a word in the course of a disagreement is to look at it etymologically:

"omni" means "all", and "all" can be situated into the "all" of a given set, and "potent" is just the adjective of "power"

Take, for example, how there are an infinite/unlimited set of numbers between 0 and 1, but that doesn't mean any number will fit into that set.

That being said, something that is not possible to perform (in even the most auspicious circumstances) seems to be the same as being something that must defy logic itself in order to exist, which simply doesn't happen, that doesn't make it contingent on "power", just how things are understood to function as it is, this situates what it really means to "do" something, and does not interfere with the scope of power itself.

This isn't a paradox. In fact these are things that cannot exist. God can lift a rock of any size, mass, weight, height, etc. If God can lift a rock of any size then this question is nullified. This question also relies on things that cannot exist with each other. Might as well ask can an unmovable object be moved by an unstoppable force.