God Paradoxes

Zombrex

Robin's post got me thinking about the fun of God paradoxes

For example -

Can God completely destroy himself and then put himself together again?

Can God create an object that no one, including Himself, move?

Anyone got some more?

MrB

Can God Prove that God does not exist?

legspin

Can he prove that he does?

Zombrex

MrB wrote:

Can God Prove that God does not exist?

nice

pH

The idea of an omnipotent and all powerful God comes from much simpler times.

Can God travel faster than light?
Could he pass over the event horizon of a black hole?
Can he make a Euclidean triangle with all its internal angles not adding to 180?

Could God create a consistent formal theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, and make it be both consistent and complete?

robindch

Well, there are an endless list of things like cube-shaped spheres, blue-colored yellows and rational fundamentalists which are contradictions in terms, which is a poor man's logical impossibility. It's more fun to derive contradications from deity's stated attributes instead! Um, let me see...

Omniscience: Is it impossible for him to know something which he does not know? (ie, knowledge of an omission is itself a knowable fact, so by implication, there must be at least one omission of which he's aware. Is it possible to reconcile this by saying that the fact of which he's unaware is the fact of the existence of this same omission?)

...my brain hurts...

Crucifix

It's scientifically impossible to know everything (that's a bit dodgy though, as I imagine any god worth it's salt would supposedly transcend/live outside the laws of physics).

Funsterdelux

Can god get my sheets brilliant white?

Schuhart

Can God be simultaneously male and female?

If so, can he give himself one?

MrB

legspin wrote:

Can he prove that he does?

Sure he can, he just has to walk up to me and say "Hello I'm God" and then turn the planet into a giant apple. That should do it!

Merrick

Schuhart wrote:

Can God be simultaneously male and female?

If so, can he give himself one?

Could he get himself pregnant?

Tar.Aldarion

Can he make a wall so high he can not get over it?
Caan he believe it's not butter?

Scofflaw

Can he take an atheist into Heaven? Can he contradict the Bible? Can he create an uncreated Universe?

cordially,
Scofflaw

UU

How many languages can God speak then? In the bible, he must have been able to speak Hebrew and all the proto-Indo-European languages. Then Aramaic and then in Islam, Arabic. Is their some speacial "God language" or something or did he take language classes in "God World"? Didn't humans create languages?!

fobster

Can God outrun Superman?

Is God just a dyslexic dog?

Zillah

Can God commit sin?

Even if he wanted to?

Could he absolve himself of that sin should he wish it?

Could he deny himself absolution?

robindch

Is god powerful enough to believe true statement X, where X is the statement "god does not believe X"?

Asiaprod

fobster wrote:

Can God outrun Superman?

Is God just a dyslexic dog?

Little bit of target there fobster. Let assume he is not a dog for the purpose of this debate.
He can probably blow the pants of Superman, that is if they were both real.:)

Scofflaw

Asiaprod wrote:

Little bit of target there fobster. Let assume he is not a dog for the purpose of this debate.
He can probably blow the pants of Superman, that is if they were both real.:)

Er, should that be "blow the pants off Superman"? Your version, while interesting, is almost certainly heretical...and definitely disgusting.

suppressing a mental image,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Scofflaw wrote:

Er, should that be "blow the pants off Superman"? Your version, while interesting, is almost certainly heretical...and definitely disgusting.

suppressing a mental image,
Scofflaw

Oops, need my morning coffee.

MrJoeSoap

Can God remember who scored the winning goal in the 1976 FA Cup Final, or will he google it?

Zillah

robindch wrote:

Is god powerful enough to believe true statement X, where X is the statement "god does not believe X"?

Is God powerful enough to double think his way out of that one?

Funsterdelux

Does god think or does he just do?

Dave!

Can God point me in the direction of a Christian who can provide answers to these questions?

bonkey

Can God create a creature with free will, and yet still know in advance all the choices they will ever make and things they will ever do?

Scofflaw

bonkey wrote:

Can God create a creature with free will, and yet still know in advance all the choices they will ever make and things they will ever do?

I have to say that I've always regarded that one as possible...

cordially,
Scoffllaw

robindch

> Can God create a creature with free will, and yet still know in advance all
> the choices they will ever make and things they will ever do?

No. Even a mythic god must submit to logic occasionally. Either god is omniscient and knows what people will do (in which case free-will is an illusion and god is just playing a cruel joke with people's fate) or else god is not omniscient and free-will exists as advertized.

Calvin came up with that one, as far as I remember, and had to create his own Reformed Church (one of the earlier ones) to manage the theological fallout.

Zombrex

I though the idea of free will was that God knows what we will do but lets us make our own minds up, rather than forcing us to do what He thinks is best?

That doesn't seem like too much of a paradox. Its like a parent letting their child do something that will cause him/her to fall over rather than stopping them, so the learn the lesson that such and such is bad.

robindch

> I though the idea of free will was that God knows what we will do but lets
> us make our own minds up, rather than forcing us to do what He thinks is best?

The issue isn't whether the deity will force people to do one thing or another, but rather why he would bother creating a being whom the deity would put into a situation where the being would have to make some conscious choice(s) which would result in the being either going to heaven or going to hell. With an omniscient deity, the deity would already know where the being is going. So "free will", from the deity's point of view, does not exist, because the deity knows, in advance, which choices will be made during the being's life. The being itself might kid itself that it is operating with a "free well", but the fact of the existence of a pre-determined destiny implies that it is not actually "free" in any sense that I can understand (unless one of our religious confreres wants to redefine "free" to mean "consistent with his predetermined destinty" or somesuch).

It's a logical contradiction which arises from the usual meanings of the terms "omniscienct" and "free willed".

bonkey

Wicknight wrote:

I though the idea of free will was that God knows what we will do but lets us make our own minds up, rather than forcing us to do what He thinks is best?

Yes, thats the idea of free will. The idea of knownig everything says that God knows what our decision will be, even before we've made it.

So when a coin gets tossed in the air, God knows whether you will call heads or tails before you decide which to call. Indeed, God even knew this before you were born (because God knows everything that is, was or will be).

So before you were born, it was already decided whether you'd call heads or tails to this coin-toss. And yet, despite it being already decided, you allegedly are still completely free to choose either heads or tails as you wish, just as the coin is being tossed.

Thats impossible. Either there is only the illusion of freedom, or the answer could not be known in advance.

That doesn't seem like too much of a paradox.

Its like a parent letting their child do something that will cause him/her to fall over rather than stopping them, so the learn the lesson that such and such is bad.

You appear to be only looking at the free will part. Obviously, if you only look at one side of the two juxtaposed concepts, you won't find a conflict.

To look at the other side (the "knows everything" bit) is whether or not the parent knows in every detail what the child will do when they give them this freedom. They know not only that the child will fall over while learning to walk, but in which direction they will choose to try and walk, how many steps they will manage to take, how they will fall, whether or not they will cry when they fall, and so on and so forth. Everything.

You can't have both. Its that simple. Either the knowledge pre-exists or it doesn't. If it pre-exists, then the decision is already made - its predetermined. If it doesn't exist, then by definition complete knowledge of everything is impossible.

So either you can freely make a decision, or your choice can be known.

jc

bonkey

robindch wrote:

It's a logical contradiction which arises from the usual meanings of the terms "omniscienct" and "free willed".

Exactly. Both require an absolute, and you can't have two contradicting absolutes.