Talk:Omnipotence paradox/Archive02

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rm original research

I have removed the following paragraphs:

===Semantics===
Many years later, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein formalized Allen's attitude in the concluding pages of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Up until proposition 6.4, the Tractatus stays generally within the realm of logical positivism, but 6.41 and the succeeding propositions argue that ethics is a "transcendental" subject which we cannot examine with language, as it is a form of aesthetics and cannot be expressed. Wittgenstein then begins talking of the will, life after death, and God; he argues that all discussion of such issues is a misuse of logic. Specifically, since logical language can only reflect the world, any discussion of the mystical, that which lies outside of the metaphysical subject's world, is meaningless. This suggests that many of the traditional domains of philosophy—e.g., ethics and metaphysics—cannot in fact be discussed meaningfully. Any attempt to discuss them immediately loses all sense. This also suggests that Wittgenstein's own project of trying to explain language is impossible, for exactly these reasons, and so he suggests that the project of philosophy must ultimately be abandoned for those logical practices which attempt to reflect the world, not what is outside of it.
Wittgenstein's work makes the omnipotence paradox a problem in semantics, the study of how symbols are given meaning. (The retort "That's only semantics" is a way of saying that a statement only concerns the definitions of words, instead of anything important in the physical world.) According to the Tractatus, then, even attempting to formulate the omnipotence paradox is futile, since language cannot refer to the entities the paradox considers. The final proposition of the Tractatus gives Wittgenstein's dictum for these circumstances: "What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence."
One should note that in his later years, Wittgenstein himself revised or renounced outright much of what he wrote in the Tractatus. His second major work, Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously), argues that many philosophical problems which had seemingly been intractable to logical analysis are in truth artifacts of the way philosophers misuse language. Typically, commentators divide Wittgenstein's work into "early" and "late" periods, though beyond this simple distinction, it is difficult to find any consensus among Wittgenstein's interpreters.

from the article. They are both original research, and also advance a rather poorly-phrased interpretation of the Tractatus and PI, niether of which make any mention of the "omnipotence paradox". Indeed, Wittgenstein mostly steered clear of discussing religious beliefs and wrote very little on these sorts of "paradoxes" (he preferred to invent his own.) If someone has written an article applying LW's work to this particular question, great, let's cite and describe it, but this bit of amateur philosophy is not what we should be doing.

Sdedeo (tips) 00:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm rather curious, how does one recognize original research in an article on philosophy? It's not exactly a hard science... -Kasreyn 00:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Hee hee. Well, for the purposes of wikipedia it's pretty clear. Friends of mine in philosophy departments certaintly say some original things, but I have a feeling the "research" part of the phrase dates back to the 1960s when Universities had to apply for government grants and everyone wanted to look scientific. Sdedeo (tips) 00:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. I didn't mean that to sound disrespectful to philosophy, it's one of my favorite pastimes... which is how I know about the habit of philosophical BS'ing, just randomly speculating with friends. It would be terribly tempting to put some of that stuff in an article on Wikipedia. -Kasreyn 00:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
If you ever hang out with analytic philosophers, you'll be in for quite a ride. It's like half college bull sessions and half insanely exacting reasoning. Very amusing. Sdedeo (tips) 00:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Omniscience

Eh. The Omnipotence thing doesn't bother me much. If a being is all-powerful, then it can do whatever it wants. Therefore whether it can create the rock depends at any given moment on whether or not it wants to be able to lift it later.

What interests me a lot more is, assuming an omniscient, omnipotent creator who has total knowledge of the future, how can there be such a thing as free will? Of course, that's wildly off-topic, but it seems much harder to approach with the same kind of reasoning being used for the omnipotence paradox. Kudos to all of you for a great featured article! -Kasreyn 00:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There can be such a thing as free will and predestination at the same time, but because our minds our limited, it is hard to accept the concept. I can explain it with an example. Light is made up of many particles, but it is also a wave. Theoretically that is impossible. It is both at the same time, but for a very long time, ever since scientists discovered this, there was a split among the scientists, some said its only a particle, others said its only a wave, and others had no idea what was going on. This split has been resolved, as mention in the article one Wave-Particle Duality. This is happening today with the predestination vs. free will debate, and it has not been resolved, even though there is an answer. --Kirk Surber 15:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Can God destroy Itself? Can God commit suicide? Can God create a temple so heavy he cannot carry?

Well, man can.

  • Will you please read the article before you start posting this garbage? I'm sure God could commit suicide (which is the same as destroying Himself), but why would He desire to? And for the latter, it is explained in the article!

Link9er 14:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, he can still send you to hell

Should there be an objection to the paradox along the lines of "just because God can't create this rock, doesn't mean he can't torture you eternally". After all, the point of God's omnipotence is that God punishes those who reject him. (As it happens I don't come close to believing in hell or God. But see it as a possible answer to the problem) BillMasen 01:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

  • The reasoning behind this is actually to prove that an omnipotent being is impossible. Link9er 14:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

"Squaring the circle" link removed

I removed the link " square circle " in the article because "to create a square circle" has absolutely nothing to do with squaring the circle, the latter one meaning to use "a finite ruler-and-compass construction to make a square with the same area as a given circle" (from Wikipedia). Whoever created that link is totally irresponsible and deserves to be smashed by a stone so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift. F15x28 02:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yet more removed text

I have removed the following from the end of the section Logically impossible:

Still, this explanation is not at all irrational given a certain train of events:
  1. An omnipotent creator-being exists.
  2. They created logic.
  3. Ergo they existed apart from or before logic and must necessarily transcend logic.

The argument is simply superfluous; it does not add anything to the debate, and also provides a somewhat biasing "parting shot". It also seems to have been introduced to replace bias from the other side. Hairy Dude 03:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I've also changed a reference to God where in context it was not appropriate. I think this article should generally refrain from mentioning God specifically when describing arguments for or against the paradox, as it is (in this purest form) not specifically concerned with any God.

On a related note, would people please refrain from posting arguments about the attributes of God? These arguments are largely irrelevant here. Hairy Dude 03:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Suppose that a omnipotenet being is "living" and i use that term losely, in a infinite universe. And this being was constantly expanding. For an example i'll use three stages. Stage one- thinks to create a stone so heavy it itself could not lift it, Stage two- begins expanding, Stage three- this being has expanded by an infinite amount and now the stone is no longer to heavy. Is this still an example?, has the rock grown with the being?, must the being increase the size of the rock?. Perhaps our defintion of the universe is wrong, maybe the stone will always be to heavy but yet maybe the being will always be strong enough to lift it. Also by the ever expanding theory, does the being remain omnipotent or does he "transcend" to a higher calling?. And still along with the expanding theory will there always be an infinte higher calling because of the infinte universe and the infinity of the expanding being. Phytos 06:19:53 9 January 2006 (UTC)


Definitely not

the classic example is, "Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even that being could not lift it?" - the classic example is a gender-nonspecific, faith-decentralized question? No, I'm pretty sure the "Classic Example" includes the words "God" and "he" (or "He", but Wikipedia shouldn't be capitalizing He, just as we don't write "Mohammad(pbuh)") Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 08:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

See above to Talk:Omnipotence paradox#God/omnipotent being for a reason as to why the phrasing is as it is. GeeJo (t) (c) • 08:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Which is a fine way to summarize the theological paradox, but it is not the "Classic example", which the article claims it is. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
It's the concept that is classical, not the exact wording. --Vagodin 15:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Mention in popular culture

There's a simpsons episode where Homer says something like "Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even He could not eat it?".

robert grant blog article

robg -- the reason people are removing your new section "Christian responses" is both because it only contains a one sentence paragraph linking to your blog (generally considered bad taste to link to your own article off-wiki -- let others determine if it meets wikipedia source requirements), and because segregating discussions by faith are probably not the way to go (i.e., we don't have a Jewish responses, Muslim responses, etc. section, and organize the article differently.) Sdedeo (tips) 12:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

George Carlin

didn't the comedian George Carlin use this paradox in his nightclub act years ago? It was supposed to be one of the questions he and other "neighborhood kids" used to ask their parish priest, IIRC. --Christofurio 13:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

If you can find the reference, please, by all means add it under "Popular culture and humorous responses"! Anville 15:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Very Nice

I would like to applaud to everyone who worked on this article. Very nice :D Link9er 13:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it

The article says:

One can also attempt to resolve the paradox by postulating that omnipotence does not necessarily demand that a being must be able to do all things at all times. Thus, one reasons,

  1. The being can create a stone which it cannot at that moment lift.
  2. However, being omnipotent, the being can always later reduce the weight of the stone to a weight where it can lift it. Therefore the being is still legitimately omnipotent.

but if the 2nd statement is correct, doesn't that mean that this "omnipotent being" cannot lift the unliftable rock in its original (and unliftable) state? that means that the omnipotent being is not omnipotent anymore. Oh, and can this "omnipotent being" limit its own omnipotence, in which case it would no longer be omnipotent anymore? If it can't, then it's not not omnipotent. If it can, then it's also not omnipotent. Iownwikipedia 14:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Can Omnipotence be self-limiting?

I could answer that question, but I might not. rikjoh 14:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Conundrum

"Able to be lifted by an omnipotent being" isnt a physical property of an object, its a conundrum. Since an omnipotent being has unlimited for and unlimited power, then yes, they can lift anything. --Cronosquall 15:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes but if they truly did have unlimited power then they would be able to create something so heavy that nothing can lift it. If it cannot create such an object then it does not have unlimited power. --Cyde Weys votetalk 18:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The Main Page and beyond...

I look forward to putting the pieces of this article back together after it leaves the Main Page. (sigh and smile)

As to the Wittgenstein stuff, well, see the FAC and peer review discussions for why it got put there. Anville 15:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Just revert to before this article reached the main page. With a topic such as this it really can't become better from widespread exposure. --Cyde Weys votetalk 19:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Are the laws of physics or logic superior?

Several times during this discussion, I have noticed that people say the omnipotent being can defy physics, but not logic. Does logic surpass physics? Since our brains are contained within physics, and we originate logic within our brains, through means which are a part of physics, isn't physics superior? Of course, we often imagine things which are impossible by the laws of physics, but are imagined through the laws of physics. How do we determine the superiority of Logic or Physics? - Scourgeofsmallishinsects

They are equal in my opinion. Both are absolutely binding. --Vagodin 15:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Math which turned out to be applicable to phenomena is physics. It's as binding as it's good, which means pretty good but imperfect. A related consideration is if mathematics or logic are real or merely artifacts of human mentation, however this diverts to ruminating on omniscience, rather than sticking to the omnipotence paradox. 207.172.134.175 19:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Both are equal, but God is above both. Simple proof of this is that we exist. Scientists still don't understand every thing that happens in nature, much less in our bodies. Also, the Laws of physics and logic state that matter cannot be created from nothing, nor can it be completely destroyed, it turns into energy. However, God completely defied both laws by creating the world, and if you don't believe in creationis, then the big bang theory is still illogical. The big bang theory states that everything was contained something the size of a golf ball, and then it exploded, forming the universe. so where did the golf ball come from?--Kirk Surber 14:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Poorly Framed Question

Everytime I see this paradox presented it's done poorly. The unliftable rock example is poor because it relies upon some liftin mechanism. I far prefer asking if an omnipotent being can create an indestructible object. But why even bother with examples? By definition, an omnipotent being can do any thing. That set of doable things must, necessarily, include robbing itself of its own omnipotence. Therefore, all omnipotent beings are necessarily only contingently omnipotent, as their continued omnipotence relies upon them not depriving themsleves of their own omnipotence. --Llewdor 19:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yay for someone who makes sense! This is the only way I have ever seen God as being omnipotent.-The Scurvy Eye 23:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Not a paradox, temporally solvable

  • If an omnipotent being can do anything... ie. make a rock it cannot lift, make itself no longer omnipotent, then being omnipotent, it should be able to do so.
  • AFTER doing such, the being is no longer omnipotent, having restricted its own omnipotence.
  • It may be able to regain omnipotence by removing the restriction, if the restriction it gave itself was not structured in such a way as to make it impossible.
    • IF the restriction was made in such a way as to be irreversible, then it's a permanent reduction from omnipotence.

- 132.205.45.110 20:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Good logic..... but somehow, that seems like it is side-stepping the issue. There is a flaw in your logic. The omnipotent being must create something that it as an omnipotent being must not be able to lift. Just creating something that it can lift, then becoming non-omnipotent, then becoming omnipotent again, doesn't cut it. However, assuming that that would cut it, and that it created something it couldn't lift as an omnipotent being, just turning unomnipotent, when it turned omnipotent again, it still couldn't lift it. Scourgeofsmallishinsects 20:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

If it changed the object that it couldn't lift to be something it could lift, then object is no longer the same object that it was before... So, an omnipotent being cannot create an object it cannot lift and remain omnipotent... But it can do so, at the cost of its omnipotence... To remain omnipotent and create an object it cannot lift would cause the paradox. ..... So the example has a flaw. 132.205.45.110 23:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
That was my point, above. Omnipotence is necessarily contingent. --Llewdor 23:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Change the question to, "Can God make a boulder so heavy that he can never lift it?" --Cyde Weys votetalk 01:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong

Whoever wrote this article, is completely wrong... God IS omnipotent and he IS real. ALL things are possible with God. It's not 'good' logic, God is good, and the philosophical jargon bs they are posting still can't hide the truth. The truth stands- God created the heavens and the earth. He created all things. He is all powerful, He spoke and the world was. The real 'false dilemma' are the lies and deception in opposition to the truth. These philosophers can try to analyze and try to explain away with their 'logic', but they can't outsmart God.

Alright, now please make this npov and then we'll see if it's worthy for inclusion. **snort** Cyde Weys votetalk 01:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Philosophical responses

I'm not an expert on this paradox, but to me this section has an air of 'original research', lumping together various not particularly closely related paradoxes (without much sourcing either). Ben Finn 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

potentia absoluta; potentia ordinaria

Orthodox Catholic theology - including Aquinas but preceding him - generally holds that God limits himself in order to relate to finite, sinful humanity.

God's potentia absoluta (absolute power) is unlimited. God's potentia ordinaria (ordinary power) is limited by what God has himself decreed. For example, by his absolute power God could preserve human beings from death; but in the present order this is impossible, since he has decreed otherwise because of Original Sin. In other words, God keeps his promises or, perhaps better, God has no limits other than those he has freely chosen to impose on himself.

It seems to me that each of the major monotheisms believes in God's self limitation in one way or the other. The heart of Judaism is the Covenant, in which God has limited himself to the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The heart of Islam is the Kor'an, in which God has expressed himself in Arabic, a limited human language. Most of all, the heart of Christianity is the Incarnation, in which the eternal, omnipotent God emptied himself to become a human being.

I think the theme of God's willing self-limitation needs to be brought out a bit more in the article.

BTW - Was Averroës condemned by Bishop Tempier for advancing the omnipotence paradox? I thought he was condemned for his belief in the universal soul. --Joey1898 23:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


According to the Amplified Bible,(which I completely agree with), "God's promises are invariably dependent upon the other party meeting his conditions, whether He says so or not." (footnote to First Chronicles 28:9) --Kirk Surber 14:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Just thinking, People

The definition of Omnipotence, is to be all-powerful, infinitely so, yes?

That means Gods power - God used for the sake of sanity - is infinitely expanding and growing every second?

That means, in the time for God to create an incredibly infinitely heavy rock, his power will have increased, yes?

After all, is not our metaphysical definitions of 'big' and 'infinite' ever largening? In economics, a large sum of money has changed over the dedicates. A million dollars has been decreased in value, yes?

Then, by logic, God can carry the rock, because a rocks weight is never all-increasing.

If God created an all-increasing weight rock, he'd be able to carry it because of the instant between "no rock" and "rock"

Yes?

No?

Link to God

This section, with above header, was in the article; I couldn't see how to clean it up, so I'm moving it to here. If anyone can make it worthwhile, go ahead and put it back in, but in current form it shouldn't be in an article with a link from the front page. --RobthTalk 00:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


  • Omnipotence is to be considered as a whole. An Omnipotent being can do a stone which he cannot lift. Yes. But "being able to" doesn't mean that the omnipotent being will create that stone he cannot lift. Moreover he may decide to create it, and after that decide in his great omnipotence to make that stone "liftable" at least by himself… Where is the problem ? The omnipotent being can do things, even thing that he can't do because he have just to decide to make things feasible or not.
 An omnipotent being decide and things are. That's why there is only one Omnipotent being.

This too. It's a good suggestion, but doesn't belong in the article. --RobthTalk 01:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


What is missing here is Pantheism, which argues, that this Omnipotent being is in all things as well as every matter is part of this omnipotent being. See Nikolaus von Cues and Giordano Bruno.

"a triangle with internal angles that did not add up to 180 degrees" is a inappropriate analogy to the paradox

internal angles that did not add up to 180 degrees is self-contradictory while a stone even the creater cannot lift it. It is a inappropriate analogy. If no one oppose it, I will add this remark to that paragraph--192.193.160.5 04:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No it isn't. There's no reason an omnipotent being couldn't change the rules that govern Euclidean geometry (incidentally, such a triangle is possible if you're working within non-Euclidean geometry). --Llewdor 22:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Why God is related to this article?

The topic of this article talks nothing about gods. And not all gods are omniptent. It is a severe flaw on this article. All reasonings based on gods' attribute(especially christian god) is invalid. If no one opposes it, I will remove or amend all reasonings based on gods. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.193.160.5 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 10 January 2006.

The article talks about gods so much because rarely is any other type of entity conceived as being omnipotent. --Mr. Billion 05:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Please don't. BrianH123 05:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Spirituality

don't fear the paradox, embrace it. What if the whole point of the universe is for the omnipotent being to find out what 'it' can do: what it can achieve as a non-omnipotent being. The point of being here is to be the 'best' non-omnipotent being you can. That's what Jesus was doing. That's what Mohammed was doing. That's what Buddha was doing. Don't ask "What would Jesus do?"; "What would Mohammed do?". Instead, know that we are all the same manifestations of the one creative God. Know that Jesus and all the prophets were as much manifestations of that God as you and I are, and do the most, be the most, do the best, be the best, incarnation of that creative being that you can be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.126.110.66 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 10 January 2006.

Easy now

All right. As the history page shows, this article has become somewhat unstable since being featured on the Main Page, on January 9. I've particularly noticed the misuse of the {{NPOV}} tag. But there's also a lot of vandalism and content dispute going on.
I would like to request that everybody get a grip, or I will enforce temporary protection of the article. Thank you. Redux 12:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

rock example

Though not without certain flaws (discussed below) the above is the most well-known form of the statement, and still serves adequately for illustrating the different ways the paradox has been analyzed.

This sentence seems to massively understate the flaws with the God/rock example, while providing a flimsy excuse for using it. It seems fairly obvious to me that if an article is to explain a philosophical paradox clearly, it should chose relevant, clear examples, not simply those that are most widely known. In this case, the standard example is well known, but extremely poor, so it needs to be mentioned as a historical fact, but it has no place in an explanation of the paradox.

For one thing, the example contributes to the problem present throughout the article of conflating two issues: the paradox at issue, whether an Omnipotent being could limit its omnipotence, and the more general question of whether omnipotence entails the ability to do anything that is logically possible, or the ability to do anything, whether logically possible or not. Some responses to the former involve classifying it as an example of the latter, but the two are not identical on the face of it.

The rock example is poorly thought out, and can be seen as addressing either question. The weight of an object obviously has no bearing on the ability of an omnipotent being to lift it, anymore than does its color, which allows the question to be viewed as one about God's ability to do the incoherent. But it is a very misleading example of this, since the weight of the rock appears to be important: the question "could God create a rock so green he couldn't lift it?" is equally meaningful.

The question relates to the paradox directly only if it is really asking: "can God take away his own ability to lift indefinitely heavy rocks?"but it is not phrased that way, and, once we acknowledge that that is really the question at hand, there is no need for him to create a new rock at all. a better question would then be, "could God make himself so weak that he couldnt lift this rock right here?"

The standard question confuses these issues, and seems to imply that not being able to create a rock so heavy that an omnipotent being can't lift it entails some sort of deficiency in all-powerful rock-creation, which is foolish; he can create any rock, and lift any rock; 'rock so heavy he can't lift it', does not refer in any possible world.

Sorry to be so long winded, basically, the example is bad, it makes an interesting paradox seem silly, and the article suffers.

Ncsaint 14:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
If you say that "God" is not an effect, then it should not be that in theory be logically possible to trace back the effects that led from "God" to the present situation? But before anything else; if an omnipotent being exists, then can it prove its existence?
Same lines, but a different arguement. --The1exile 16:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

God's debris

I've re-added the following that was deleted by an anon.

  • God's Debris by Scott Adams treads ground similar to the omnipotence paradox; the treatment is more serious than humourous. According to the central character of the book, the only challenge for an omnipotent being is to annihilate Himself to see if the resulting components can re-combine into Him - thus, all objects, animate and inanimate in this universe are God's debris.

It would be interesting to know if others feel the above is inappropriate and specify their reasons, before deleting it. --Gurubrahma 17:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, that seems a perfectly appropriate addition to me. --Christofurio 20:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

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