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28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions

[contradictions in our concept of a supreme being]

17 ideas
In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles]
     Full Idea: It is a consequence of Empedocles' view that God is the most unintelligent thing, for he alone is ignorant of one of the elements, namely strife, whereas mortal creatures are familiar with them all.
     From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 410b08
If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato holds God to be without a body, immaterial; but this is an incomprehensible idea. Such a god would inevitably lack any consciousness, any wisdom and any pleasure (…or motion), all of which are bound up in our idea of God.
     From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.30
Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero]
     Full Idea: Why should the gods not be apprehensive of their own possible dissolution?
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.114)
God can do anything non-contradictory, as making straightness with no line, or lightness with no parts [Auriol]
     Full Idea: If someone says 'God could make straightness without a line, and roughness and lightness in weight without parts', …then show me the reason why God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction, yet cannot do these things.
     From: Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], IV.12.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 11.4
     A reaction: How engagingly bonkers. The key idea preceding this is that God can do all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding. He is then obliged to offer some examples.
An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth]
     Full Idea: Omnipotent will cannot make things like or equal one to another, without the natures of likeness and equality.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.I)
     A reaction: This is one of the many classic 'paradoxes of omnipotence'. The best strategy is to define omnipotence as 'being able to do everything which it is possible to do'. Anything beyond that is inviting paradoxical disaster.
Perfections must have overlapping parts if their incompatibility is to be proved [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If two propositions (about perfections) are incompatible, that cannot be demonstrated without a resolution of the terms, for otherwise their nature would not enter into the ratiocination.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], App X)
     A reaction: If God is omnipotent and wholly free, these appear to be fully separate perfections. But it is their implications (can God decide to do otherwise, given His foreknowledge?) which lead to a problem. So this analyis of contradiction is wrong.
A God who cures us of a head cold at the right moment is a total absurdity [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: A God who cures a headcold for us at the right moment is so absurd a God he would have to be abolished even if he existed.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ [1889], 52)
It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James]
     Full Idea: We can with difficulty comprehend the character of a cosmic mind whose purposes are fully revealed by the strange mixture of good and evils that we find in this actual world's particulars.
     From: William James (Pragmatism - eight lectures [1907], Lec 3)
     A reaction: And, of course, what counts as 'goods' or 'evils' seems to have a highly relative aspect to it. To claim that really it is all good is massive hope based on flimsy evidence.
A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer]
     Full Idea: The notion of a person whose essential attributes are non-empirical is not an intelligible notion at all.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Non-empirical and non-causal are not quite the same thing. A being which never had any effects is a bizarre, and probably pointless, fantasy. A being which affected our world (through ideas, say) but is unobservable is a perfectly good theory.
You can only know the limits of knowledge if you know the other side of the limit [Searle]
     Full Idea: To know the limits of knowledge, we would have to know both sides of the limit.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.V.6)
If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: Omniscience excludes the making of decisions. If God knows everything that will occur, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 8)
     A reaction: [He cites Aquinas on this] I find it very difficult to see how anyone could read the Bible (see Idea 8008) while keeping this point continually in mind, without seeing the whole book as a piece of blatant anthropomorphism.
In the Bible God changes his mind (repenting of creating humanity, in the Flood) [Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: In the Bible God changes his mind, as when he repents of having made man and decides to destroy the human race in the Flood.
     From: Karen Armstrong (A History of God [1993], Ch.1)
     A reaction: It becomes apparent that the most startling feature of Christian fundamentalism is its uncritical reading of the Bible, in which passages are wilfully lifted from context, and inconvenient inconsistencies are ruthlessly ignored.
Presumably God can do anything which is logically possible [Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Presumably it is in God's powers, when creating the world, to do anything that is logically possible.
     From: David J.Chalmers (The Conscious Mind [1996], 2.4.2)
     A reaction: I don't really understand why anyone would say that the only constraint on God is logic. Presumably no logic is breached if God places in object simultaneously in two spacetime locations, but it would be an impressive achievement.
Omniscience is incoherent, since knowledge is a social concept [Kusch]
     Full Idea: The very idea of omniscience is dubious, at least for the communitarian epistemologist, since knowing is a social state, and knowledge is a social status, needing a position in a social network.
     From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4)
     A reaction: A nice test case. Would an omniscient mind have evidence for its beliefs? Would it continually check for coherence? Is it open to criticism? Does it even entertain the possibility of error? Could another 'omniscient' mind challenge it?
God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen]
     Full Idea: Theologians worry that God may be an alien being. God cannot feel pain since pain is endured against one's will. God is all powerful and suffers nothing against His Will. To understand pain, one must experience pain. So God's power walls him off from us.
     From: Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: I can't think of a good theological reply to this. God, and Jesus too (presumably), can only experience pain if they volunteer for it. It is inconceivable that they could be desperate for it to stop, but were unable to achieve that.
How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG]
     Full Idea: How could God be certain that he has free will (if He has), if He couldn't be sure that there wasn't an unknown force controlling his will?
     From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031])
An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG]
     Full Idea: God seems to be in the paradoxical situation that He may be omniscient, but can never know that He is, because that involves knowing that there is nothing outside his scope of knowledge (e.g. another God)
     From: PG (Db (ideas) [2031])