This is the thread devoted to the debate that I (Jesse) and Steve-O have agreed to undertake after much discussion in this thread. The resolution to this debate is:“The omni-attributes of the non-physical Christian God (omnibenevolence, omniscience, omnipotence) lack critical specificity or are incoherent”

I will be arguing the affirmative, while Steve-O will be arguing the negative.

The rules to the debate are as follows:
1. This is a civil debate - there will be no insult hurling.
2. This debate will last three rounds. I will give the opening statement and Steve-O will then give a rebuttal.
3. Unfamiliar terms will be defined upon request.
4. All sources will be cited properly.

Round One: The Opening Statement

I want to take this time to first thank Steve-O for agreeing to a debate on this topic. It’s one that I am very interested in and it is my hope that I will be able to keep our readers entertained and hopefully introduce some new material to both Steve-o and them.

The resolution for this debate is “The omni-attributes of the non-physical Christian God (omnibenevolence, omniscience, omnipotence) lack critical specificity or are incoherent”. What this means is that it’s my contention that the common attributes given to the Christian God (all good, all knowing, all powerful) either do not make any sort of sense or they lack the detail necessary for knowing what the term refers to. In other words, either the terms are contradictory or they are ambiguous – in either case they are unsatisfactory for use in defining God.

Before I begin examining the three omni’s I think it would be helpful to define them first, my definitions come from Dictionary.com, with the exception of omnibenevolence, which I’ve defined in accord with the other two.

Omnibenevolence: One having total goodness; unlimited by evil.
Omniscience: One having total knowledge
Omnipotence: One having unlimited power or authority[1]

Omnibenevolence

Omnibenevolence simply means ‘all good’. Now, I’m not going to debate whether or not ‘good’ and ‘evil’ really exist – in the Christian worldview these things really do exist and that should be sufficient for my purposes in showing that the fact that evil exists contradicts the notion of the omnibenevolence of the Christian God.

I first introduced the following argument in this blog of mine as a contradiction between evil and omnibenevolence. As such, it’s not the typical problem of evil, instead it’s an argument against the divine attribute of being ‘all good’.

1. God is all good, all powerful, all knowing, and is morally perfect.
2. God created/is responsible for everything.
3. God knows every thing in existence prior to the creation of existence.
4. Evil exists.
5. God is responsible for the creation of evil. [From (2) and (3)]
-----------
6. God cannot exist. [From (1), (4), and (5)]

This is just a brief sketch; now, here's the thing, god created everything and knew exactly how his creation was going to turn out (ie, he knew the exact path that his creation would take - he had a comprehensive plan) (1), meaning that god is responsible for evil - whether directly created OR the creation of entities with the potential for evil (since he knows prior to their creation which entities will commit the evil).

This contradicts the idea that god is all good (or omnibenevolent) since evil was a result of what he created - the fact of the matter is, since he knew how everything was going to turn out, he must have intended for evil to exist (from 1-omnipotence & omniscience)in accordance to his ‘plan’. The common theodicy is to say that the evil is for the greater good, therefore it's not a contradiction.

The problem with this is that it's completely beside the point - it doesn't matter what-so-ever about the results of the action (ie, whether or not a greater good comes out of it), because to be all good (omnibenevolent) the entity cannot be responsible or create evil - even the smallest amount, because to do so would be to commit a little evil.

In other words, the argument that the theist is using is "the ends justify the means", the problem is that the 'means' include evil action, which by definition god cannot commit.

Omnibenevolence is also taken to mean ‘all – loving’, usually, and I will be introducing an argument that provides doubt for this proposition. It’s an argument from pain.

In the fictional book, The Hot Zone, Richard Preston describes the real life effects of the Ebola Virus on the human body:

Within days of the infection, Ebola patients suffer from soaring temperatures and excruciating joint and muscle pain. The throat is so sore that swallowing anything, including one’s own saliva, is intolerable. The connective tissues liquefies. The skin becomes like soft bread – it can be spread apart with one’s fingers and blood oozes out. Victims choke as the sloughed off surfaces of their tongues and throats slide into their windpipes. Every body orifice bleeds. Even the eyeballs fill with blood that leaks down the cheeks. [2]

(For more information about the ebola virus, please check here and here.)

Jeffery Lowder brought this point up in a debate about metaphysical naturalism with Phil Fernandes in relation to whether or not it was probable that such suffering was more consistent with naturalism or theism. Along similar lines, it is my contention that this kind of suffering is incompatible with a God that is supposed to be all loving. I can not find a way to reconcile the idea that a being who is supposed to be all loving and all powerful is not only responsible for such a virus’ existence, but fails to lessen the amount of pain that the victims of this disease go through. How is the extent of pain reconcilable with an entity that is all loving? We have pain receptors that serve a functional purpose that help us navigate through the world and deal with bodily damage – so some pain is useful. However the type of pain induced by ebola (and numerous other ailments) is not helpful in this way – in fact, it’s not helpful at all, since the individual usually dies from this massage damage. What does ‘all loving’ mean if such torment is simply allowed to go on? If nothing else, shouldn’t such a being console those who are suffering so that they know that there is a reason for it? No such consolation is apparent though.

Omniscience

Omniscience is typically defined as ‘all knowing’. Not only do I think this is impossible on the face of it, but I also think that there are certain things that God could not know that humans could know.

An all knowing God is simply not able to know everything, and the reason for this is clear if we put ourselves in God’s perspective and introduce a Cartesian Demon scenario into the situation. Consider what Richard Carrier writes:

Consider what philosophers call a “Cartesian Demon.” Suppose some demon were actually solely responsible for sending you all your experiences, whatever they were, and this demon made sure you never knew their real cause. You could even be fooled into thinking you were an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator God, and you would never be the wiser. It follows that if there is a god, he could well be a victim of such a Cartesian Demon. He could never be certain he wasn’t. It is therefore irrational to demand certainty for any of our knowledge. Not even god could have that![3]

What this basically means is that God can not, logically, know everything, from his perspective. There are areas of knowledge where he cannot claim certainty, such as the Cartesian Demon situation above. So the definition of omniscience must necessarily become reduced to the ability to know everything that it’s possible for God to know. What does this mean though?

The problem with this definition is that it’s completely unspecific – additionally a situation emerges where human beings have potential access to knowledge that God does not.

Before I begin to describe what I mean, I think it’s important to define different types of knowledge. The following comes from Michael Martin:

Now, philosophers have usually distinguished three kinds of knowledge: propositional and procedural knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance. Briefly, propositional or factual knowledge is knowledge that something is the case and is analyzable as true belief of a certain kind. In contrast, procedural knowledge or knowledge-how is a type of skill and is not reducible to propositional knowledge. Finally, knowledge by acquaintance is direct acquaintance with some object, person, or phenomenon. For example, to say “I know Smith” implies that one has not only detailed propositional knowledge about Smith but also direct acquaintance with Smith.[4]

It seems to me that God is instantly ruled out of possessing all knowledge in regards to two of these types of knowledge. For example, God would not have procedural knowledge of how to fly a plane or drive a car or to make love to a wife. He might be familiar with the facts of it, but not the basic muscle-memory/actual doing of the thing, type of procedural knowledge. Additionally God could not have knowledge by direct acquaintance in a specific sense of what it’s like for me to know you Steve-O.

There are some other trouble areas for God when you take into the other omni-attributes. God has no direct knowledge of committing evil – at least if he’s supposed to be omnibenevolent. God also has no direct acquaintance with lust or envy – as Martin points out. This is because God is supposed to be omnipotent, i.e., God can’t ‘want’ for something. God can also not be said to truly know of our fear of languishing in an eternal place of torment. Ironically enough, God can’t know what it’s like to be outside of God’s love.

This all reduces to God being able to know only what God is able to know – but as I’ve stressed with the other attributes, this is problematic. How do we know what God is able to know?

Omnipotence

Omnipotence is typically taken to mean ‘able to do anything’ or ‘without limits’. There are several problems with this idea when related to the Christian God. One is the fact that the God of Christianity is defined as being ‘immaterial/non-physical’ and the other is that this God is also defined as being ‘omniscient’.

On the face of it omnipotence seemingly cannot exist as the implication of ‘able to do anything’ entails the ability to create nonsensical things, such as square circles. Were we to accept this as a possible state of affairs we would be, in fact, accepting something allogical/illogical, which is irrational and incoherent. Most theists, however, do not define omnipotence in this manner, following in Thomas Aquinas’ footsteps in suggesting that such things are nonsensical and therefore couldn’t logically exist. As a result most theists define omnipotence as the ‘ability to do anything logically consistent’.

Upon examination though, this as well is insufficient. Can God create a truly immortal person? If so, then God is capable of creating a creature which God cannot kill – i.e., there is now a limit on what God can do. If not, then God is not omnipotent. In either case, God cannot be classified as an entity that has the ‘ability to do anything logically consistent’ as there are limits on the extent of God’s power.

What this boils down to is the idea that there are things that one can do if and only if one cannot do certain other things. Some questions are derived from this: Can God commit evil? Can God sin? Can God go against his nature? I think the answer to all of these is ‘no’. So right off the bat we can determine that omnipotence is contradictory – the whole idea that something can do *anything* doesn’t actually pan out. So what we have to determine is what can God do in relation to his nature – this is problematic though since we don’t know what God is made of – we don’t exactly know God’s ‘nature’, nor can we since by definition, it’s supernatural. God’s nature could be one that entails that God can’t actually do anything – and as such, that’s hardly what people think of when they think ‘omnipotence’.

Now a typical question addressed to theists who believe in an omnipotent God is, ‘can God create a rock so big and heavy that he can’t lift it?’, this is meant to show a contradiction in the concept of omnipotence, because an all powerful God should be able to lift anything – yet at the same time, an all powerful God should be able to create anything. It’s an interesting question that I’ve addressed extensionally above, but it immediately leads me to a more fundamental question:

How can God lift any rocks at all?

What I mean by this is that God is supposed to be a non-physical entity, which means God is not made of material or energy. In order to lift something, these two things are necessary, otherwise how is it possible to lift anything? It seems to me that not only is it impossible on the face of it, but that it’s also completely unclear as to how God could have any power what-so-ever.

Another problem with omnipotence in reference to the Christian God is that this God is also defined as being omniscient. Omniscience as described earlier is the ability to know everything. It is my contention that the fact that God knows everything contradicts the idea that God is omnipotent, this is because that such an entity would be completely unable to do anything outside of what it already knew it was going to do; but an all powerful entity is supposed to be able to do anything.

So what exactly does it mean to say that God is omnipotent? The term is contradictory on the face of it and it lacks the critical specificity needed in order to make the term useful. If it means that God is omnipotent according to God’s own nature, then under this sort of definition practically everything has the potential to be omnipotent – in other words the definition is not specific at all and I’ll be addressing specificity next.


Specificity

All of these problems that I addressed bring up the issue of specificity: What does it mean to say that something is an omnimax entity (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent)? If it means that such omni attributes are only as powerful, knowing, or good in a divine way (as opposed to how the terms are described above) then it is critical to know what the divine actually is – but this seems to me to be impossible. The divine is characterized as the supernatural, or outside of the natural. Since it’s outside of the natural then by definition it’s outside of any sort of definition we could give it since our cognition, knowledge, and experiences all stem from the natural.

In any event, in order to give reference to what the omnimax attributes actually mean in context of a divine entity Steve – O is going to have to define for us what God actually is and how such attributes function.

Otherwise it’s my contention that the omnimax attributes are meaningless. To further illustrate this point, Francois Tremblay states, regarding omniscience (which I think that this example can be extended to all of God’s omni-attributes though):

A rebuttal could be made along the lines that a god is omniscient within its own limits, i.e., that it can only have knowledge that it can possibly have. This would explain why a god could not have physical knowledge, but could still be omniscient in a divine manner.

But this is unacceptable, in the sense that then any being who knows everything that it can know can be called omniscient in that sense. Such a meaning reduces omniscience to a triviality: indeed even humans, or lesser beings, could theoretically be omniscient in this case.

Imagine a being called McNose. McNose can only logically know how to scratch its nose and can only have knowledge relative to nose itching and scratching - this is all his nervous system can possibly accommodate. If McNose has all the knowledge relative to these actions and sensations, he could then be called omniscient, despite the fact that its total knowledge is indeed quite small compared to a normal human being.

Another flaw in this reasoning is that this does not set aside the major problem with god's omniscience: that it cannot logically know somethings that humans can logically know. Even if it is omniscience in the sense described, the paradox would still stand.

Another rebuttal can be made on the grounds that a hypothetical god could acquire this knowledge from other beings. Since human beings have physical and mental knowledge that this god does not, why couldn't that god get the knowledge from human beings?

But this does not address the question. The contradiction under discussion is about divine nature itself, about direct knowledge, not about indirect knowledge. To see this distinction, suppose I tell someone who has absolutely no physical experience about how to ride a bicycle, swim, or play golf. Would such a person be automatically able to unconsciously ride a bicycle, swim, or play golf? Obviously not. He would have indirect knowledge about it, but not direct knowledge, the kind that we are discussing in the argument.

As such, we can call emotions and muscle memory knowledge because we are referring to the experience of these things. We have knowledge of how emotions and muscle memory feel in our body, but a god cannot.[5]

So essentially what do I believe I’ve shown in this opening statement? I think I’ve shown that, on the face of it, the definitions for the omni-attributes are false. The omnimax attributes all boil down to unlimited in regards to X – which as I hope I’ve shown in my presentation, is contrary to logic and reason. I think I’ve also shown that subsequent reductions to the definitions result in ambiguity and a lack of specificity; which ultimately mean these attributes tell us nothing.

I await Steve-O’s challenges to my opening post to see whether I turn out to be correct or not, at least in regards to this debate.

References

1.http://dictionary.reference.com/
2. The Hot Zone, Richard Preston, 1994
3. Sense and Goodness without God, Richard Carrier, 2005 p. 49-50
4. Atheism, a philosophical justification, Michael Martin, 1990 p.287-291
5. The Handbook of Atheistic Apologetics, Francios Tremblay

Round Two The Rebuttal

Steve-O has given me quite a bit of material to think about; however I do not think he has adequately resolved the problems I brought up in my initial post. In this post I will attempt to explain why I believe this is so.

Omnibenevolence

While I find Steve-O’s explanation of passive and active action an interesting reflection on how God accomplishes things, I do not see it as a particularly damaging rebuttal to the problem I initially posed. This is because I took into consideration the idea that God might not directly create evil, but the fact remains that he is responsible for it.

This is an unavoidable consequence of an omniscient, omnipotent, creator God. I will admit that I find that the basic premise behind Steve-O’s rebuttal feasible in ordinary human circumstances. This is because human beings are not all knowing and are not in total control.

I will use the example that Steve-O has provided to further demonstrate this, Steve-O writes:

I find error in Jesse’s interpretation of the all-good concept. I think a more accurate interpretation is that an all-good God cannot be directly responsible or actively create evil. Would anyone consider Adolf Hitler’s great-grandfather evil because of Adolf’s crimes? No one in his right mind would! Jesse mentioned ways in which God is responsible for evil, however it is entirely indirectly.

What’s interesting here is that by Steve-O’s definition, God is directly responsible for evil. God created the world according to his plan and he knew exactly how it was going to turn out – it’s the same thing as Hitler passing the orders to the SS to start the death camps, only God has more certainty that such ‘orders’ (or plans) will be carried out. It’s completely unclear how God could not be directly responsible. In fact, I’d argue that if God wasn’t directly responsible then God couldn’t be omnipotent as there would be portions of the universe outside of his control.

Furthermore, in Steve-O’s example, Hitler’s great-grandfather cannot be said to be directly responsible. Hitler’s great-grandfather had no idea that through his lineage Hitler would be born. Hitler’s great-grandfather may not have even been alive when Hitler was born – but I don’t think that really matters since I think the best someone could argue is that Hitler’s great-grandfather is only tangently involved in Hitler’s evil.

I think that it would be more appropriate to charge Hitler with a passive action here, in the same manner that God was passively acting by hardening the Pharaoh’s heart, since he merely enabled his soldier to follow their fallen nature by approving ‘final solution’ plans which ultimately led to the extermination of millions of people in death camps. In other words, it’s completely unclear why Steve-O is implying that Hitler was evil.

Again, my point about God was that God was responsible for evil because of his omnimax nature. This is different from Hitler’s grandfather. Now if Hitler’s great-grandfather knew that Hitler would grow up and order the final solution and Hitler’s great-grandfather did nothing to stop him, then Hitler’s grandfather could be considered guilty of evil action, I suppose. After all, the maxim is that evil prevails when good men do nothing.

However this is still not quite an accurate picture of the criticism I’ve made of omnibenevolence – this is because my criticism lay with the evil itself, not with the allowance of evil to persist. The fact of the matter is God knows the future and created everything according to his/her/its plan – this is the problem in regards to omnibenevolence. One or more of these four things (omnibenevolent, omniscient, creator, plan) must be addressed/eliminated in order to solve the problem. To use an analogy, this is like an author writing a book where his characters commit evil actions. The author could say that his characters committed those actions because of the circumstances they were in, because of the type of upbringing they had, because of certain chemical reaction in the character’s brain, because of a whole host of justifications – the problem is that the author created those circumstances and knew that the characters would react in a certain way to those circumstances. Instead of simply not creating them, the author is guilty of not only creating them but ensuring that they get into those circumstances as their doing such corresponds with the authors storyline or ‘plan’.

Had the author written nothing, those characters would not have committed evil – i.e., evil would not exist.

After all, if someone engineered the massive cruel destruction of a race of people and set all the gears in motion for it to happen, but instead of ‘pushing the button’ (so-to-speak) knew that someone far less competent would push the button, would the engineer not be responsible for the evil?

I further find Steve-O’s suggestion that we require evil in order to appreciate the good. Well, why don’t we have the same knowledge of evil that Steve supposes God has? In fact, it’s unclear to me why evil must exist at all under this scheme as according to Steve-O, not only is God good, but he is omnibenevolent, all good. God is without evil. How can God appreciate the good, according to Steve-O, without creating evil?

Steve-O writes:

Without evil, there is no fear. Without fear, there is no courage; there is no valor; there are no heroes. Basically, without evil, there is no good.

Not only is this problematic in regards to God, it’s also unclear why actual evil is necessary. I think Michael Martin puts it best when he writes:

If a contrast with evil is necessary, it is not necessary to have knowledge by acquaintance of evil, such as the suffering of a person being tortured. Vicarious and empathic acquaintance is enough. Even now, people with extremely sensitive empathic ability can understand and appreciate the good of not being tortured without actually having been tortured. God could have created all humans with a high degree of empathic ability. God has already created some humans with the ability to produce imaginative art and literature that depicts evil. By viewing art and reading literature about evil, people created with highly sensitive empathic ability could empathically experience what is depicted and thus learn to appreciate good without experiencing evil.[1]

Steve-O also commented:

Evil is absolutely necessary to experience good. I would venture to say that if God did not allow evil, only then He would be evil.

How is this quote reconcilable with God’s omnipotence? It seems that God must capitulate to evil in order for him to be good under Steve-O’s view. This brings up an interesting problem of what occurred prior to creation and what occurs after revelation. In order for heaven to be a good place, is it Steve-O’s contention that must be allowed there too? If it isn’t, then why must it be allowed on earth? In any event, I see no reason for actually evil to exist, as I indicated earlier.

Steve-O’s response to the problem of pain I brought up is indeed interesting. I am still unclear as to why the extent of pain is allowed. After all, I’m not arguing that pain could not or should not exist at all – it is the extent that I am examining.

Obviously some pain must exist – much more so then just stubbing your toe. In order to avoid life threatening situations, we need to experience a certain amount of pain. In fact, pain is the way our body tells us that something is wrong. However when your body is shutting down and death is certain, such pain does not serve a function. It’s there because of our evolutionary heritage (there was no mechanism to ‘turn it off’, so-to-speak). My position was that the extent of pain which people suffer is unnecessary and as such is problematic in relation to an all loving all powerful God. So yes, I acknowledge that a certain amount of pain is necessary for humans to function and I acknowledge that some pain has to exist – I even acknowledge that some of that necessary pain would constitute the ‘greatest’ pain, were it not for unnecessary pain. My argument is not centered around ‘greatest’ pain, instead it’s centered on unnecessary pain – why does that occur in light of a God that loves us? If it’s your contention that unnecessary pain does not occur then you will have to explain how the pain I described above is actually necessary.

Omniscience

Steve-O seems to just dismiss the Cartesian demon problem that I presented by saying it was a strawman argument. However it’s not entirely clear why Steve-O believes this. His defense of the strawman claim was that if such a demon existed God would cease to be God – but he entirely ignores the criticism in relation to what his God can actually know. In short, he ends up creating a strawman by focusing on *our* perspective and not God’s. The point about the Demon is that God could never be certain because of such a scenario – that God could not know that what God experienced was a result of a Demon or not. It’s an item that God cannot know. This contradicts the idea that God could know everything. So it would seem that Steve-O’s criticisms means that, at least according to Steve-O, God doesn’t exist, since God could not possibly have this knowledge.

In order to be clear, I’ll say that it doesn’t actually matter whether it is or is not actually the case (i.e., whether a Cartesian Demon of this sort exists). The point is that God couldn’t know for certain that it wasn’t the case, which means that God can’t know everything.

What Steve-O essentially seems to be saying is that he wouldn’t argue for a God that was victim to a Cartesian demon – which is irrelevant because I’m not asking him to. I’m not asking him to argue for a specific God, I’m asking him how an entity, any entity could possibly know everything? I’ve constructed a problem of knowledge that applies to any entity and Steve-O does not appear to have resolved it.

I’m also unclear as to what Steve-O means by saying that my argument against omniscience boils down to ‘God cannot learn’ – it seems to me that this would be obvious, seeing as it would mean that if this were the case then God would not know something and therefore would have to ‘learn it’. This means that God didn’t know everything. He brings up several examples in order to justify this. One of these examples makes a reference to the Matrix. Steve-O says:

Have you seen the movie, The Matrix? When you become plugged into the matrix, you can type in whatever ability you want and acquire the procedural knowledge of it. For example, Trinity learned not only intellectually how to fly a helicopter, but procedurally. God however, does not need to learn it because He already knows it.

Yes, I have seen the Matrix. The trouble with this analogy is that God does not have a physical body – God does not have the muscle memory to know how to fly a helicopter or ride a bike. God is not physical. It’s not just the imputing into the brain that is required for this example, it’s the physical body as well.

In another example, Steve-O brings up snakes and how when they are born they know how much venom to inject into people – but who says they are born with this knowledge? Where is Steve-O’s evidence for this and where is his evidence that this behavior is a result of a conscious decision on the part of the snake? I recognize that older snakes can attain the ability to inject certain amounts of venom into their victims, but I do not see any evidence of this at birth. But regardless of whether or not this is actually factual, the point remains that God is not a snake, God does not possess the physicality of a snake, so how can God be said to procedurally know these things?

Let’s say that Steve-O’s example from the matrix is correct, that such knowledge could be downloaded into a brain – the fact remains that without the physicality of Trinity or the snake – God could not procedurally know how to ‘bite’ someone or how to ‘fly a helicopter’. God doesn’t have fangs in order to bite someone with, God doesn’t have feet and hands in order to pilot a plane, so exactly what would God know how to do if such information was uploaded into his ‘brain’?

Steve-O criticizes another point I made by saying:

Jesse also states that God cannot know evil because He is all-good. That is not a wise assumption either. For example, if I know how to make a car bomb, does that make me a terrorist? Of course not! Knowing evil does not at all mean committing it. The best cops can many times be straightened up crooks because they know the criminal mind. If He has always been all-knowing, God did not have to be a sinner to know his mind.

However I think his aim is a little off because my contention was not that God could not know evil because he was all good – my contention was more specific; God could not know what it was like to actually commit evil. I agree with Steve-O, I know how to make a car bomb, but where we disagree is that I don’t know what it’s like to actually make one.

I can know about evil through acquaintance, but this is a different sort of knowledge as I differentiated between the types of knowledge earlier. I can have propositional knowledge of what it’s like to have homosexual lust for someone, but propositional knowledge is different from procedural knowledge – for both myself and God. God can’t have such knowledge on two counts – one, it’s against his omnibenevolent nature (as homosexuality is held to be ‘wrong’ in the Christian religion) and two, God doesn’t have a body in which to have the muscle memory or direct experience of the encounter.

Additionally I stated previously that God can also not be said to truly know of our fear of languishing in an eternal place of torment or know what it’s like to be outside of God’s love. Steve-O made a comment towards both of these things by saying the following:

It is also interesting to point out that the Christian God includes Jesus. He knows what death is like. He also knows what it is like outside of God’s love as when He died on the cross, God forsook Him. God turned His back and severed the tie of love between the Father and the Son if only for a moment.

I find this response inadequate though since Jesus would have known that he was not going to be in hell forever and since Jesus is God (therefore how can God be outside of God’s own love?). The question I initially raised was about the fear of eternal torment, not finite torment or death. Jesus surely wouldn’t know what it was like to possess the fear of eternal torment, or what it’s like to sin for that matter.

Furthermore, Steve-O doesn’t seem to have commented on the last type of possible knowledge I mentioned that was accessible to humans but not God. I.e., by direct acquaintance – God does not know what I know when I say that I know you Steve-O. Furthermore, God doesn’t know what it’s like to actually be ignorant. God doesn’t know what it’s like to pose a question to himself and not know the answer to it. This could also be considered a problem for omnipotence as well. In short, there are a lot of things that God can’t know that humans can.

Omnipotence

Steve-O seems to partially agree with me on several of the points that I made against omnipotence. One being that the power is confined to unlimited power within logical premises of omnipotence. However I’ve demonstrated that this is not completely true for God either.

Steve-O writes:

Jesse asked, “Can God create a truly immortal person?” God can create a being that He would not destroy, but God could not make a truly immortal person. This is exactly the same as the creating a rock so big that He cannot lift it question. God could make a rock that He would not lift, but not that he cannot lift. Does that diminish God’s power? Not at all! He still has unlimited power to do what is logically possible.

The point I made was that God can only do things if and only if he cannot do certain other things. In other words, there is a logical limit on what God can do (not merely an incoherency limit). Steve-O tries to reconcile the ‘rock’ problem but it’s not clear at all how his proposed solution is actually a solution. The fact of the matter is, God could not make a rock that he could not lift because in doing so there would be something that God should be logically able to do, but can’t.

This isn’t a problem with illogical items, such as ‘square circles’, this is a problem of limits. For example, there is nothing illogical with the notion of an omnipotent entity being able to come up with a question that he can’t answer – I can do that, why does God not have this power?

Additionally Steve-O writes:

Can God commit evil? Can God sin? Can God go against His nature? Yes. God can do all these things, but He will not. Because God is all-loving He will not lie to us or commit wicked acts.

It’s not clear at all how God *can* commit evil since God is supposed to be ‘all good’. Perhaps Steve-O can elucidate on this. All of these things that Steve-O says God can do are contradicted by his omnibenevolence – so no, it doesn’t appear that God can’t do those things without sacrificing that characteristic and it’s completely unclear as to why Steve-O believes he can do these things without sacrificing omnibenevolence. The problem is that this leads God into the situation where humans can do things God cannot.

It is also completely confusing that Steve-O said that God can go against his own nature – what does that mean exactly though? God can do things that God cannot do? To say that God has a nature is to say that God must exist somewhere, must have definable features, and must have a relationship or context to other things. If one denies these things then you descend into incoherency.

So God must necessarily be omnipotent according to his own nature, but if we don’t know what God’s nature is, then how can we say what omnipotence actually entails? It seems to me that we can’t, because to do otherwise would be to possibly suggest contradictory things – such as an omnibenevolent God being evil.

Now I asked a question of how an immaterial/non-physical entity can lift a rock at all and Steve-O’s solution was to appeal to the physical law of gravity which depends on objects of mass attracting other objects of mass. Steve-O’s contention seems to be that God is a physical object of mass and that’s how he can lift the rock, by using the law of gravity – otherwise it’s not clear how God could do this.

Additionally it seems as though Steve-O is going to appeal to current human ignorance of the completeness of nature. I do not see how this is a viable alternative to answering the question though, since what is in contention is precisely what God can and can not do. It would be like me asserting that rocks can think and reproduce, and when asked to explain, my answer is ‘because we don’t know everything about the universe, we can’t rule it out’. Well, what I am doing in that situation, which is the same thing Steve-O is doing, is begging the question. I’m assuming a priori that rocks can think and reproduce and then I’m appealing to our lack of knowledge as evidence. This is also a logical fallacy known as appealing to ignorance.

Steve-O further speculates that God could work through one of the twelve dimensions. There are a few problems with this – one, is as I noted above, it’s an appeal to ignorance. Two is that, as far as I know, it is speculated that there are eleven dimensions and these dimensions are part of the physical universe. They are physical properties of the universe and as such are not applicable to an immaterial/non physical entity that exists outside of the universe. Another problem is that Steve-O fails to explain how God could possibly use these laws. What I mean is that these laws correspond with the nature of the universe; they do not show any direct intelligence behind them. Gravity does not ‘think’ for example. So it’s completely unclear how an immaterial, non physical entity outside the universe could have access to anything within the universe or exert any sort of control over any of the laws of the universe. Steve-O will have to further explain how God could accomplish this in order to make such concepts coherent.

It seems to me that Steve-O missed one of the problems with omnipotence that I mentioned. Perhaps in his upcoming rebuttal he can address the issue and provide some clarity for me, since it directly impacts the coherency of what it means to be omnipotent. I wrote:

Another problem with omnipotence in reference to the Christian God is that this God is also defined as being omniscient. Omniscience as described earlier is the ability to know everything. It is my contention that the fact that God knows everything contradicts the idea that God is omnipotent, this is because that such an entity would be completely unable to do anything outside of what it already knew it was going to do; but an all powerful entity is supposed to be able to do anything.

How can God be classified as omnipotent if he can’t even change his mind? In what sense is God unlimited if he’s completely limited in this manner? Also, does God have the power to not exist?

Specificity

I don’t think that Steve-O disagreed with my section on specificity in general; it is just his contention that God does meet the requirements of being specifically described. I disagree and hope he can shed some light on the problems I mentioned above.

I do find the following paragraph problematic however, Steve-O writes:

When something “defies” the laws of physics, what does science do? Science accepts that the laws of physics are not fully known and attempts to learn from it. The flight pattern of a bumble bee is a perfect example of this. The same can be said when something seems to contradict evolution. It is not a contradiction, but just shows our lack of understanding in the theory. So why does a God that defies our complete understanding seem so impossible?

While I agree with the basic premise that science is necessarily incomplete, the point of the matter is that when something goes against the current norms of science, science looks for explanations as to why that is. This is because we have some understanding of how the universe operates. The problem in applying this sort of principle to God is that we have no understanding of how God operates (as in mechanistically, like the universe). This is why any understanding of this sort will ultimately, in my opinion, lead to incoherence.

Steve-O also takes issue with my contention about what constitutes the supernatural. He writes:

A more accurate expression could be super-what-is-known-to-be-natural.

Here I have to strongly disagree with Steve-O. It is the contention of Christians, as far as I understand it, that God is above nature, that God created nature, he exists outside of nature. This is why God is not applicable or constrained by natural laws. This is why God is supposedly able to think without a brain, why God’s power is supposedly unlimited, and why God could have created the universe in the first place.

Now, I find most of these notions incoherent on the face of them, in fact, God as a creator of the universe is very problematic for omnipotence. As science has so far uncovered, space and time came into existence with the expansion of the singularity. This is problematic because it suggests that there was never a time without time – i.e., all there is or ever was, was the expansion of the singularity. In any event, the problem is that the Christian God is usually constructed in such a way as to be outside of time – God created time and space. This is incoherent though because in order to do so God would have needed time and space. Otherwise, when and where could God have created the universe? To appeal to outside of space and time is to lack any sort of specificity. It’s like saying the thing I hold in my hand is not a rock. It might be true that it’s not a rock, but the fact remains that there is an infinity of other items it could be. The problem is compounded in the case of the Christian God and creation because at least we have some conception of what it means for me to hold something in my hand. We have no such conception of what it means to exist outside of space and time.

I hope in Steve-O’s rebuttal that he is able to further clarify these issues for me.

References


1. Atheism, A Philosophical Justification, Michael Martin 1990