Q&A: God's Omnipotence and Logical Contradictions
God's Omnipotence and Logical Contradictions
Question
You once wrote to me about Maimonides and Rashba that God cannot make a square circle—and you wrote that from our perspective God cannot do something that contradicts logic. But all of that is from our perspective. Did you mean to say that with respect to God in Himself, since we cannot speak about Him or understand anything about Him at all, we do not try to say what He can or cannot do, only that as He is revealed to us it cannot be something that contradicts logic, because God wants us to relate to Him as though He is "limited" by the limits of logic, since that is how He wants us to understand Him?
Answer
What I mean is that any talk about a logical contradiction is nonsense, that is, meaningless, and therefore there is no point in dealing with it, even when it concerns the Holy One, blessed be He. Talk about God as well refers to what we grasp of Him. It is not that God wants us to understand that He is limited; rather, He really is limited. Except that the limits of logic are not really limits at all. An omnipotent being is one who can do everything that is possible and well-defined. If there is something that can be done and He cannot do it, that is a limitation of His. But things that cannot be done in principle, like a square circle, because they are not defined at all (there simply are no such things), do not detract from His omnipotence in the slightest. He cannot—or can—do blah blah blah (= a square circle)… what does that even mean?
Discussion on Answer
A. I did not understand your argument. When a body stands in the air despite the law of gravity, that is not a logical contradiction, and therefore it is within God's power to do it. He freezes the law of gravity. But He cannot make a square circle.
B. Again, I did not understand (it seems to me that you did not understand). I claim that God is omnipotent. That is my claim (unproven). You raise an objection to that claim that allegedly contains a contradiction: the stone that He cannot lift. I argue that if we assume that God is omnipotent, then there is no such stone, and therefore your objection is not an objection. If you assume there is such a stone, then you have assumed that He is not omnipotent, and so that is begging the question. Since you are the one raising the difficulty, you have to assume my premises and not yours, and show that from my own premises I arrive at a contradiction. You will not succeed in doing that with the stone example. There is neither an objection nor a paradox here.
C-D. See the previous section.
You're welcome.
A. By freezing the law of gravity, the contradiction never starts in the first place. So too, God will freeze the triangularity, and then the circle will rest peacefully in its place. A contradiction that God deals with means despite its existence, not by canceling it and canceling one of the sides that lead to the contradiction. You are basically just saying that God is stronger than gravity, but not above contradiction. And if I remember correctly, you spoke about physical contradictions where both sides continue to clash with each other, such as "the whole earth is full of His glory," yet He is nowhere—but I do not really remember.
B. I do not know how to formalize it, but I will try to prepare it for formalization.
1. Omnipotence a priori means being able to perform all actions, with no impediment to acting.
2. Creating a stone that cannot be lifted is an action. (Certainly that does not cease to be an action even if there is no such stone.)
3. An omnipotent being can perform (certainly, by definition) the creation of a stone that cannot be lifted.
4. An omnipotent being cannot lift a stone.
The Rabbi argues that I have begged the question. The assumption of a stone that cannot be lifted does not lead to an a priori contradiction by virtue of its very concept. A stone that cannot be lifted is possible. The stone does not contradict itself; it contradicts an omnipotent being. By contrast, the concept of omnipotence includes within it the ability to contain everything—and its name says it all. Therefore the stone is included within the concept of omnipotence, because there is nothing that is not a part of everything.
In the blessing of "He that withholds grain, the people shall curse him; but blessing shall be upon the head of him that sells it"
Come on, really. There is no point in this insistence.
Greetings, Rabbi. As I have seen many times throughout the site, there is a large public that did not understand the Rabbi's answer to this paradoxical issue. I appreciate the Rabbi's patience with what seems to him like grinding water, while in our eyes this is grinding millstones against one another, and the matter is difficult. There are several points I would like to focus on here, if I may.
A. The Rabbi writes that God can "deal with" physical contradictions but not logical ones. Seemingly, the laws of logic (which were not legislated, as the Rabbi emphasized) are basically just a pair of glasses that show us the truth and how to reach it—the truth that sits in some specific slot in reality. This could be a truth about a subjective reality, an objective reality, and even one that is not physical but metaphysical. The Rabbi usually gives the example that He did not create Satan (since He cannot because of the contradiction…), and the square circle, which is a contradiction between concepts and is meaningless. But seemingly logic is only a practical means and a certain way of getting to a physical contradiction: does that object have 0 sides or 3 sides? And so with every example that does not contain a contradiction within the very "world of concepts of logic," but rather a contradiction in some specific slot in reality.
And even more so: a physical contradiction is itself a logical contradiction. That is, the problematic nature of a physical contradiction is due to the logical law of non-contradiction. In other words, it is a logical contradiction.
B. The Rabbi answers that a stone that cannot be lifted cannot exist because it is meaningless. So then don't posit the existence of an omnipotent being. You are basically trying to solve a paradox by saying that if you say there is such a stone, then that is a paradox. Fine. That itself is exactly the paradox we are talking about.
C. In the absence of necessity for the paradox and absent conclusive proof of its existence, common sense would reject the existence of the object that contains the paradox. The paradox stands and exists, and there are 2 options for how to relate to it: 1. The paradox proves the nonexistence of an omnipotent being. 2. The paradox is solved and the existence of such a being is possible. We now have to discuss whether option 1 or 2 is more reasonable. The Rabbi holds that 2 is more reasonable?! So here I have found a place where one doesn't force an answer, but only forces the question.
D. I think that if we tilt the attribute of omnipotence only in the positive direction, then no stone will be able to paradox my God.
Thank you very much, and have a good day!