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Q&A: God and Logical Contradictions

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

God and Logical Contradictions

Question

Regarding your view that God cannot do logical contradictions, I would like to refer you here, where the writer brings several examples that are ostensibly contradictions that cannot coexist, and I would be glad to hear your opinion about them [and before that he brought the example of the Ark not occupying space].
However, there only the combination of the two states is impossible, and if I remember correctly you made some such distinction in the discussion of knowledge and free choice.

Answer

I did not see there any logical contradiction except for the case of the Ark. That can be explained in terms of two different perceptions (an illusory perception), not different realities. But even if there were such Talmudic examples, I would not accept that.

Discussion on Answer

Michi (2020-01-30)

In recent years a book came out on this (based on a doctorate) by Rubin, and maybe he is also the writer there under that acronym.

The title of Dr. Rubin’s book (2020-01-30)

The book by Dr. Israel Netanel Rubin is What God Cannot Do, published by Reuven Mass. A review of it appears in Prof. Nadav Shnerb’s article, “To Create a Stone and Lift It,” on the “Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon” website.

Best regards, William M. Fitzgerald (Petshgeber)

I_N_RUBIN who commented there under that acronym is without a doubt the author of the book

Ailon (2020-01-30)

Rabbi,
Although this is an old discussion here on the site, and maybe this is not the place to comment on it, I don’t think it is precise (or correct) to say that God cannot do something that is a logical contradiction. What is precise to say is that it simply is not defined at all (that is, that anyone could do such a thing at all). The Rabbi has indeed said this several times, in other words too (as in a square triangle), but the conclusion from this is not the statement “God cannot…” Rather, that statement does not get off the ground at all. There is no statement. Only silence. That is the meaning of lack of definition. Put differently, to the same extent that He cannot do it, He also cannot be said to “not be able” to do it (this is the law of the excluded middle, not contradiction). In such a case too, what remains is silence. And that way His omnipotence (of the Omnipotent One) remains in its purity.

Michi (2020-01-31)

That’s just semantics. The question is whether “cannot” means that He does not have the ability, or that an ability is lacking. It’s not the same thing.

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