Q&A: God and Logic
God and Logic
Question
How can one prove that God is subject to the laws of logic? I “feel that He is,” meaning that He cannot make 2+2 equal 5, or draw a circular square.
But when I say this to my friend, he says to me, “What are you talking about? He is above logic!” And I don’t know how to prove to him that I’m right. (In my intuition it is so obvious that I’m right—this is an important principle I learned from you—but he asks for a proof.)
Answer
This is not a matter of proof. The claim that He is not subject to the laws of logic is meaningless. After all, if He is not subject to the laws of logic, then He is also subject to them, and He both exists and does not exist, and you are both a believer and an atheist, and so on and so on.
I have written about this a great deal on the site, and you can find a lot of explanation and detail here. For example, in the column here, but there is much more as well.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand these questions, and I understood even less what they have to do with the discussion. If you want to discuss some question, please raise it separately and spell it out, without “etc., etc.” Notice the references I gave to things I’ve already written.
So this is what I asked and requested: it is known that every deduction is based on some assumptions. I prove conclusion x by means of assumption y. But how can y itself be proven?
For example, in geometry, everything is proved by means of Euclid’s axioms. But how are those axioms themselves proven? Or in other words, how does one argue about axioms?
To put it differently, one uses the rules of logic to prove an analytic claim, but what are the tools for proving synthetic claims?
And this, Rabbi?
Or to put it differently, what do you think is the solution to the Münchhausen trilemma?
The comments didn’t reach my email today. That has now been fixed.
Intuition is the basis for axioms. Of course they cannot be proven.
I don’t know what the Münchhausen trilemma is.
Okay, I understand.
Can you direct me to a place where you explained in detail what can be proven and what cannot? What is regress? Which axioms can be proven, and alternatively which of them can be accepted without proof? On what basis does one accept an axiomatic system as correct without proofs? Etc., etc.