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Controversial concepts, like Omnipotence, can have different definitions and interpretations depending on the person using them. We have all seen people using the “Omnipotence of God” to imply “The ability of God to do anything, even the logically impossible”, constructing an argument based on this definition and using the resulting contradiction(s) to conclude the non-existence of an Omnipotent God or Being because it is illogical.

Of course, if you start with a logical impossibility, you are bound to land at a contradiction.

Now, whether God is able to bend and break logic according to His will is not the point. The point is that such a statement IS illogical. If we leave the world of logic behind in making asserting such a statement we cannot justify any further use of logic.

If a hard-line believer maintains that an Omnipotent being is able to do the logically impossible then they have, in saying this, left the realms of Logic and uttered an illogical and contradictory statement: “The impossible is possible”.

I would argue that an Omnipotent (all powerful) being is one which is able to do all that which is possible, because that which is impossible does not exist (except as a concept) and cannot be done. This is not a limitation on the power but a logical necessity if the concept is to be accepted by rational beings.

Thus, by defining Omnipotence in an illogical way, we have made an Omnipotent Being impossible by definition and not by logic.

Posted: May 23, 2006 on talk.origins

The argument is simple: An all-powerful, all-knowing God who created everything cannot be benevolent if he allowed for Evil. A Good God would have made Evil impossible. If God created everything, then he created Evil, he created Man and is responsible for both.

Let’s start with a definition of Evil.

Evil is a universal, like Cat or Sadness. My cat whiskey (a particular) was a Cat. When he died, my sadness was an instance or example of Sadness. The opposite is not true,Saying that the universal Evil is evil is like saying that Happiness is happy or Sweet tastes nice. Evil as a concept is not evil, I can understand the concept of something without partaking in it. The moment I partake in it, an instance occurs which *is*I can create a

Telling a lie, my cat Whiskey and my state of mind last Tuesday are particulars. Various philosophers have argued as to which of these is real but it comes down to your definition of “real”. Most of us use the term “real” to describe particulars but it is difficult to deny that universals, like Happiness, are real.

Here we can only speculate. As far as I can see, the Bible, our only objective authority on the matter, does not tell us why God made the world.

What is Evil? Can it be created? The Bible answers this for us:
The Bible tells us that God abhors Evil, but, that he created it (Isaiah 45:7) so there is no point in trying to argue that he did not intend it. Or is there?

Did God write Pride and Predjudice? Did God create the A-Bomb? How far down the chain does God’s responsibility stretch? That depends on your definition of the word responsible.

Let’s separate out the different levels of involvement in the case of a crime:

1. committed
2. assisted
3. intended
4. encouraged
5. accepted
6. tolerated
7. allowed for
8. permitted
9. observed

The Bible tells us that God abhors Evil, but, that he created it (Isaiah 45 7) so there seems to be no point in trying to argue that he did not intend it. Or is there? Perhaps Evil is a necessary, erm… evil. Here we must also be clear that the Hebrew word for Evil can mean both moral evil (bad deeds) and physical evil (harm, catastrophe).

To blame an inventor of a weapon for all the killing and murder that results, or the inventor of the automobile for the deaths on the roads is patently unfair. Now, an intelligent inventor knows if their invention can be used for good and ill. Nevertheless, they may decide that the benefit outweighs the ills.

What remains to be seen is the Final Intent: The Big “Why?”.

Here we can only speculate. As far as I can see the Bible, our only objective authority on the matter, does not tell us why God made the world.

An often cited criticism of creation, as described in Genesis, is the obvious imperfection and corruptibility of the world. An all-knowing, all-powerful God would of course have created a perfect world, free from suffering and sin, incorruptible. The fact that the world is not perfect proves either an incompetent creator, a malicious creator or no creator.

Like most easy explanations, it deserves a closer look. Is an imperfect creation truly impossible for a perfect creator? Perhaps a perfect creation can indeed become corrupted? Is not corruption one of the possible outcomes of Free Will? Was creation perfect?

Perfection is the word we use to describe flawlessness, completeness, excellence – an exact matching of an ideal instance. The concept of perfection can lead to much confusion, dilemmas and contradictions. In this examination we will limit it’s scope to it’s relation to intent or design. It does not make sense to condemn an orange for not being a perfect because it is not a perfect sphere when it is, in fact, being a perfect orange.

If our definition of the word “perfection” limits it’s meaning to that which cannot corrupt (which is seen as a flaw) then we may have to stop here. However, if we accept that perfection is an intrinsic property based on it’s exact match of design and that external factors can corrupt it, we may proceed. If a perfect orange can be squashed then it’s perfection does not preclude corruption by external factors. If God made a perfect world and placed imperfect creatures in it, corruption is a possible outcome.

Corruption, in this sense, is a deviation from intent, from perfection. There is a temptation, at this stage, to differentiate between 2 types of corruption: moral (man tells lies) and natural (apples rot). Common use of corruption implies moral corruption. For the purposes of our examination, corruption, is any deviation from the state of perfection whether natural, moral or otherwise.

If we assume a perfect world and perfect creatures (something the Bible does not assert) we may be tempted to conclude that corruption is impossible without external factors. But what if a perfect creature is given a power which can drive change, a Free Will? It now becomes clear that corruption is a possible (and likely) consequence. The concept of Free Will implies unrestricted choice and, of the many choices available, some lead to corruption. If the choice towards corruption is excluded it is not Free Will so Free Will must allow this “wrong” choice. Given time, corruption is almost inevitable for Free creatures.

If we deny the existence of Free Will then we can likewise stop here, for without it or an external imperfect factor there seems to be no way for perfection to become corrupted. However, there is nothing illogical about a perfect circle becoming oval or crooked through external influences so corruption is logically possible by external means. Likewise a perfect Man may cut off his finger or tell a lie and corrupt himself. If we accept that perfection can, and has become corrupted through Free Will we can search on for a reconciliation of corruption with the idea of a perfect creator. Just how can a perfect creator allow this sorry state to have happened?

The battle for reconciliation is lost if we assume that a perfect, incorruptible creation was intended by the creator. The world, obviously misaligned with this intent, is a blatant mistake and we’ve got our proof of an incompetent and imperfect creator.

The Bible however, makes no assertion that God intended a perfect world which could not corrupt. In fact, the Bible is a faithful record of the corruption of the world and the conflict with it’s creator. The Bible is, in fact, a strong case against any illusions of a perfect, incorruptible creation. The Bible’s core message is, in fact, that we need God to redeem us from our own corruption.

Although Genesis tells us that God saw that “it was good”, this does not rule out the possibility of it being corrupted. In fact, according to the Bible, God created all living and crawling things including the tree and the serpent which initiated the corruption of Man. The potential for disaster was thus present at creation, placed by God, and (at least in theory) not inevitable. Is not Free Will an imperfection? Maybe, but whether creation was perfect or not, we are not sure of the overall intent and cannot judge competence. It may have been designed with imperfections for a non-obvious purpose.

We see that the idea of perfection is inextricable linked with that of intent. If we do not know the intent we cannot judge perfection. The Bible tells us that God is good and loving so we can assume that a good God did not intend our present sorry state. Thus, if God is competent and creation matches his intent, it is likely that:
1) Free Will excludes any control from being exercised in this regard AND
2) The redemption offered is sufficiently “good” to satisfy the intent

Point 2 implies that the end does ineed justify the means. That’s a pretty harsh reality.

Although I have argued that perfection can become corrupted, it is clear that Man is not perfect. We are not all-powerful, we are not all knowing, we are weak, we get tired, we make mistakes. Adam and Eve, the first humans, were likewise imperfect. We were created with good intent, but corrupted by our choice. The Bible does not assert an incorruptible creation or incorruptible creatures, quite the contrary.

Without a base for assuming intended incorruptibility the criticism of an incompetent creator falls apart. God intended Free Will, aware of the disastrous possibilities. The choice was Man’s, the consequence of the wrong choice, corruption. Redemption the only answer.

Posted: May 16, 2006 on talk.origins

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of
any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of
existence.”
~ Robert Anton Wilson

Now, I’m not sure who Rober Anton Wilson was but he sounds like an intelligent fellow so if he abhors Belief as a mindset, how did he come to write that statement down and *believe* it? Ruling out divine revelation and personal experience (subjective, requires belief) it must have been a proof of some sort. The question is: Inductive (evidence) or deductive?

Evidence for a lack of intelligence or a desire to stop thinking among humans is plentiful in both believers and non-believers so I’ll rule that out as well and proceed to the deductive argument.

My feeling is that this quote is simply re-stating a particular definition of Belief which equates it with Certitude:

1. Belief implies Certitude
2. Certitude implies resolved (thinking no longer required)
3. Thinking implies Intelligence

Conclusion: Belief, means Intelligence is no longer required – the Death of Intelligence.

Now I *believe* that gravity works so I’ve stopped thinking about it for most of the time. Am I less intelligent as a result – maybe, but I know I can’t think about everything all of the time or I would go insane (see A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett). Perhaps the ultimate intelligent being would think of everything all the time – omniscience if I’m not mistaken.

For us humans it’s pragmatic to believe certain things in order to function. It may be a limitation of our faculties to have to believe certain things. We are redeemed by the fact that we have logic and instinct to guard us against false-beliefs. Believing a false-belief, particularly when there is no evidence would (for me) imply a lack of intelligence but Belief as a concept is (for us) vital to survival.

I would venture that belief does not imply certitude, only probability of correctness. Nor does belief imply that thinking is no longer required – I often think about gravity, just not all the time.

Posted: May 12, 2006 on talk.origins

Is the church really a farce? Would you also call the police a farce or the legal system? What about governments? I ask this because these are all comparable institutions with a history of violence, oppression and every evil you can name.

The church and any human institution consists of people, ideas (values) and, of course, events (deeds). Each of these needs to be evaluated for what they are and accepted or rejected on that basis. Should churches or other institutions be scrapped because of their deeds?

You will find churches, governments and other institutions may have noble values and evil deeds, evil values and evil deeds, noble values and noble deeds but not evil values and noble deeds indicating that the values determine the deeds but that things can get corrupted along the way. I also don’t believe that the evaluation of institutions is a subjective issue, it does have to be decided by each individual but that decision can be Right or Wrong – but’s that’s a topic for another time.

Churches suffer from a unique vulnerability in that they have been proclaimed to be holy and (in some denominations) infallible. This is obviously a farce – how can a human institution be faultless? It’s also a hotly debated topic and you will find that not all churches are alike in their take on this. How many churches have you been in? While each church has their own values you will find that most christian churches share a certain core belief. The mercy is that this belief also happens to be the most important namely, that you need God in your life, and no matter who you are or the guilt you are carrying, God loves you and will forgive you through Jesus.

You mentioned Islam. An impartial person (a skeptic or scientist) would not accept or reject Islam because of what it’s followers do or don’t do (they’re not looking good on that count nowadays) but by the credibility of their message. Of course we’re not that impartial and judge by fruits as well. We like comfortable ideas and are emotional. We’re also influenced strongly by the media and our education.

It’s not the stories of churches with inner-city programmes for kids, development missions in Africa and loving acts which make the news but murder, rape and war. Do we really have an impartial representative view of history?

The history of the church is indeed one of violence and evil, but this is really the history of humanity and not peculiar to to the church as an institution. Every act of evil is indefensible but to hate the church because of what people in the church did is also unjustified.

The homerun of the night, in my opinion, came when Dr. Shermer put
up a quote by Isaac Newton. In that quote, Newton pointed out that
the planets in our solar system lie roughly in a nice, level plane.
This, he argued, was proof positive of design by a benevolent (and
somewhat artistic) creator. Why don’t Intelligent Design proponents
use this argument now? In the centuries since Newton said this,
science has shown that this is completely a natural phenomenon. No
one, not even IDers will argue that point. Because we didn’t know
how it was done, we attributed it to God. The more we learn happens
naturally, the less there is for God to do.

Michael,

I respect your relentless pursuit of truth and enjoy your work. I would however, like to comment on your homerun and question the wisdom of this line of argument.

The argument that, “because we know some science, therefore God does not exist” is attractive but based an some misconceptions of belief in God with regard to scientific events.

The basic version of this argument is that primitive man starts by assuming that God directly controls everything. Science comes to our rescue and shows that the event (apple falling from a tree) is caused by something else (gravity). Conclusion, God is not required for the apple to fall. Do this enough times, for enough different events (progress of science) and you’ve disproved God. Primitive man, by creating stories, superstition and even primitive religion to explain religious phenomena has been an easy target for the englightened skeptics and scientists who have discovered gravity and other links in the chain.

I see several problems with this “homerun”:
1) The assumption that by “discovering” gravity we have explained the phenomena.
2) The assumption that believers believe that God directly moved the apple.

What is gravity other than an altruism? We may have discovered a tidy generalisation regarding mutual attraction of masses but are we really any further? How does gravity work and what causes it? Why is gravity? Either it has a cause or it’s an axiom you have to believe in.

The series of “why”s is, according to science, either endless or finite, ending in a natural phenomena. Both are illogical – infinite whys means a breakdown of causality, a founding stone of science.

If your primitive man indeed believed that the hand of God moved the apple then you have indeed proven him a fool. However, where does that leave the millions of believers who still believe that God is the Reason that has no reason, the Why behind all the whys. Science does not offer a satisfactory answer here. Science has not disproved God. Science cannot prove God. An attempt to prove a non-material God based on the assumption than nothing non-material exists is doomed to failure by suicide.

At some stage belief is all we have. You can’t prove anything. On what basis do you trust your sanity and ability to argument logically? Do you believe in scientific method or did someone prove it to you?

Posted: 3 May, 2006 on sci.skeptic (I think)