An argument against absolute divine aseity

[Ripheus27]

Let the doctrine of absolute divine aseity be that God is responsible for all truths --that all truths depend on His will--even truths like, "2 + 2 = 4." By extension, this would mean that He is responsible for, "Necessarily, 2 + 2 = 4," "Necessarily, two negatives are a positive," and so on.

But this would then mean also that God causes, "Necessarily, if something is necessary, it is actual," to be true. That is, the DADA would imply that God is responsible for the truths of modality itself just as much as any other truths. But this is self-contradictory, i.e. it is a contradictory description of modality. Therefore, the logical truths of modality do not depend on God's will, and so God is not absolutely a se. (He is a se otherwise conceived of, but not in this sense.)

 

[Paradoxum]

If you think God created logic then the concept of God becomes nonsense. We wouldn't be able to say anything true about God.

 

[KarateCowboy]

If you think God created logic then the concept of God becomes nonsense. We wouldn't be able to say anything true about God.

What you wrote here reminds me if something CS Lewis wrote: the question of could god create a rock so big he could not lift it; nonsense is nonsense even when applied to God

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Forum Runner. Pardon my brevity and spelling.

 

[Paradoxum]

What you wrote here reminds me if something CS Lewis wrote: the question of could god create a rock so big he could not lift it; nonsense is nonsense even when applied to God

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Forum Runner. Pardon my brevity and spelling.

I think I've read that quote before too.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

This is what staring too long at your navel will do to you.

 

[Ripheus27]

What have I done to myself?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

What have I done to myself?

Torturing yourself with such questions.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Mhm-hmm.

 

[Ripheus27]

Philosophy isn't torture for me at all; one of the first things I do when I go online is check for updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (the entirety of which I've read, almost not at all in relation to any college classes I've ever taken).

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Philosophy isn't torture for me at all; one of the first things I do when I go online is check for updates to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (the entirety of which I've read, almost not at all in relation to any college classes I've ever taken).

Doesn't the musings and ponderings of philosophical thought often conflict with scripture?

 

[Ripheus27]

Oh, they conflict often enough, but philosophy is the scripture written onto our very hearts and minds, the Gospel According to the Holy Spirit Itself if you will. When I find a passage in the Bible that reason tells me to either disregard or interpret loosely, that's what I do.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

When I find a passage in the Bible that reason tells me to either disregard or interpret loosely, that's what I do.

Hopefully you don't find too many of these.

 

[Ripheus27]

Well, to be honest, I do think that all scripture is inspired and useful for correction--but this is not the same as to say that all of it is perfectly true. Where in the (NIV) Ecclesiastes it says that everything is meaningless, for instance, I take that with a grain of the salt of the Earth...

 

[brightlights]

Let the doctrine of absolute divine aseity be that God is responsible for all truths --that all truths depend on His will--even truths like, "2 + 2 = 4." By extension, this would mean that He is responsible for, "Necessarily, 2 + 2 = 4," "Necessarily, two negatives are a positive," and so on.

But this would then mean also that God causes, "Necessarily, if something is necessary, it is actual," to be true. That is, the DADA would imply that God is responsible for the truths of modality itself just as much as any other truths. But this is self-contradictory, i.e. it is a contradictory description of modality. Therefore, the logical truths of modality do not depend on God's will, and so God is not absolutely a se. (He is a se otherwise conceived of, but not in this sense.)

What's the point?

 

[AFM]

I don't understand how people can think that God cannot coexist with Logic and Science. God is logical and God is scientific. The problem is that some people use false logic and bad science and therein lies the problem. Pseudoscience and bad logic are about as good at disproving God as bad addition is at disproving mathematics. If you can't add properly and come to "2+2=5" that doesn't make 2+2 equal 5. It makes your addition incorrect, because we already have the absolute knowledge that 2+2 equals 4 100% of the time. Therefore, God cannot be disproved by logic for the very reason that we know that God exists as an absolute truth, and therefore whenever somebody proves otherwise, we can be assured that he is using faulty reasoning or basing his conclusions on pseudoscience, such as the THEORY of Evolution.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

I think that the idea that God created logic is pretty much nonsense, in the most literal sense. A God who creates logic has to cause causation, which is the sort of mind-bending weirdness that is incomprehensible not because it's complicated, but because it really doesn't mean anything. There's also the fact that the idea of God creating logic does serious harm to the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence, since there would be a possibility that God could create a rock that he couldn't lift, because the logical rule saying that the omnipotent could lift all rocks would be a creation itself.

 

[AFM]

He could technically create a rock that He couldn't lift. He could create that rock, and limit His own strength or put Himself into a human form, and fail to lift it, while altogether still having the power to lift that rock at His very will.

God can have His cake and eat it, too.

Also, I think the main problem with logic is that human minds are vastly limited. We can't understand all the truths of the universe because God is all-knowing, and we are ever limited. God knows everything but we don't, because our perspectives are limited (we can't, for example, see what's actually going on on a planet a few thousand light years away. We can only see an old picture of what's going on.)

But if God didn't create, then we have to be living in an illogical universe, which isn't true. The laws of Physics make sense. The laws of mathematics make sense. The universe makes sense! If God didn't create logic, then it would have to be of the devil, and since it would have to be of the devil, it wouldn't apply to our universe (since Satan didn't create anything, as far as I can tell). Thus, nothing would be logical.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

He could technically create a rock that He couldn't lift. He could create that rock, and limit His own strength or put Himself into a human form, and fail to lift it, while altogether still having the power to lift that rock at His very will.

That doesn't really address the heart of the question, though. The logical puzzle is whether an omnipotent being (ie., a being who can do anything) can create a rock so large that he cannot lift it, under any circumstances. The common response to that thought puzzle is that its premise is fundamentally flawed. Even though it's grammatically correct to say that a being who can lift anything cannot lift a particular rock, it's not a logically sound sentence. It's kind of like saying that I found a two-sided triangle drawn on a rock outside of my house today. The "triangle" does not fit the definition of a triangle. God's omnipotence requires that he be capable of physically impossible things, but not logically impossible ones.

Also, I think the main problem with logic is that human minds are vastly limited. We can't understand all the truths of the universe because God is all-knowing, and we are ever limited. God knows everything but we don't, because our perspectives are limited (we can't, for example, see what's actually going on on a planet a few thousand light years away. We can only see an old picture of what's going on.)

While it's true that we can't know what's going on right now somewhere a few thousand light years away, that's a physical limitation rather than a logical one (admittedly, the two can kind of blur together, but that's beside the point for now). Saying that God created logic is not usually the same as saying that he created the physical laws of the Universe. It generally means that God created the rules which apply to deductive reasoning. For instance, it would mean saying that God could make 1+1=8 if he wanted to do so. Human logic isn't perfect, but these are matters of definition. 1+1 =/= 8, because changing the definition of one to something that could be added to itself to equal eight would mean changing the thing you're referring to. The thing that we call one is the thing that adds to itself to form the thing that we call two. That's part of its fundamental nature.

But if God didn't create, then we have to be living in an illogical universe, which isn't true. The laws of Physics make sense. The laws of mathematics make sense. The universe makes sense! If God didn't create logic, then it would have to be of the devil, and since it would have to be of the devil, it wouldn't apply to our universe (since Satan didn't create anything, as far as I can tell). Thus, nothing would be logical.

The laws of mathematics make sense because they're logically necessary. To say that nothing would be logically necessary without God making it so takes out any argument for the existence of God, really. If asked why God exists, the typical apologetic argument (in this form descended from the arguments of Leibniz, but older than that) is that he is the necessary base for reality. Without logical necessity, the question of why God exists can't be answered, and the discussion stops making sense.

Physical laws tend to evolve out of mathematical principles. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a result of the way that waves work mathematically. The behavior of different forces of nature are a result of the (for now theoretical) equations for a unified force called supergravity going through spontaneous symmetry breaking at relatively low energy levels (for supergravity to act as a unified force, you have to have circumstances similar to those in the Universe before Planck Time). When situations exist that would violate the equations of physics, they're entirely hidden by what's called an event horizon. To put it frankly, they make sense because they have to. Otherwise, they would violate the rules of logic.

 

[AFM]

I personally believe that God could simultaneously be able to and not be able to lift that rock, because 'all things are possible with God'. If we can't comprehend how that is possible, then that is really our own fault. Yet my explanation makes more logical sense than that, I'd say, and is a bit more logical than faith-based.

I believe that God created constant laws to govern the Universe, and yet at His whim He bears the ability to not only change but even destroy these laws. They exist, and they are logical, but God may change them at His will and His intervention will defy those laws.

I'd agree that you can't really answer why God exists.

Also I didn't understand most of that last paragraph. Nevertheless I would say that if God's laws seem to contradict His Own laws, then it is because of our own limited perspectives and inability to grasp the complete picture. It's because our minds are small and our perspectives are smaller. The logic of the Universe cannot contradict itself as long as you keep in mind the ultimate law of "God may do what He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases." is my belief.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

I personally believe that God could simultaneously be able to and not be able to lift that rock, because 'all things are possible with God'. If we can't comprehend how that is possible, then that is really our own fault. Yet my explanation makes more logical sense than that, I'd say, and is a bit more logical than faith-based.

Being simultaneously able and unable to do something isn't really a possible concept. It's similar to saying that something can be both here and not-here. The definition of the second word excludes the first, and so the concept is deductively impossible.

I believe that God created constant laws to govern the Universe, and yet at His whim He bears the ability to not only change but even destroy these laws. They exist, and they are logical, but God may change them at His will and His intervention will defy those laws.

This is a pretty common concept, but it doesn't require the development of the laws of logic by God. Only the laws of physics. Christianity asserts that the two cannot be one and the same (since the laws of physics are created and are therefore not logically necessary), so this isn't anything special. More naturalistic philosophies imply that at least some of the laws of physics are logically necessary. This is a fundamental question of religion vs. naturalism, and is pretty far outside of the current discussion, so I'm not going to go there.

I'd agree that you can't really answer why God exists.

Most Christian theologians, in the past, have argued that God exists because his existence is logically necessary. There's no real way to explain why God's existence would be logically necessary, because a logically necessary ground is one that is a fundamental aspect of reality and doesn't really need a "why".

Without accepting the concept of logical necessity and logical conclusions as simply a part of reality rather than a created thing, though, no argument for the existence of God really has any strong ground.