An argument against absolute divine aseity

And yet God can do all things, which means that it should be possible for Him to be able and unable to do something at the same time. Logically this is impossible, but I would say that that falls in the category of 'logic limited by limited perspective and limited intelligence.' An ant cannot tell you how an engine works, because an ant is too small to be able to observe the entire engine, cannot read nor speak our language, and has no experience whatsoever with general mechanics. Does this mean the engine cannot exist? No, only that the ant does not have sufficient knowledge to understand the engine.

Amen! That's the big point that most people struggle with. Understanding that we can't understand. Being content with the fact our biggest questions will never have an answer. And why? Because WE are the ones asking the questions. WE are the ones debating with HUMAN logic and perspective. And I can't blame anyone for thinking that way. Its how we think because its logical. Life works by logic (for the most part lol). Goes by a set of laws. Makes sense. Find evidence to prove facts. We generally dismiss something as fact without definite evidence. Because it doesn't make sense. That's how life works. (Bear with me here I'm trying to pull all this together.) Life is fact, because life is science and we know that science works by a specific set of laws. But is fact and reality the same thing? It depends. Reality is fact, but fact isn't always reality. Fact is truth, right? Yes or it wouldn't be fact! Well what if I said it depends on perspective and KNOWLEDGE. Classic example, not too far back it was FACT the earth was flat. It was FACT smoking cigarettes was not only unharmful, but healthy. Scientific fact. We know now that is not reality. Reality doesn't change. What we perceive to be fact may or may not be correct, but reality doesn't change. Regardless of if we ever find proof or not. If I measure a piece of wood and my tape measure says 4ft, then its fact the wood is 4ft long. What if I said it weren't? You hand me the tape, I measure it from every angle, still reads 4ft. You confirm the fact the wood is 4ft. But in reality it isn't. Why? The tape measure wasn't built right and is off 3in. So many hidden variables in life, we have to have an open mind. So why does God have to adhere to human logic? He's obviously more intelligent. Just because we can't prove his existence doesn't change reality. If you open your mind to the possibility of God, then assume all the bible is true. There's no sense in picking and reasoning it will only drive you crazy! Ok. So God says your belief in him has to be on faith. No evidence. So it's pointless to look for proof. We couldn't understand it anyways. Faith in something you can't see. That's why you get the REWARD of heaven. You sacrificed your only life not knowing if you were "wasting" the only life you had. That's a huge risk. I wouldn't do it unless I was certain. God understands how our logical minds work. That's why you only need a little faith, just a little, for God to reveal himself to you. You could call it a coincidence, but then my past 23 years, LITERALLY every day in every aspect, is one giant elaborate stroke of luck and coincidence? And here, its left with you. No more proof. No fact. No evidence. You have to have faith. You have to take a risk. He will reveal himself to you. Also, the bible says God will test you. Will you believe what science says? Because God could have made science say that just so you would believe on faith ALONE. Just try it. With an open mind and open heart. Don't be judgemental. You have nothing to lose. If I am wrong about Gods existence, then I'm fine. I'll just cease to exist. But if you are wrong...

AFM said:

And yet God can do all things, which means that it should be possible for Him to be able and unable to do something at the same time.

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Like...to be able to exist and not exist simultaneously? Ok, then.

An ant cannot tell you how an engine works, because an ant is too small to be able to observe the entire engine, cannot read nor speak our language, and has no experience whatsoever with general mechanics. Does this mean the engine cannot exist?

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No, it just means that ants won´t believe in the existence of engines, 1. because they have no reason to and 2. because 'engine' doesn't tell them anything, anyway.
I think you need to make up your mind. Either "God" is beyond our understanding, or you can come here with your theology.

AFM said:

And yet God can do all things, which means that it should be possible for Him to be able and unable to do something at the same time. Logically this is impossible, but I would say that that falls in the category of 'logic limited by limited perspective and limited intelligence.'

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I think that you would have a very hard time finding a theologian who agreed with you on this, to be honest. The idea that God can do all things means that God can do all things that are possible, but the idea that being able to do all things means being able to be unable to do something is an impossible formulation. I think that the C.S. Lewis quote someone posted earlier works well here. Nonsense does not cease to be nonsense just because you apply it to God.

An ant cannot tell you how an engine works, because an ant is too small to be able to observe the entire engine, cannot read nor speak our language, and has no experience whatsoever with general mechanics. Does this mean the engine cannot exist? No, only that the ant does not have sufficient knowledge to understand the engine.

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The difference here is that, in the case of the ant, the problem is just that the ant's nervous system isn't complex enough to comprehend the engine as an engine. On some level, though (probably a very basic one), it knows that the engine exists and that it can crawl on it safely without worrying about it not existing and causing the ant to fall into a bottomless pit.

When theologians write about the things about God that can't be comprehended, they're usually referring to infinite scale, infinite knowledge, etc. Those are things that are too large or complicated to understand, and there are things like that in the physical world, too. The idea that we can't comprehend that something can exist and can't exist simultaneously, though, is like saying that we can't comprehend a one-dimensional triangle.

addicted to Jesus247 said:

Because God could have made science say that just so you would believe on faith ALONE. Just try it. With an open mind and open heart. Don't be judgemental. You have nothing to lose. If I am wrong about Gods existence, then I'm fine. I'll just cease to exist. But if you are wrong...

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Why would God create people with intellectual faculties that point away from his existence? That not only doesn't make sense from the perspective of divine goodness, but it also has serious Biblical issues. According to the epistle of Paul to the Romans, we can know that God exists from the natural world. Theologians have traditionally interpreted that as meaning that reason alone can point to the existence of God, although some aspects of God are known only through revelation (the Biblical texts for Protestants, Scripture and tradition for other branches).

In response to the opening post:

I don't say this often, but this is entirely over my head and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Good job

Ripheus27 said:

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.)

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I follow Avicenna's idea that truth is in the essence of things, which I think sidesteps the problem you raise. Assuming God designed the universe originally as 'very good' (or perfectly true; i.e., perfect), truth in the essence of things would naturally create the dispositions, tendencies, natural progressions, etc. of creation as it unfolds. From this, I assume also that the story of the fall (whether literal or allegorical is unimportant) reveals that man's will via wrong choice injects falsity into an otherwise true universe which affects changes not in substance but in quality of both essence and matter. This qualitative 'stain' spreads causally into creation creating instances of imperfections of all sorts, in matter (disease), spirit (corrupting the animating force) and mind (mental defects).

Another way to look at it is that it isn't God's will that demands 2+2=4, it is the effectual nature of truth in the essence of things which steers our perception the propositional and all intellectual operation toward true answers. It's in His design, not in some whip in His hand.

The point is that in this view, God's "will" can be largely removed from where truths or untruths land in His creation. His desire is for a perfect universe which shares with Him the most fundamental building block of His essence and all existence--truth--but this is currently tarnished by the effects of a fragmentally falsified existence which naturally produces all those tendencies associated with truth falsified; doubt, defective reason, ambiguity, shortcomings, afflictions, diseases, uncertainties, etc.

It's the Christian's hope that He's bringing everything to His desired end.

This view may seem to place God outside His universe re the wound watch theory, but I hold that He works diligently and continually within the lives of all in creation to stop us short of our own destruction and produce forward movement toward the true/good in culture, education, science, etc.

Maybe the pathogen of falsity has to run its course before creation can be properly and fully healed [restored to its true state].

Standing_Ultraviolet said:

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.

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Why would mind bending wilderness even be a consideration when talking about proposing an entity that can do anything?

Isn't one already across that line?

Ripheus27 said:

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.)

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You know the problem here (and with all such discussions) is that you have to prioritize your thinking as to which is more basic either consistency is more basic or God is.

One or the other makes little difference in my opinion, but if God is primary to reality it is free to make up other ways (even contradictory ways) for reality to work.

Paradoxum said:

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

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How would that be different than the status quo?

Why does God need to be able to be comprehended?

addictedtojesus247 said:

If you open your mind to the possibility of God, then assume all the bible is true.

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Why not assume that the holy text of some other religion is true? Or that none of them are true, and God is simply not known to us yet?

So God says your belief in him has to be on faith. No evidence. So it's pointless to look for proof. We couldn't understand it anyways. Faith in something you can't see. That's why you get the REWARD of heaven.

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Why wouldn't people be rewarded for sound reasoning instead? If it is all a gamble on uncertainty, one might as well gamble on Scientology.

You sacrificed your only life not knowing if you were "wasting" the only life you had. That's a huge risk.

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On the contrary, the only risk is assuming that there is an afterlife. If in order to achieve happiness one wastes the life that we know banking on some merely surmised afterlife, that is indeed a gamble, and a bad one.



But why should we gamble in the first place? Why the Monty Hall game of keeping the prize, or taking what is behind door number one, two, or three instead? Why not live with reason and integrity based on what one does know? That is the surest way to make the most out of life instead of jumping at shadows.


eudaimonia,

Mark

variant said:

Why would mind bending wilderness even be a consideration when talking about proposing an entity that can do anything?

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Mind bending wilderness sounds like the Lost Plateau of Leng.

Isn't one already across that line?

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Not really. The idea of a being who can do "anything" isn't logically incoherent. If you say the sentence "God can do anything" where anything is understood to refer only to things that can't be deemed impossible by inductive reasoning, then there's nothing inherently illogical about the sentence.

When I said, "mind bending weirdness" there, I was referring to things that were impossible by inductive reasoning. Being both X and Y, where X is defined as "not Y", for example. He was saying that God could be both capable and incapable of something. There are plenty of things that are absolutely bizarre that actually exist, and some things that make absolutely no sense when looked at through the lens of human experience. To put it bluntly, I meant to say that the idea of God both being able and unable to do something is an incoherent and patently nonsensical statement.

Standing_Ultraviolet said:

Mind bending wilderness sounds like the Lost Plateau of Leng.

Not really. The idea of a being who can do "anything" isn't logically incoherent. If you say the sentence "God can do anything" where anything is understood to refer only to things that can't be deemed impossible by inductive reasoning, then there's nothing inherently illogical about the sentence.

When I said, "mind bending weirdness" there, I was referring to things that were impossible by inductive reasoning. Being both X and Y, where X is defined as "not Y", for example. He was saying that God could be both capable and incapable of something. There are plenty of things that are absolutely bizarre that actually exist, and some things that make absolutely no sense when looked at through the lens of human experience. To put it bluntly, I meant to say that the idea of God both being able and unable to do something is an incoherent and patently nonsensical statement.

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While I see the line you are putting down, I don't see why it is significant to cross it.

The only thing that happens when God starts being capable of what we deem to be illogical is that we can't continue to contemplate it. Why is that important?

variant said:

The only thing that happens when God starts being capable of what we deem to be illogical is that we can't continue to contemplate it. Why is that important?

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There are some things we're not able to contemplate that can exist, and some that I would argue can't. Reality is weird, and there are aspects to it that can be understood, but can't really be accurately visualized (the interior structure of an atom would be a good example, since it's probably really a set of "probability clouds" for the locations of a variety of different particles). Those things are impossible to contemplate in any way that makes sense to the ways that our minds organize sense perception, but there's nothing logically impossible about them.

Things that don't make sense because they cancel each other out, though, fall into a different category. You can say that they're just incomprehensible to human reason, but if they are, then they fall into the category of things that are outside of the realm of rational discussion, anyway. They could only be known if revealed to humanity by some entity that could comprehend them, and within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, God doesn't do that. Outside of divine revelation, there's no meaningful way to discuss things that are so transcendent that they are entirely outside of the capacity of the human mind to explore them. The simplest explanation, though, is that things that cancel themselves out don't exist. I see no reason to assume that they do.

Standing_Ultraviolet said:

Things that don't make sense because they cancel each other out, though, fall into a different category. You can say that they're just incomprehensible to human reason, but if they are, then they fall into the category of things that are outside of the realm of rational discussion, anyway. They could only be known if revealed to humanity by some entity that could comprehend them, and within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, God doesn't do that. Outside of divine revelation, there's no meaningful way to discuss things that are so transcendent that they are entirely outside of the capacity of the human mind to explore them. The simplest explanation, though, is that things that cancel themselves out don't exist. I see no reason to assume that they do.

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Selective parsimony?

I wasn't assuming God would have powers that don't conform to logic (as an atheist this would make little sense), I just don't see a good reason to rule a God with logically incomprehensible powers out.

We're already imagining a being that can pop universes in and out of existence at a whim here, so I don't think it's all that big a leap to have the being set up the rules of logic themselves.

Ripheus27 said:

The ultimate point of this thread was to show that there are general truths that do not depend on God's will for their truth, but God does depend on them in a sense to exist, so God is not the absolutely first of all things--indeed, there cannot be an absolutely first over all others (instead, there might be several such firsts).

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I'm not sure you can show such a thing unless you simply assume there are rules of logic that take precedence over God.

God as an idea is free to be the originator of these things, indeed even the reason for them.

By what mechanism could we know that it is not?

AFM said:

And yet God can do all things, which means that it should be possible for Him to be able and unable to do something at the same time. Logically this is impossible, but I would say that that falls in the category of 'logic limited by limited perspective and limited intelligence.' An ant cannot tell you how an engine works, because an ant is too small to be able to observe the entire engine, cannot read nor speak our language, and has no experience whatsoever with general mechanics. Does this mean the engine cannot exist? No, only that the ant does not have sufficient knowledge to understand the engine.

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Even if God can do all things, there are combinations of words that don't describe any actual or even conceivable thing. God isn't limited by our logic and grammar, but we are. There may well be things that God can do that we can't describe. But self-contradictory descriptions don't describe them.

Ripheus27 said:

I suppose by showing, or attempting to show, in what order our concepts form. Our logical concepts precede our theological ones, it seems. It's absurd to invent a secondary concept like "God" and then claim that it's primary. "Creator of objects within space and time" requires concepts like space, time, creation, and even objects, none of which is altogether clearly even itself a primitive notion (except maybe "object," but then again the word "object" is one of those admitting of a terrible time at philosophical definition).

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God would require those things to be perceived not to exist. I am already questioning the basic hierarchy of ideas here so 'absurdity' isn't the standard. Unless you take the human perspective to be primary to the objects it is perceiving. More simply "creator of objects' is a description from our perspective and I see it as no more or less 'absurd' than "originator of logic", it just reorders the ideas in terms of how fundamental they are, and I can't see a reason to worry about this when proposing omnipotent entities.

Is the order our concepts form and their intuitive hierarchy the same as the order they exist in nature?

That idea seems demonstrably false.

Sometimes more basic/fundamental ideas are also harder to perceive and are further from our every day experience.

Like say quantum mechanics.

I'm not sure that it matters that these conversations drift into the absurd because there is no reason to keep them within the bounds of our kind of reason in my opinion, which means that we can't approach the topic properly, but why should I care?