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From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: God knows.
Message-ID: <1826@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 05:08:36 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1826
Posted: Sat Nov  2 05:08:36 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 05:49:55 EST
References: <1790@watdcsu.UUCP> <1436@cbsck.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 65
Summary: 

In article <1436@cbsck.UUCP> pmd@cbsck.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) writes:

>>The following constitutes a proof that for some random arbitrary person,
>>"Tom", there is at least one true statement that Tom doesn't know --
>>in fact *can't* know.  

...the proof is too long, so I'm leaving it out...

>>Now, this proof that there is at least one true statement that Tom doesn't
>>know still works if we substitute the word "God" for "Tom".  So much for
>>omniscience.  [David Canzi]
>
>While the proof is rather convoluted, if I follow it right it seems only
>to set up a logical contradiction.  It posits the same sort of dilemma for
>God as the question, "Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?"
>thus apparently disposing with omnipotence in the same manner as the above
>proof claims to dispose of omniscience.  But who ever defined omniscience
>or omnipotence to include things that are *actually* impossible to know
>or do (as in direct contradiction)?  Only those who wish to "prove" that
>God can't have these qualities.

Actually, I *have* met people who believe logic doesn't apply to God.
One of my high school teachers, in a discussion of the existence of God
(he was pro, I was con), responded to a logical point I made by saying
"God is not bounded by puny human logic."  One of my friends was a fan of
an ancient Greek philosopher, Plotinus.  Plotinus began his magnum opus
with the statement "The One [ie. God] is, and yet, is not."  Last year
somebody said, in an article in net.religion, that if God wanted 2+2 to
equal 5, it would.  I can think of a logically consistent way that an
omnipotent being *could* manage this stunt, but I'm pretty sure it's
not what the fellow had in mind.

>                                 The fact that God must obey the law of
>non-contradiction does not take away from the qualities of omniscience
>or omnipotence attributed to him.  The definition of those qualities
>never included things that are hypothetically outside non-contradictory
>boundaries.

"God must obey the law of non-contradiction."  I have a different way
of looking at the working of the laws of logic.  Let me illustrate by
rephrasing that quoted statement:  "Our descriptions of God must obey
the law of non-contradiction."  

I think of logic as not constraining God or reality in any way, but
rather constraining the ways in which we can describe reality.  In a
way, I'm sneakily agreeing with my old high-school geography teacher
that "God is not bounded by puny human logic", without agreeing with
him that a logical contradiction can be true when it happens to be
about God.

(Hmmm.  I posted that article as a lark.  Strange to see me get this
serious about it.)

I probably haven't succeeded in understanding your friend's proof that
God can't identify himself, but I'll take a stab at it anyway.  It
seems to rest on an assumption that things can't be identified in terms
of each other.  If you're sitting in front of your stereo system, how
do you identify the left speaker?  It's the one to the left of the
right speaker.  How do you identify the right speaker?  It's the one to
the right of the left speaker, of course.  If there are only two
speakers in the room, we can now identify them relative to each other.
(I hope this paragraph is not too disgustingly naive by the standards
of net.philosophy people.)
-- 
David Canzi		"Permission is not freedom."