Anyone up for a demonstration of the logical impossibility of omnipotence? Can you find a flaw in my argument?
Automatic ten points and best answer if you can find a flaw. So far as I know there aren't any. If you don't want to go flaw-hunting, you can just say what you think about my logical proof.
Here's the demonstration:
Let's define omnipotence as 'the ability to do anything internally consistent', so no internal contradictions in what an omnipotent being must be able to do. That means I'm going to exclude internally contradictory things like 'both existing and not existing at the same time' or 'creating rocks he can't lift' from what an omnipotent being has to be able to do. The first step is to acknowledge that an omnipotent being can also make himself omniscient. Since making oneself omniscient is not internally contradictory, he can by definition do this.
All right, we then define an omniscient entity as someone who knows everything.
Now, I'm going to use an example about saving someone from under a car, but this could really be anything, like whether god gets up on his left or right foot or whether he puts his watch in his left or right hand tomorrow or whether he causes the apocalypse or not tomorrow.
Now, let's assume we have this omnipotent and omniscient entity. Let's say that tomorrow, there's going to be a man stuck under his car. Since he's omniscient, he knows whether he's going to save the man tomorrow or not. Suppose he has two options, he can either have save him or not save him, being omniscient he sees himself having not saving the stuck man. But when the next day dawns, he's in a real dilemma. If he saves the man, his vision about him not saving him was wrong. But because he's omniscient, his vision must be correct so he cannot save him. He in essence is powerless to save the man or he's not omniscient. But if he can't save him, he's not really omnipotent since he can't choose to save him. Since saving someone from under a car is perfectly internally self-consistent, this is something an all-powerful entity should be able to do. Yet he can't.
So, either he has no choice but to leave the man stuck and he's not omnipotent, or he saves him and he's not omniscient (which also means he's not omnipotent, since wasn't able to make himself omniscient). As this leads to a logical contradiction in both cases, it means logically it's impossible for an entity to be both all-powerful and omniscient at the same time. Q.E.D.
It's quite simple, really. Both choices lead to him not being omnipotent, so he can't be omnipotent.
Atheists are still powerless -
1) If you do not have the attention span to read the presentation it evidences of a flaw in you, not in the presentation itself.
2) There is a big difference between being able to make himself omniscient and actually doing it. He doesn't have to actually do it, only be able to do it for the proof to work.
Benjamin - I can see you're not up for a thought experiment, but it's quite the straw man to say my question is 'bait' of some sort. That's quite the insult.
orderly logic - Does it not? Got a better definition?
Farsight - I beg to differ. If you want to, you can believe an omnipotent entity is capable of both existing and not existing at the same time, all the while actually doing neither, then by all means go ahead.
However, I'm entitled to point out that's ridiculous.
thephone... - Actually, if you read closely, you'll notice that the demonstration by no means depends on the being actually changing their mind. Just that it would in theory be able to do so, should it choose to. Yet it can't.
ignoramu... -
1) As I've said, he doesn't need to change his mind to be omnipotent, but he does need to be *able* to change his mind. A big difference.
2) As I've said, negating the aspect of time doesn't solve the problem. Changing one's mind requires no time. He still can't change his mind and thus cannot be omnipotent.
SK - Yes, the best objections I have heard to this are redefinitions of time.
But such a redefinition doesn't actually solve anything. The same problem would surface under different conditions. Imagine the 'painter', choosing which landscapes to sculpt. Now, he knows what he wants to do with absolute precision (he's omniscient), so as he's doing it can he change his mind from what his original intentions? Can you see the problem here? He would still be unable to change his mind even in theory, and thus not be omnipotent.
Omnipotence is still logically impossible.
Cory B -
1) Like I've said, you're welcome to believe in logically contradictory things. My favourite example of a logically contradictory thing is god both existing and not existing at the same time, all the while doing neither. That's a contradiction in terms. Like I've said, by all means believe in logically contradictory things, but that is just a tad ridiculous.
2) If you read it again, the freedom to not act if you don't wish to does not solve the problem. An omniscient entity by definition knows everything. He can't suppress his knowledge by will because then he wouldn't be omniscient, now would he?
3) Human free will and the natural world have nothing to do with the demonstration
kittsylo... - God not making but being omnipotent and omniscient doesn't solve the demonstration. The demonstration was about demonstrating that an entity cannot be omnipotent, not that he can't make himself omnipotent.
R J Long - As I've already mentioned, removing time solves nothing . It doesn't make an omniscient and omnipotent god able to change his mind.
Erick - Thanks for your answer, but actually intervening isn't central at all to the argument presented here. All that matters that it should be *possible* for the being to intervene. Yet it isn't.
The Jade Trickster - That doesn't solve the demonstration. Omniscience means quite plainly knowing *everything*, not just different possibilities but which one will actually happen. Check any dictionary, ask any scholar, check the etymology of the word and they all give the same answer.
One can twist words until they mean nothing, but the fact is that the word omniscience means knowing everything. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, insisting that your proposition be exempt from the laws of logic cannot possibly count as a flaw.
Atheists are still powerless - You don't get it do you? It does *not* solve the problem if he does not make himself omniscient. The very fact that he is unable to do so (as doing so would result in a self-contradiction), means he is not omnipotent (he isn't able to do everything).
That is not a flaw because the problem still stands.
igottawh... - We may not know what's going to happen, but we know clear as day what's NOT going to happen, namely the logically impossible. I can know as surely as 1+1=2 that tomorrow you're not going to both win the lottery and not win it at the same time. That's as certain as it gets. I guess I could make a snarky remark about you writing in all-caps, but let's leave it for now.
@orderly logic - Oh yes it does!
Check your local dictionary. Omnipotence is the ability to do anything. Go ahead, check it out. Check the etymology of the word. It still means the ability to do anything, there's no question about it. You might want to make it mean something it quite plainly doesn't, but words don't conform to our private desires.
That Kim Jong Il cannot make himself six inches taller is entirely beside the point because nobody's claiming to be's omnipotent, now is he?