Skip to main content
5 of 5
deleted 269 characters in body; edited title
Julius Hamilton
  • 4.1k
  • 2
  • 9
  • 47

Does God’s omnipotence lead directly to contradictions regarding God’s capabilities?

Like many of you, I've come across parsdoxes, from logic, math, linguistics and so forth. Some involve God or, at least, what Western Philosophy attributes to God.

As an example, assume God is omnipotent - he can do everything he wants to. May he destroy himself? If he is omnipotent he can. However, God cannot be eliminated by definition. Thus, there is a kind of (possibly linguistic?) contradiction.

Furthermore, will is God really capable of doing miracles? Well, suppose he can do things that violate the laws of Nature. I say I can always define a new law of Nature, which is the set of laws we know, plus the fact that God can, occasionally, violate those laws. This is a new law that even God won't escape.

Are these just linguistic issues? If so, how can we even think of reasoning about such issues, if language itself lacks of such description capabilities?

zzzbbx
  • 958
  • 9
  • 11