Elaborating the reasons why an omnipotent and omniscient being does not and cannot exist in the objective external reality
So what do we mean whenever we utter the word "God"? One might say that a god is simply a superhuman being/spirit that is worshiped as having power over nature or human destiny, or simply, a deity. Okay, that seems to be easy, and we can even enumerate so many of them as an example. Poseidon, Krishna, Huitzilopochtli, Osiris, Loki, Olorun, you name it. But how about "God" with a capital G? Whenever we are talking about this deity, we inevitably talk about the Abrahamic God of the Bible/Qur'an. The one that the Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship, the monotheistic God. This deity can also be called an omni-God because of his alleged infinite qualities that is attributed to him by the subscribers of the Abrahamic faith: Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnibenevolence, Omnipresence, and other additional qualities like spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and personal. This deity allegedly does not only created the whole cosmos, but also created it with purpose (which is to create humans in mind in order for us to worship him). This deity is also allegedly wants to have a personal relationship with his creations, specifically a species of intelligent bipedal apes (which is us). And this deity also allegedly dictates what is right and what is wrong, and he allegedly judges every souls after their earthly death by sending them to either heaven or hell. Wow, these are a hell of a lot of claims! And surely, believers of this deity must have a strong empirical evidence to justify the existence of him, right?
Well, we already talked about last time how the analytic properties of an omni-God are highly logically problematic (see the article God's Existence and the Null Hypothesis). But what we are going to do this time is to elaborate how incoherent it is for someone to be all-powerful and all-knowing. The all-loving characteristic will be tackled on the next essay about the Problem of Evil, so stay tuned. Now, to be clear, we are not going to argue here how the existence of God, in a general deistic sense, is impossible. There could be a cosmic creator out there or any some kind of a higher power that we don't know yet for sure if it actually exists. We all must be agnostic about that issue. What are we going to talk about here is a particular deity, the Abrahamic omni-God of the Bible/Qur'an which properties are full of paradoxes, and we will emphasizing on the idea of omnipotence.
Defining the word "omnipotence"
Now what does it mean for something to be omnipotent? What do we mean by the word "omnipotence"? We can just ask the Latin etymology of that word. Omnipotence came from Latin words omni which means all and potens which means potential. So, omnipotence literally means all-potential, or all-powerful. According to the most popular and traditional definition, the word omnipotence means the capacity to do anything, or the possession of unlimited power, or the power to bring about any state of affairs, and this is known as absolute omnipotence. How can we verify if a being is indeed an all-powerful one in order for us to rightfully give it the label "omnipotent"? How can we discern if a being that claims to be omnipotent is actually omnipotent or just really powerful? Setting this aside, let's for now have a thought experiment in a non-religious context. Suppose that there is someone who knocks on your house and claims to be computer repair technician, and offers you a service. Suppose also that you happen to have a personal computer that badly needs to be repaired. How can you know that the computer repair technician is reasonably proficient? How can we verify his claims in order for you to apply to him the label of being a highly-skilled technician? Well, suppose that you have a checklist that contain the set of things that a reasonably competent computer repair technician should be able to do.
You can now challenge the technician to show the skills that he got, and he accepted the challenge. After that, suppose that he fulfilled all of the challenges on your checklist. Since he successfully did it, you can now call him a reasonably competent computer repair technician and pay him with a deserving amount of money. But what if he can't do it all? Well, that's okay, maybe he's just half-way decent competent technician or just some guy who is knowledgeable at computers. They are nothing but mere labels and words that we apply to something or someone if they demonstrated the properties that we expect for them to possess, if they want to be referred as the label that they are claiming to be.
Although this is not completely how we all act in our everyday lives, but this thought experiment elucidates a remarkable facet of the philosophy of language and the fundamental foundation of how human communication works. Words like banana, doctor, giraffe, sugar, teacher, and book are all just labels and we put those labels into something according to a distinct set of empirically verifiable properties. If I saw something that is composed of papers, binded, has a cover, and composed of words, and maybe images, I can reasonably call that thing a "book." Therefore anything that demonstrates the qualities of a given list may officially earn that corresponding label, while ones that fail to manifest those properties are simply not referred as such. It's a known philosophical principle called verifiability criterion of meaning or simply, verificationism (only statements that are empirically verifiable are cognitively meaningful, or else, they are truths of logic). This philosophical principle will be utilized later along within the essay.
What's the problem with absolute omnipotence?
Throughout the whole discussion, let's play a devil's advocate and assume for now that the omnipotent God of the Bible exists, and let's apply the thought experiment to him. Let's make a checklist that says Set of Things That an Omnipotent Being Should be Able to Do. What's going on the checklist now? It actually depends on who you ask, but according to the most popular and frequently used definition of omnipotence, the answer is: ANYTHING! Basically, you name, then God can do it. This is absolute omnipotence. Can God make it rain cats and dogs (literally)? Okay. Can God create a married bachelor? Check! Can God scroish a gradchen? Sure, why not? Obviously, this idea of absolute omnipotence is clearly riddled with big problems. For example, what on earth does scroishing a gradchen mean? According to the definition of the absolute omnipotence, God should be capable of accomplishing this task, but apparently, scroish and gradchen are just meaningless gibberish that have no established definition. But keep in mind that this is not a limitation on God per se but simply a problem of language. It's like randomly typing "ASFDWbg!?f#wYpzzhj25Xw08461ke!//oPTV" at keyboard and asking God to do it, there's simply nothing to accomplish. You didn't actually challenged him with anything. Same with creating a married bachelor, because a bachelor is by definition, an unmarried man, so to create a married bachelor is to create a married man who is unmarried - it's a contradiction. Remember that this is not a limitation to the subject but to the language itself; they are simply words that put together wrongly. God (assuming that he exists) cannot simply fulfill a challenge if the challenge itself is incoherent in the first place.
The Paradox of the Stone revisited
So how about we ask a coherent challenge for God to accomplish: can a being create a finite pile of rocks that is unliftable by its own maker? That is to say, can God create a finite pile of rocks so heavy that even God himself cannot lift it? If yes, then God cannot lift the finite pile of rocks which means he's not omnipotent. If no, then God cannot create such finite pile of rocks which means he's not omnipotent. We already talked about last time that this is a logical contradiction. Notice that I can do this task myself, I can create a finite pile of rocks that if becomes heavy enough, I cannot lift it anymore. If I can do it, then it logically follows that God can also do it. But no, it's a paradox. This time, the fault is not on the challenge but on the definitions of God and omnipotence themselves. This mind-boggling problem is known as the Paradox of the Stone, or simply, the Omnipotence Paradox which was introduced by Muslim philosopher Averroes (1) and later by Thomas Aquinas during the Medieval Period.
"Hey, that's a strawman! Nobody believes that omnipotence is 'the ability to do anything.' The correct definition is ____." First of all, wrong! Absolute omnipotence is a definition that is historically held by the majority of Christian apologists and laypeople. It may not be the definition that all monotheists subscribed to, but it is a common interpretation that many people have held and defended throughout history, or if not directly, then they surely tend to lean heavily in that general direction. One idea that leans toward the idea of absolute omnipotence is the definition of omnipotence being the power to do anything that it wants to do (Y is omnipotent. If Y wishes to do X, then Y can and does do X). Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo, for example, believed that God is capable of "doing what he wills" (2).
"For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent." - Augustine of Hippo (The City of God)
Hell, even the Father of Modern Western Philosophy himself Rene Descartes defended absolute omnipotence, for example, in his book Meditations on First Philosophy and his letters to Mersenne on 1630 by claiming that God is not limited by logic and can do even the logically impossible, if he wills it (3).
"You ask what necessitated God to create these truths; and I reply that he was free to make it not true that all the radii of the circle are equal – just as free as he was not to create the world. And it is certain that these truths are no more necessarily attached to his essence than are other created things. You ask what God did in order to produce them. I reply that from all eternity he willed and understood them to be, and by that very fact he created them." - Rene Descartes (Letters to Mersenne, 1630)
Moreover, the Bible itself says that the God of the Bible can indeed do anything, or can do "all things."
"But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God, all things are possible." - Matthew 19:26 (KJV)
"And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." - Mark 10:27 (KJV)
"For with God nothing shall be impossible." - Luke 1:37 (KJV)
"I know that thou (God) canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee." - Job 42:2 (KJV)
"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?" - Jeremiah 32:27 (KJV)
Even the Qur'an of Muslims also says that God (or should I say, Allah) is "able to do all things."
"Praise be to Allah, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, Who appointeth the angels messengers having wings two, three and four. He multiplieth in creation what He will. Lo! Allah is Able to do all things." - Surah Fatir 35:1
The problem with these objectors is that they are not seeing the big picture here. The Omnipotence Paradox is all about definitions. Before apologists claim that such being like God exists, it is important for us to establish what exactly does the word "God" mean. After all, what's the point of debating about the existence of a being if we cannot even agree about the definition of that being? Secondly, the Omnipotence Paradox shows us that contradictions are bad. If a proposition contains a contradiction, then it is incoherent and meaningless, and cannot exist in objective reality, with 100% absolute logical certainty. But keep in mind that the Omnipotence Paradox does not outright debunk the entire idea of monotheism altogether. It only applies to those narrow and terrible definitions that surrounds it. It can be easily avoided by simply redefining the terms. And finally, there is no such thing as 'correct' definition, there's only 'good' and 'bad' definitions. Good definitions are descriptive, precise, consistent, and meaningful; while bad definitions are ambiguous, obtuse, circular, inconsistent, meaningless, and contradictory. In this case, absolute omnipotence is a bad definition and you can simply just redefine omnipotence to avoid the paradox. And the moment you redefine it, you are not refuting the paradox, you are embracing the paradox. You are doing exactly what the paradox is designed to force you in the first place, that is to avoid the bad definition and redefine your terms without contradiction. So if you are not subscribing to the definition of the absolute omnipotence, then the paradox simply does not apply to you. Good for you, then! Or is it?
Redefining the word "omnipotence"
Obviously, there are apologists and theologians out there who cannot fathom the idea of absolute omnipotence, unlike Descartes and Augustine. So, they redefine omnipotence as the the ability to do anything that is logically possible. Famous examples that I can give are Thomas Aquinas, CS Lewis (the guy who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia), and Richard Swinburne.
"It is sometimes objected that this aspect of omnipotence involves the contradiction that God cannot do all that He can do; but the argument is sophistical; it is no contradiction to assert that God can realize whatever is possible, but that no number of actualized possibilities exhausts His power. Omnipotence is perfect power, free from all mere potentiality. Hence, although God does not bring into external being all that He is able to accomplish, His power must not be understood as passing through successive stages before its effect is accomplished. The activity of God is simple and eternal without evolution or change. The transition from possibility to actuality or from act to potentiality, occurs only on creatures. When it is said that God can or could do a thing, the terms are not to be understood in the sense in which they are applied to created causes, but as conveying the idea of a Being, the range of Whose activity is limited only by His sovereign will." - Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica)
"Everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them, Nor is this contrary to the word of the angel, saying: 'No word shall be impossible with God.' For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing." - Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica)
"His omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to him, but not nonsense. This is no limitation to his power. If you choose to say 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeed in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can.' ... It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of his creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because his power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk about God." - CS Lewis (The Problem of Pain)
"A person P is omnipotent at a time (t) if and only if he is able to bring about any logically contingent state of affairs (x) after t, the descriptions of which does not entail that P did not bring x about at t." - Richard Swinburne (The Coherence of Theism)
Okay, so let's buy the idea of omnipotence as the ability or the power to do anything that is logically possible (◊ P = ¬□¬P). That is to say, if an action is coherent and not necessarily false, and does not contain any intrinsic contradictions, then it is a logical possibility. Any action that is already done in the past is a logically possible action. God cannot create a married bachelor or scroish a gradchen because they are meaningless and logically impossible. That seems to solve the problem of absolute omnipotence, right? So, what are we going to put on the list of Logically Possible Actions? Consider a challenge like "do a back flip." If I can imagine some logically possible world where an agent can do a back flip and as long as it doesn't produce a logical contradiction, then good, it goes on the list. How about "eat a sandwich"? Sure, it's not inherently contradictory, so it goes on the list. Therefore, anyone who wishes to be called as omnipotent must be able to replicate these actions.
That seems to be alright but how about this example: "tell a lie." Well, yes, it is logically possible to tell a lie. It's an incorrigible fact and we do it all the time. So therefore, an omnipotent being must be able to tell a lie. But strangely, this is a problem with the omnipotent God of the Bible. Look at this syllogism:
In verses Hebrews 6:18 and Titus 1:2, it states that Yahweh cannot tell a lie. Not just because it is something that God doesn't do or chooses not to do, but literally cannot do. So right off the bat, the Bible contradicts this new definition of omnipotence.
"That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:..." - Hebrews 6:18 (KJV)
"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;" - Titus 1:2 (KJV)
But let's ignore that little problem and ask this million dollar question: does the Paradox of the Stone still applies to this new definition of omnipotence?
The problem with the new definition
Let's go back to the list of Logically Possible Actions. Is it logically possible to "make a pile of rocks"? Sure, it has no intrinsic contradictions so it goes on the list. How about "lift a pile of rocks"? Again, yes, it goes on the list. How about "make a finite pile of rocks that cannot be lifted by its own maker"? Yes, it's logically possible. I can conceive a being that can do this task in a logically possible world, then it goes on the list. I can go outside, gather some rocks, compile it together, and lift it, then gather some more rocks until I cannot lift it anymore. I can do it and so can you, therefore it's a logically possible action that can be done, and it necessarily follows that it belongs to the list of things that an omnipotent God should be able to do. It really is that simple.
Except that how can God lift any finite amount of rocks but has also a capacity to create a finite amount of rocks that he cannot lift? Ding, ding, ding! Contradiction! I'm sorry apologists, but you haven't solved a damn thing! The paradox is still there. The problem that they tend to overlook is that infinities are dangerous because they can easily lead to contradictions. Sure, it's possible to consistently talk about limited ideas of infinity, but we need to be careful and restrictive in how we use them. Throwing around infinite potentialities willy-nilly is a great way to produce paradoxes, and that seems to be what apologists are doing to their god and omnipotence. Bear in mind that there are things that can be potentially both logically possible in isolation, but not necessarily possible when joined together in the same set. Either an omnipotent being can create an immovable object or create an unstoppable force, but cannot be created both simultaneously, because the mere potential of one completely negates the other.
So, apparently, the set of all logically possible actions is, ironically, not even a logically possible thing. Therefore any attempt to make a list of God's capabilities must pick and choose, because every naive universal set will always be either complete but inconsistent, or consistent but incomplete. To have it both ways is logically impossible. Any attempt to make a set of all sets is mathematically guaranteed to have contradictions, unless you put strict specific restrictions to your definitions. You cannot have your own cake and eat it too.
Introducing the Russell-Zermelo Paradox
What they don't realize is that the Paradox of the Stone is actually just a variation of a well-known unsolvable mathematical problem called Russell-Zermelo Paradox, named after British philosopher Bertrand Russell and German logician Ernst Zermelo (4). All you have to do is to ask: Does the set of all sets that does not contain itself, contain itself? If yes, then the set does not satisfy its own formula, making it inconsistent. If no, then the set is incomplete. Any answers that you will give will inevitably lead to contradictions. If you are confused with this paradox, let's have a thought experiment from Russell himself which he called the Barber Paradox. Suppose that there is a barber in a town where he only shaves those who do not shave themselves. The question is, does the barber shave himself? The barber cannot shave himself because he only shaves those who do not shave themselves, therefore if he shave himself, he ceases to be a barber. On the other hand, if the barber does not shave himself, then he belongs to the group who do not shave themselves who would be shaved by the barber, and therefore as a barber, he must shave himself. It's a contradiction, therefore such barber cannot exist in reality.
The reason why ideas like omnipotence are such a bad thing, it's because they are trying hard to make God as a kind of a naive universal set that is grounded on a principle known as unrestricted comprehension (5). It is a set theory which states that to every condition φ(x), there corresponds a set of all things (x) that meets the condition {x: φ(x)} to satisfy φ(x). For example, if φ(x) stands for "x is a prime number", then {x: φ(x)} is the set of all prime numbers. A naive universal set, on the other hand, is the set of all sets that contains all objects including itself. That is to say, if you can verbally state a collection of something that have properties, then it qualifies to be called as a mathematical set. One example of a naive universal set that has the axiom of unrestricted comprehension is the set of all logical possibilities. Because of the Russell-Zermelo Paradox, every set must be restricted (i.e. limited) or else the set would be inconsistent. In other words, you cannot have the set of all sets without picking and choosing. That's why naive universal sets that contains the axiom of unrestricted comprehension are bad. An omnipotent being can have many powers but not in any circumstances to have all powers, and pushing the latter will inevitably leads to paradoxes. Always keep in mind that only set that contains even a slightest shred of unrestricted comprehension must also necessarily be inconsistent. So, when apologists redefined omnipotence as the ability to do all that is logically possible to avoid the Paradox of the Stone, they still haven't actually solved anything, because it still contains elements of unrestricted comprehension (like the set of all logically possible actions). In order to know if a set is consistent, just expose it to self-referential negations (i.e. feed it back onto itself). God literally cannot do anything that involves himself without producing any paradox, because he himself is poorly defined as a being with infinite powers.
The problem with self-referential propositions with logical negations
Notice that the nature of the Paradox of the Stone is grounded to the idea of self-referential negation, like what happens when an omnipotent being pits itself against itself? The question is fine in any other context, but why when it comes to a being like God, it's problematic? If an omnipotent deity is defined as having an infinite strength, then what happens if that deity simply pushes his arm against his another arm like a one-man arm wrestle? PARADOX! If an omnipotent deity is defined as a being that cannot fail at any task, then what happens if that deity simply plays against himself at a game of chess? God can only win at chess since he cannot fail at any task, but in any game like chess, there is always going to lose (and God cannot have a draw either, since by definition he must only win). Therefore, it's logically impossible to checkmate himself. How about this challenge: stand on a stage and truthfully say the words "I am not omnipotent." If I can do it myself, then an omnipotent being must also be able to do it. But the problem is the only way to do that is to be not omnipotent. And remember that Augustine of Hippo said in his book, The City of God that God cannot do anything that makes him not omnipotent. Self-referential propositions with logical negations tend to produce inconsistencies. Aside from Russell-Zermelo Paradox, other paradoxes like the Liar's Paradox, Turing's Halting Problem, and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems also possess the problem of self-referential negations, and have been discussed by logicians, mathematicians, and philosophers for so many years. The set of things that an omnipotent God can do with logical possibility can either be incomplete but consistent or be inconsistent but complete, but it's impossible to be both simultaneously.
Concerning the type-token distinction
"The question of the Paradox of the Stone is simply malformed and meaningless, therefore you haven't actually challenged God to do anything." False! The challenge is actually simple, and you can do it yourself. So if we replace the word "God" with "you", the paradox simply vanishes immediately. Instead of "Can God create a finite pile of rocks so heavy that God himself cannot lift it," how about we ask, "Can you create a finite pile of rocks so heavy that you yourself cannot lift it?" Go outside, gather rocks, compile them together then lift it. If you can still lift it, then just add more rocks until you cannot lift it anymore (or until you ran out of rocks trying). The challenge is fine, but if you challenge an omnipotent God to do it, a paradox arises because God himself is ill-defined.
Another objection one can make is that the challenge (making a finite amount of rocks that cannot be lifted by its own maker) is inherently ambiguous and unclear. When I create that pile of rocks, the word "maker" refers to me but when someone else create that pile of rocks, the word "maker" suddenly changes its meaning. The challenge shares the same type of proposition but not the token (6). So, for the challenge to be comparable, God wouldn't need to create a rock that he cannot lift, but only to create a rock that I cannot lift. It may sound reasonable at first but if you think about it, it crumbles immediately. Instead of challenging God to create a finite amount of rocks that cannot be lifted by its own maker, we can just change it to create a finite amount of rocks that cannot be lifted by any being in the universe; or rather than challenging God to stand in a stage and truthfully speak out loud the words "I am not omnipotent," we can just also change it to stand in a stage and truthfully speak out loud the words "There are no omnipotent beings." They are still logically possible actions so they still belong to the set of logically possible actions.
What the objectors don't realize is that all logically possible actions are inherently self-referential. To see why, suppose that I challenge you to "eat a sandwich," what would happen? Naturally, your interpretation is you will grab a sandwich and start eating it. However, if you were then challenge me to also eat a sandwich, what exactly do you imagine will happen next? (1) Grab a sandwich and shove it to my face? Or (2) Grab a sandwich and shove it to your face? Obviously, number 1 is the correct interpretation because that is how every English-speaking people understands it. The whole point of commanding the challenge in the first place is to see if you have the power within yourself to replicate a power that I have within myself. But for some weird reason, the moment we try to apply this same reasoning within a religious or philosophical context, it all suddenly changes. By invoking the type/token distinction in this way, challenging you to "eat a sandwich" would be meaningless, and instead, I have to say something absurd like challenging you to "bring about the event of you eating this sandwich." It doesn't work that way, and actions are not the same as events. I don't need to specify a specific doer in order to define some specific act coherently. When you challenge me to run three miles, you obviously mean that I have to run three miles and when I challenge you to run three miles, I obviously mean that you have to run three miles. All actions are inherently self-referential in some way or another, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Redefining the word "omnipotence" again
"You still got it wrong, God cannot violate his own essential nature." Okay, then we can simply redefine omnipotence as the ability to do that is logically possible, provided that it is consistent with one's essential nature. So let's put it in a test, shall we? So can an omnipotent being can tell a lie? It depends on the being itself. If an omnipotent being that we are talking about is the God of the Bible, then no, God cannot tell a lie because that would violate his perfectly honest nature. It's like asking a perfectly honest being to not be perfectly honest. It's a logical contradiction. Likewise, you also cannot challenge God to kill himself because that would violate his immortal nature; and you cannot also challenge God to stand in a stage and truthfully say "I am not omnipotent," and you cannot also challenge God to create a finite pile of rocks that he cannot lift, because that would violate his omnipotent nature; and you cannot also challenge God to commit sin because it violates his perfectly good nature. Problem solved, OR IS IT? What if I challenge God to tell me a lie? What if I give him a blue ball pen and I told him to say that I gave him a red ball pen? What exactly do you imagine will happen next? If you ask me, it's like the scene from the movie Liar Liar when Atty. Fletcher Reede (played by Jim Carrey) tries to say that the blue ball pen that he's holding is red but he can't, as if some invisible metaphysical entity of honesty is somehow preventing him to say any lie, because his son Max wished on his birthday cake that his father cannot tell any single lie for a day (spoiler alert, by the way). That's obviously absurd. Maybe you imagine that God is just standing there with his eyebrow raised and said "Huh?" as if he didn't understand what I've just said. Or maybe he just said that "No thanks, I can't do that, that would violate my essential nature." What the hell am I supposed to do with that statement?
What if you challenge me to lift a 200-kilogram sacks of rice? Okay, except that, oooh, that would violate my essential nature! My essential nature is that I'm just a finite mortal being that has a physical muscle mass that can only lift 50 kilograms (sure there are body builders and super humans that can lift more than 50 kilograms but I'm talking about myself, personally), so asking me, a being that cannot lift more than 50 kg, to lift something more than 50 kg is a contradiction. It's the same for challenging me to live forever because that would violate my mortal nature. No being can logically be expected to do the things that it cannot do. If God is omnipotent, and omnipotence means doing anything that is logically possible provided that it is consistent with one's essential nature, ask yourself, what is God's essential nature? Well, God's essential nature is omnipotence! So right off the bat, the whole new definition of omnipotence is now nothing but a meaningless vapid tautology. Therefore, the ability of an omnipotent being is nothing more than whatever that being can do. The only reason why God is omnipotent is because God can do the things that God can do, and God cannot do the things that God cannot do. It's now meaningless, isn't it? Heck, by also using that definition, I am also omnipotent. I have the ability to do all that is logically possible, provided that it is consistent with my essential nature, and so does God, and so do you, and so everyone else. Therefore, every being in the universe is now omnipotent by that definition. It's like saying that God exists because the essence of God is pure existence, so he is existence himself. It's technically true because it's tautological, but it's vacuous, it doesn't prove anything, and doesn't mean anything anymore. God exists because God exists!
"Well, it's just only incidental that you cannot lift 200 kilograms, but I can still imagine a logically possible world where you can lift 200 kg sacks of rice over your head." You maybe made me a great body builder in some possible world, but what you are imagining is not actually me. It maybe someone that is very alike of me, but that's not exactly me. I just said that I'm just a finite being who can only lift no more than 50 kilograms. Well, how about this, I can also imagine a possible world where the God of the Bible is out there telling lies, now what's the difference? Why is it that when God cannot do something is because it violates his consistent essential nature, but when I cannot do something, it's because it just happens that I cannot do it due to my weak finite existence? If that's not an obvious special pleading fallacy (applying an exception to something without any adequate justification), then I don't know what it is. And now, we have yet another one definition of omnipotence that if not paradoxical, is tautological. Hell, even the apologist Alvin Plantinga himself personally debunked this definition of omnipotence through his thought experiment called Mr. McEar (7). Suppose that there is a man named Mr. McEar and he has one essential property, which is, he has the ability to scratch his ear, and nothing else. He literally cannot do anything other than scratching his ear, and challenging him with any other task, will, by definition, violate his consistent essential nature. Now tell me, is Mr. McEar an all-powerful being? I wouldn't be surprised if you tell me not, but according to our new definition, he is just as omnipotent as the God of the Bible himself. Mr. McEar can do anything that he can do (that is to scratch his ear), and God can also do anything that he can do. They both cannot do the things that they cannot do.
The problem with essentialism
The real problem with this "essential nature" thing is that it is predicated in the idea of essentialism which states that there exists some kind of intrinsic "essence" to everything that makes them what they are. Essence is the fundamental property of something that is unalterable, permanent, eternal, and present in every possible world. Our bias as a human beings to look at the world and find their "essence" is perfectly natural, yet if you think about it, it's actually bullshit. A scissors doesn't have some magically objective "essence of scissorness" that makes a scissors "scissors." It's simply just an arrangement of some physical stuff that humans have decided to combine and hinge, and call that a "scissors." A chair doesn't have an intrinsic "essence of chairness" that makes a chair "chair," but rather a mere arrangement of preexisting matter where humans arbitrarily decided to sit on and called that a "chair." Existence precedes essence. There is no such thing as an inherent "essence of being God" that would make God "God", but instead, there is only a definite collection of empirically verifiable qualities which, if demonstrated, would officially refer a specific entity with a label "God." Remember the verifiability criterion of meaning that we talked about a while ago? Before we can even speak of this deity's capabilities and attributes, we need to demonstrate first if this deity actually exists in the objective external reality in the first place, instead of just making speculations out of thin air and defend it with convoluted metaphysical jargon. The words "God exists" is a synthetic proposition, and synthetic propositions can only be verified through empirical evidence and pragmatic predictions under the expectation that this deity actually exists. But what do we really have here? Making shit up and blather it out on the ether, and defend it with mental gymnastics and blatant sophistry.
Solving the omnipotence problem once and for all
Dear apologists, stop being so greedy with your definitions, lest your God will vanish into nonexistence with pure brute logical force. So, instead of clinging with these incoherent definitions, we can just simply give up the idea that God being all-powerful and instead calling him maximally powerful or extremely powerful or better yet, almighty. That is to say, he's way more powerful than any other being in the universe but he is still constrained within basic finite limitations. Some apologists are even fine on using those kind of restricted definitions. Maybe God can do many things like creating universes, making it rain frogs, or telekinetically move black holes, whenever he wants to do it, but he cannot create square circles or create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it. There, paradox vanished. But if that definition still have problems, then okay, we'll just make another more sensible one, but at least, we are not making any absurd rationalizations for the sake of preserving a stupid definition. But hey, let's face it, I don't think many believers would want to worship such a merely finite deity that cannot do everything, but instead they want their specific deity to be endowed with infinite powers. As we have already established earlier in the Russell-Zermelo Paradox, there is nothing wrong with God having many powers, but under no circumstance can God have all powers. Either the set of all powers possessed by God is complete but inconsistent or consistent but incomplete, but it is logically impossible to be both. The only reason many Christians (and also Jews and Muslims) still cling to these illogical definitions is because that's what their holy books say so. Ironically in the end of the day, it might seem that I'm just fixing their philosophical problems for them, and believers might view this entire discussion as a literal blasphemy on their God himself. This is precisely what will happen if you live your life defending dogma, superstition, and pure unfettered human say-so instead of honestly searching answers for a better understanding of the real empirical world.
What about "omniscience" or "omnibenevolence"?
Notice that this is just omnipotence that we are talking about here so far, but we already arrived with so many philosophical rabbit holes. If omnipotence is already bad for you, what would you expect with omniscience and omnibenevolence? Even if we managed to formulate consistent definitions for these other "omnis," what exactly you would expect if these omni-attributes are all lumped together into a single entity? Do you really think they would all be logically consistent? Not a chance! For example, we already talked about how omnipotence and omniscience cannot get along by asking the question "If God already know how is going to intervene to change the course of history, does he have the power to change his mind?" If yes, then he can change his mind, but it implies that he doesn't know his future actions in the first place, making him not omniscient. If no, then he cannot change his mind, something that he cannot do, making him not omnipotent.
Ignoring all of that for a moment, let's take a look at omniscience, which came from its Latin roots omni which means all and scientia which means knowledge. One may define omniscience as the ability to know all there is to know, or the perfect knowledge of all truths, or maybe the knowledge of all that is logically possible to know. In other words, God is the smartest, wisest, most intelligent being in the whole universe. Notice that this is yet another naive universal set grounded on the axiom of unrestricted comprehension. Let's now expose God's omniscience in a self-referential negation by going back to the question, "If God already knows how he is going to intervene to change the course of history, does he have the power to change his mind?"
Introducing Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems and Turing's Halting Problem
The set of all things that God can know must also be therefore either incomplete but consistent or inconsistent but complete, but it cannot be both. This problem with omniscience can also be seen at the Incompleteness Theorems of Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel (8). All that it says is that every formal systems that is based on axioms are either incomplete or inconsistent. That is to say, there will always be questions that cannot be answered using specific set of axioms and you cannot prove that a specific set of axioms is consistent (i.e. without contradictions) except if you have a different set of axioms. These theorems prove that it is impossible to create a set of axioms that explains everything in mathematics. We can prove many things in math, but we cannot prove all things in math. Likewise, an omniscient being can possess many knowledge, but under no circumstance that he can possess all knowledge. There is always something that he doesn't know that he doesn't know. Because omniscience contains elements of unrestricted comprehension, just like omnipotence, it is always guaranteed that it will produce paradoxes.
If that weren't bad enough, what if we ask the question "can God tell me if a certain computer program will halt or run forever?" This is a puzzle known as the Halting Problem from British mathematician and the Father of Computer Science Alan Turing (9).
Let's now replace the words "Program X" with the word "God" and go back to the question, "can God tell me if a certain program will halt or run forever?" If God said, "Program Z halts," then Program Y runs forever. If God said, "Program Z runs forever," then Program Y halts. Let's put Program Y itself as an input. If God said, "Program Y halts," then Program Y runs forever. If God said, "Program Y runs forever," Program Y halts. But Program Y cannot both halt and run forever. Therefore no matter how smart you think God is, God cannot tell me if a certain program will halt or run forever. Even if we have a complete access to the source code itself, there still exists simple computer programs that cannot be predicted in advance whether it would stop running or not. By definition, whatever God will predict will all necessarily going to be wrong. There are actually true propositions about the world that cannot be known because the very act of knowing them is what makes them false. Turing's Halting Problem shows that there are simply some things that is unsolvable and cannot be known. The act of knowing everything is logically impossible, and such omniscient being like God cannot exist in objective external reality.
How about we mix omniscience and omnibenevolence and ask the question, "can God know what it feels like to feel lust?" That is to say, can God know the feeling of sexual pleasure or lustful desires? If he actually exists and he's indeed all-knowing, then it necessarily follows that he knows what it feels like to feel lust. But according to Judeo-Christian theology, it's a no. Because lust is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and God cannot sin because that would make him not all-good. And you still expect that these omnis will go together in harmony without any contradictions whatsoever?
The omni-God versus the Biblical God
But what I think is the funniest thing about this omnipotence/omniscience problem is that the omni-God that apologists defend is not even compatible with the God of the Bible that these same people believe in. One obvious example is in Judges 1:19, where in the Biblical story, Yahweh assisted Judah and his Israelite troops into a massive genocide against the Canaanites and Perizzites in the city of Jerusalem. Now it is apparent that the whole first chapter (or should I say, the whole book itself) of the book of Judges is violent and ghastly (just read the whole book if you don't know what I mean), but that's not my point here, but this interesting part of the chapter caught my attention:
"And the Lord was with Judah; and He drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." - Judges 1:19 (KJV)
Really, iron chariots? The omnipotence of Yahweh was challenged by mere iron chariots? The "children of Judah" with the assistance of Yahweh himself already killed thousand of people and wiped out entire kingdoms "with the edge of the sword." Yahweh could have killed a lot more, if it weren't for those damned iron chariots! Don't believe me? Just read the whole book of Judges. Moving along, how about this one:
"And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" - Genesis 3:8-9 (KJV)
This verse pertains to Adam and Eve hiding from Yahweh, realizing that they were naked after eating the forbidden fruit. If God really is omniscient, why would he ask "Where are you"? Doesn't he already know that? "Hid themselves from the presence of the Lord"? Doesn't he also omnipresent? Why would he ask such a thing? Given that he's also omnipresent (everywhere at any time simultaneously), he didn't need to ask that question since Adam and Eve had literally nowhere to hide.
"And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you thee that thou wast naked? Has thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" - Genesis 3:10-11 (KJV)
Again, Yahweh don't need to ask this question if he already know what Adam will going to say. Speaking of Adam and the original sin, if Yahweh is really omniscient, which means he already knows the future, which means he already knows whether Adam and Eve will going to eat the forbidden fruit in the Tree of Knowledge, which means he already knows that humanity will be doomed by the original sin, then why the hell put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the first place? It's as if this deity set us up for failure, making us part of his seemingly fucked up divine plan. And because he is also omnipresent, the serpent who tempted Eve had literally no chance to tempt her since the watchful eye of God is everywhere; and speaking of the serpent, if God already knows whether or not the serpent will mess up humanity by tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, then why he let the serpent to do that? He has all the powers to kill the serpent, or better yet, why create the serpent in the first place? It seems that this is not what an omniscient being should be able to do. And no, the "how-dare-you-to-question-God" excuse is very much not applicable here.
Moreover, since he knows the future (because he's omniscient, right?), he already know that he will send his son (which is also himself) in a suicide mission to appease God the Father (which is also himself) and forgive the sins of the humankind, which is his fault in the first place since he already knew that humankind will be doomed by the forbidden fruit but he still put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden anyway. This is one of the turning points where I first realized that the whole premise of Christian theology is nothing but a steaming pile of bullshit. But fortunately, these are all just mere mythologies made up by ancient people, which explains all of these nonsense.
I could also see these same kind of inconsistencies throughout the other books of the Bible, and there's actually a lot in the book of Genesis alone.
"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." - Genesis 4:16 (KJV)
This is after Cain killed Abel and God cursed him to be a fugitive and a vagabond. After that, Cain went to the land of Nod where God "isn't there." But if God is omnipresent, then Cain literally had no chance to hide from him.
"And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." - Genesis 18:20-21 (KJV)
Go down now and see? If Yahweh is really an all-knowing and all-present deity, going down and see if Sodom and Gomorrah were sinning is completely unnecessary, since he already knew and saw it in advance in the first place.
Another inconsistent idea in the Bible against God's omniscience is the times when God tests people, like what he did to Abraham (Genesis 22) when he tested his faith to him by Abraham attempting to kill his son Isaac, and to Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32) where God tested him to know "what's in his heart." The idea of the God of the Bible being all-knowing makes the idea of him testing people unnecessary and utterly pointless. What's the point of testing if he already know the answer in the first place? Shouldn't Yahweh already know what's inside the heart of Hezekiah or whether Abraham was loyal enough to kill his son on command? Meanwhile in the book of Job, God and Satan had a bet to test Job's loyalty to God.
"And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD." - Job 1:8-12 (KJV)
Satan says that Job is only loyal and pious because Yahweh blesses him with wealth and comfort, so he allows Satan to curse Job by killing his family and servants, taking away his wealth, and giving him all kinds of gross diseases to see how Job reacts. Yahweh allowing Satan to test Job's loyalty seems to be completely pointless and inconsistent to his omniscient "nature." If he already knew how loyal Job is, then the only reason to allow Satan to test Job is to show Satan how loyal Job was, but why would he care what Satan thought? And besides, this deity's alleged attribute of omnibenevolence is illogical from him permitting Satan to inflict a series of suffering to Job, if his goal is just to make Satan jealous. Seems like Satan is just messing with Yahweh and here is Yahweh, taking the bait, as if Satan knew that Yahweh would be petty enough to give him permission to torture his most loyal followers just on a bet. I don't know about you but this seems to be what you would not expect that an omniscient and omnibenevolent deity should supposed to be doing, and saying vacuous ad hoc excuses like "God works in mysterious ways" and "Who are you to question God?" doesn't solve the inconsistency.
Moreover, I also find the instances in the Bible where God repents as incompatible with his omniscience (Genesis 6:6; Exodus 32:11,14; Deuteronomy 32:36,42; 1 Samuel 15:11,35; 2 Samuel 24:1,16; 1 Chronicles 21:1,15; Jeremiah 42:20; Jonah 3:3,10; Amos 7:1-6). In fact, Jeremiah 15:6 says that God repents so much that he is tired or "weary of repenting." God's repentance implies that he doesn't know the consequences of his own future actions. An omniscient being already knows perfectly what will happen if he carried out his actions and has all the powers to get rid of all undesirable consequences, which means there is no room for him to regret something. Having regrets or repentance is caused by not considering the consequences of one's actions. We cannot know with perfect certainty and accuracy the consequences of our actions but at least we can speculate it based on past events. It's alright for humans with mere finite capability of knowing future consequences to regret something, but not for a deity that already knows exactly what will happen in the future. Therefore the idea of an omniscient God and a God that regrets is self-contradictory. With these examples, it becomes more obvious that the God of the Bible that has anthropomorphic qualities is nothing more than a man-made deity invented by superstitious ignorant ancient Semitic people who don't know any better, and yet here we are with modern apologists trying to square the circle by trying hard to make the humanly Jewish god Yahweh compatible with the Supreme Being with infinite divine attributes that they always defend. The qualities and actions of Yahweh according to the Bible are precisely what you would expect from a god that was created out of human fabrication. There are too many examples in the Bible but I already made my point. The omni-God that apologists defend doesn't even agree on what their holy book actually says.
Conclusion
Given all of the incoherent and meaningless definitions about these omni-qualities, and given that they also contradict what the Bible actually says, I can therefore confidently assert with 100% logical certainty without even leaving my own chair, that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal Judeo-Christian God of the Bible does not exists in actual objective external reality. Because all definitions that are offered by the apologists themselves to give that word a meaning have been either inconsistent or recursive. And since paradoxical propositions cannot exist in objective external reality and the idea of omnipotent/omniscient deity is incoherent and contradictory, an omnipotent/omniscient deity therefore cannot be a real thing. By still clinging to their philosophically distorted definitions, it is actually the Christians themselves who are logically forcing their God directly into the realm of nonexistence. Even if they have developed a logically coherent definition of God that is immune to paradoxes, the burden of proof to empirically demonstrate God with undeniable and sufficient evidence is still on them, and even if there really is a God-like being somewhere out there in the universe, the laws of logic and language would stop us from ever reasonably calling this being as "God."
Sources:
(1) Averroes (1180). The Incoherence of Incoherence
(2) Augustine of Hippo (426). The City of God. Chapter 10: Whether Our Wills are Rules By Necessity
(3) Descartes, Rene (1630). Letters to Mersenne
(7) Plantinga, Alvin (1967). God and Other Minds
Date Published: July 3, 2020
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