Last time, I mentioned that a friend of mine, who is a person of faith, had gotten into a spirited discussion with me about my lack of faith. When I pointed out the logical contradiction that an omnipotent being presents, she informed me that you can’t apply logic to god. I realized I wasn’t actually doing that in our debate; I was applying logic to her concept of god. But, she got me wondering if you really couldn’t apply logic to god.
I came up with four different scenarios related to the idea of applying logic to god. Now, I want to go into each one in detail.
- You really can’t apply logic to god.
That’s the first, most obvious scenario. However, it seems to me that if it were true, we couldn’t know anything at all about god. Logic and reason are used to determine if something is true or not. Unless knowledge, through divine revelation to each and every person on the planet, is imparted without the need for reasoning and logic, we must at some point utilize logic to understand god. What I mean is, a lot of what many people know about god (or think they know) they have learned either because they read it in a holy book or they were told by someone who (supposedly) knew more about it.
If they read it in their holy book, they had to use reason to even understand what the words mean. If you can’t use logic and reason to understand god, how can you understand god’s holy word without them? Now, if you argue that the person(s) that wrote the book did the reasoning for us so we could understand what they wrote, didn’t they just apply logic and reason to god, something they insist can’t be done? They had to use logic and reason to write down what they knew or learned, otherwise it would be unintelligible gibberish. So, someone somewhere along the way had to apply logic and reason to gain an understanding of god. But that contradicts the basic premise.
Some would argue that the problem is the incorrect definition of omnipotence. That there are “definitions” of omnipotence that don’t result in a paradox. I submit that they are “moving the goalposts.” They would assert that omnipotence doesn’t really mean all-powerful but something else–something less. So, they are changing the definition of the word omnipotence to avoid the paradox. Well geez, if I change the definition of god to be “a fictitious entity” then it would be easy for me to “prove” that he doesn’t exist. Changing the definition to avoid the paradox doesn’t actually solve anything and is only semantics.
Thus, if someone had to apply logic and reason to god to understand him but that isn’t allowed, we have a contradiction. And, whenever contradiction is allowed, truth cannot be known. Therefore, anything they think they know about god is at best suspect, it’s truth completely unknowable and at worst completely wrong! They’ve used logic themselves to understand, but since you can’t use logic to understand god, they cannot have any understanding of god by their own definition. To me then, that means nothing they say about god can be trusted, including the idea that you can’t apply logic to god.
2. You can apply logic to god, but he’s so far beyond us we can’t understand it.
This one should be self-evident in its absurdity. If god so far beyond us that using logic and reason won’t work, they how did they get their understanding? If he’s beyond my ability to understand, why isn’t he beyond theirs? Do they really think their ability to use logic and reason is that much better than mine (or other skeptics better at them than me)? I’ll be happy to put my ability up against those people of faith any time. So the very premise itself indicates they can’t know what they are talking about when they talk about the nature of god.
One of their arguments against this might be that, because they believe, they have a better understanding or use different “logic.” Well, logic is logic; logic determines whether something is true or false. If you can’t understand the logic then you can’t determine if something is true or false. So that won’t wash.
If believing is required to have an understanding of god, isn’t that a circular (illogical) argument? You have to believe in god to have the ability (to reason well enough) to believe in god. That’s a vicious little circle. Circular reasoning is an indication of poor thinking and calls into question (again) whether they really know anything about the nature of god or not.
So far, we’ve looked at two cases and in both, those of faith can’t actually know what they are talking about with regards to god and that’s by their own definition!
Next time, I’ll explore the last two scenarios and come to my conclusion about the nature of god and what those of faith can actually know about it.
Stay tuned…