On God and Logic

Note to atheists (or theists) familiar with the logical arguments against omnipotence and omniscience, there is really nothing new here but for my own perspective. This article is aimed at those unfamiliar with these arguments

The Christian view of God is a very malleable notion, but at its base God is an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving being. He is a God who knows every hair on your head, every thought in your mind, every desire in your heart. He is a God who weeps over every fallen sparrow, cares for each member of his creation equally, loves each and everyone, sinners one and all, and wishes for all to join him in the kingdom of heaven. He hears every prayer and answers everyone in accordance with his will. (That is to say that while a prayer may not be answered to your satisfaction, it is at the very least answered in the negative because your will may not necessarily coincide with His)

The words commonly used to describe this god, are omnipotent and omniscient, so let’s examine each of these words.

om•nip•o•tent 
   adj. 
   Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.

om•nis•cient
   adj. 
   Having total knowledge; knowing everything: an omniscient deity; the omniscient narrator.

This basis for an idea of God is extremely important, because no matter how much a faithful person modifies their idea of God to fit them, these two rules still stick, because after all what good is a god with limited power and knowledge?

If scrutinized however it can be easily shown that these two properties are in themselves conflicting, and at the very least provide logical problems with the idea of prayer and free will.

To begin, consider you were God, you knew everything from the beginning of time and beyond to the end of time infinite. In fact you do not even see time the same as us measly humans. To you creation was yesterday and the end of the world tomorrow, and vice versa. As a being with infinite knowledge of the universe, time is meaningless. You know of every creature that has lived and died, every breath that has ever been taken, every decision that will ever be made and every action that will ever be taken on those decisions.

Consider also that you were all-powerful. There is nothing you cannot do, you can create, you can destroy, you can give life or you can take it away with a swipe of your hand. You can stop the Sun from crossing the sky, and you can manifest yourself as a man to sacrifice yourself for the love of your people. You can give those people free will. You can change the future.

Have you spotted the inconsistencies yet? The first inconsistency was with the simple statement “There is nothing you cannot do”. Now this is a tired old argument, but logically it still holds. Can God create an object that he cannot lift? Or perhaps, can God destroy Himself? Saying that there is nothing He cannot do, immediately places logical limits on what he can or cannot do.

Secondly, the argument of free will is inconsistent with an omniscient god. If God knows every choice you will make, how can you be said to have free will? What if you changed your mind? Would God be surprised? Can you catch God off guard? If so then He cannot be said to be omniscient. If not, then everything you have ever done and will ever do, every choice you will ever make has been laid out in His plans forever! How can that be considered free will?

Thirdly, if God can change the future, then he cannot logically be omniscient. Just as you cannot catch God off guard, how can he possibly do the same to himself? Any change to his plans would be a lack of foresight on His part.

With all of this in mind, the futility of prayer becomes obvious. If God is omniscient, your future is metaphorically written in stone. It cannot be changed, any change would be crack in God’s plan, a hole in his all encompassing knowledge. Any request made to such a god, would have to go unfulfilled, or fulfilled, depending on whether it aligned with His already laid plans. In fact, you can never make a request that He has not anticipated from the beginning of time, with an already pre-determined outcome. The very action of you praying was never your choice from the beginning, it was planned by Him. In such a view of reality, why bother? You will if he wants you to, if you don’t it was His will.

Extrapolated to the ultimate answer, your final outcome, the salvation of your very soul is already known, already planned and accounted for. You have reserve seats in either Heaven or Hell, and logically there is nothing that you can do to change that, your salvation or punishment has been known and predetermined from the start. How can it be otherwise? If you can change your final destination, then God cannot possibly be all-knowing!

Such a world view is depressing as hell, and I can’t see how Christians could reconcile these problems if they ever actually thought about them, but one of the tenants of Christianity seems to be that thinking is dangerous. Questioning God can make him angry, and we don’t want to do that, do we? But then again, how can a god be angry at a question he saw coming for eternity?