Is God a logical contradiction?

[LadyForCamus]

For me, I suppose it comes down to the question: what is the definition of a god?  What makes something a god? What are the minimum necessary attributes or characteristics that qualify something as a god, and is there any evidence or reason to believe that such a thing, which fits that hypothetical description, actually exists?

That sounds reasonable to me.

I do try. 😛

And I'm pretty sure we'll never get a coherent definition from the fundamentalists. That's why I don't spend my time on them.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

In classical theism, or the God of the philosophers, there is a fairly well-agreed definition. With variations among the various thinkers:

Absolutely simple, absolutely unmoving, absolutely good, absolutely act with no potential, absolutely unique.

But what is it, and how does it have these characteristics like “good” and “simple” without technically being or doing anything? If god is immaterial, and cannot act in any way, then what rational justification is there for believing such a thing exists? It seems to me, as described, it doesn’t even qualify as a “thing” at all. What is an immaterial thing made of? This seems to me to be as logically contradictory as “the existence of nothing”. 

A follow-up question, and I’m sorry; I’m putting a lot on you here and that probably isn’t fair; even if we can find a reasonable way to describe a thing like this version of god, in what way is its existence meaningful to us? If it can’t act or interact, then in what way is it relevant to our own existence? Would/should knowing about its existence alter the way in which we perceive and act in our own lives? Does this knowledge have any practical, tangible implications for us as beings?

The apophatic and negative theologians have a good point, though: because we are people and are limited in our thinking, definitions are usually misleading. So for example if I say "God is good," I think I have a conception of what good is, and what God must be like in order to match that concept. But they say that since any human idea of goodness will be too limited, even such a simple statement is bound to block my understanding as much as it clarifies.

Then what reason is there to believe that this god is good at all?

To be fair to the atheist community here as I’ve come to know them, many of the theists who have come here for debate have come with that very particular kind of god in mind.

And if they think that posting here is an effective way to fight against stupid fundies, then more power to them. I've never said they shouldn't. 

I don't enjoy that, so I don't do it. 

Back in my hometown -- a tiny town in Kansas -- the fundies were getting noisy, so my sister got on the school board and ran the textbook committee. She was always the practical one in the family.

Good on her! Where I’m from, I think I’d make a lot of enemies that way. 😝

[Anomalocaris]

Anomalocaris: You've summarized things so I can understand *most* of what you're saying. But our second definition of immaterial meaning non-matter was a charitable one which we shouldn't really use. I think if we go with the original definition that is actually used by Christian apologists like William Lane Craig we can see that words like "immaterial", "soul" and "spirit" are meaningless, hence a "meaningless/nothing intelligence" is, perhaps, a contradiction for how can an intelligence be meaningless when we have a good understanding of the word intelligence? How can intelligence come from nothing?

Belaqua: Thanks for the rather unusual explanation.

Agreed that intelligence as we normally conceive of it probably requires a mechanism, whose scope and complexity likely correlates to magnitude of the intelligence, and to the extent of the intelligence's ability to actuate things based on its intelligence.    So All-powerful would imply a vastly complex mechanism, and all-knowing requires an vast information storage and processing.    

To suggest otherwise without giving suggestion of how the otherwise would function is to propose airy phantasms without any attempt to allow the fantasy to be constrained by any reality.  So it is pure make belief and not a serious proposal.

The mechanism, if postulated to exist, would nonetheless be overwhelmingly unlike to exist for no cause.  So a reasonably cogent argument for its existence must also contain some cogent postulate for the process of its formation.

[mordant]

Is God a logical contradiction? Is saying an [all-powerful] immaterial intelligence [God] like saying a square circle or married bachelor? To the best of my knowledge there are no immaterial things, such as energy waves, that exhibit intelligence. I need help with this. Anyone?

Can you give me a list of all immaterial things known to us? Do any of them exhibit intelligence? Are all immaterial things known to us (as in there can't be anymore)?

The problem with the above: Is it possible there could be something immaterial which is intelligent? Maybe, maybe not imo. This could be like asking "is it possible that a bachelor could be married?" No, it's not possible. But then maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks.

Material beings cannot discuss the immaterial because it is not available to them.

Natural beings cannot discuss the supernatural because they have no perceptual equipment for that.

The supernatural and immaterial are realms of pure speculation and baseless assertion.

The things in the world that we as a race of beings haven't understood in the past, have invariably proven to be grounded in the natural, material realm and we have sorted them out using observations of the natural material world. There is no reason to suppose that this will suddenly change.

So ... supernatural, immaterial beings and realms, including deities, are useless concepts for actually understanding reality and its workings.

The standard-issue supernatural interventionist god, therefore, IS a logical contradiction in that you're describing a thing with attributes (eternal, immutable, invisible, supernatural, immaterial) concerning which you not only have no data, but cannot POSSIBLY have any data.

Once you have actual data to discuss, you're talking about some aspect of the material, natural world. Present any data demonstrating the existence of an all powerful being that's allegedly responsible for the creation and maintenance of reality, and you're describing a part of reality itself, and you have the infinite regress problem of talking about a first mover that cannot be outside the closed system it created and still be observable and discussable. One could only speculate concerning it ... which is exactly 100% of what people do.

[GrandizerII]

So is every other topic that has been discussed here, Belaqua. I'm not sure why you feel you have to write this many pages to answer any of my questions, as you've been quite good at summarising things in an articulate and adequate manner.

Anyhow if I ever have time, I'll give Aquinas a read and see what hes really saying.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be snippy. It's hard to tell on here who's serious, sometimes. 

The short answer is that things divide into natural theology and revealed theology. Supposedly in natural theology we can reason from known facts (e.g. things in the world depend for their existence on other things) to know some truths about God. That he exists, that he must be unchanging, etc. 

Revealed theology is all the stuff we could never get to from reason: the Trinity, the virgin birth, the resurrection. In a sense they are admitting that none of this is the least bit logical! But since Catholics, for instance, accept both reason and revelation, they need both types. 

Careful thinkers will keep these separate. What they call the God of the philosophers is a lot closer to the God of natural theology. 

Catholics weave them together, to show for example how the underlying Cause of things -- the Ground of Being or whatever (natural theology) -- manifests itself to people in three ways (revealed theology). As I say, it's really beautiful, especially if you've been reading Dante for a long time. 

Here are a couple of books for the smart layman, that give a good introduction. These would be enough to decide if you wanted to pursue it more. 

David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Be...340&sr=1-3

Edward Feser, Aquinas A Beginner's Guide

https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners...oks&sr=1-1

Again, sorry if I seemed unresponsive before.

That's ok, stuff happens.

I will be checking out one of these books for sure, once I free myself from my current work project.

I'll just say merging the God of the philosopher with the Christian notion is a little deceptive because it's like having your cake and eating it as well. The theist who argues in the manner you speak of wants to argue that their God is reasonable and yet simultaneously say it defies our logic. You can't go wrong then in this case, hence why I have justification to dismiss these arguments at first glance. There is no need to put these views on some intellectual pedestal and then think lowly of atheists for daring to criticize them, just because the views are very sophisticated. Sophistication does not imply truth. Careful and intelligent thinking does not imply critical thinking. Psychological biases are at play here, and people who need God to exist will come up with elaborate ways to counter the apparent difficulties noted about their God, and when cornered badly, will then resort to revelation and God is a mystery. I can't personally have much respect for that.

But again, I will give one of these books a read when I'm free to read a good book. It's possible I'm missing something here after all.

[Fake Messiah]

Anyhow if I ever have time, I'll give Aquinas a read and see what hes really saying.

Aquinas was a dumb fuck like Ken Ham: he believed in the instantaneous creation of species and of Adam and Eve as humanity’s ancestors, as well as in a young Earth (less than six thousand years old) and the literal existence of Noah and his great flood.

Also Aquinas was obsessed with angels. Not only did he see them as real but devoted a large section of the Summa Theologica ("Treatise on the Angels") to their existence, number, nature, how they move, what they know, and what they want.

Religion hasn't obviously come closer to understanding the divine. From the ancient Hebrew sages through Aquinas to Kierkegaard, we still have no idea whether gods exist; whether there is only one god or many; whether any existing god is deistic, and largely absent, or theistic, interacting with the world; what the nature of any god is (is it apathetic, kindly, or evil?); whether that God is, as process theology claims, affected and changed by the world or unchangeable; how God wants us to live; and whether there is an afterlife, and, if so, what it is like. What has happened is that new theologies and religions have simply appeared alongside the old ones.

Fundamentalists, who see almost the entire Bible as literal truth, coexist with apophatic theologians who claim that nothing can be said about God, and yet write many books on the topic, so you can see that theology is not progressive but additive.

Compare this with science, where consensus views have evolved in every field--views that may change with time, but always lead to a deeper understanding of the universe, one that expands our abilities and makes our predictions more accurate.

[mordant]

Compare this with science, where consensus views have evolved in every field--views that may change with time, but always lead to a deeper understanding of the universe, one that expands our abilities and makes our predictions more accurate.

The bolded above is key.

What makes lived experience more accurately explicable and predictable? Religion or science?

That question is different from "what would I prefer explained or predicted lived experience?"

Religion has never invented or innovated anything, and its explanations and predictions are no more accurate than random happenstance.

This is the primary reason I left my faith of origin.

[Amarok]

comet: Well I'm confused as to what immaterial means then. How do you know it's possible for something immaterial to be intelligent?

If you don’t know what immaterial means, how can you know it is impossible for the immaterial to be intelligent?

---

So a  bunch of special made up stuff theists use to get out of admitting their god is nonsense. Theology is science fiction .

Where is the pretense of science?  Where is a admission that it is fiction?

The difference between theology and fiction is theology is ultimately about the most brutal domination, fiction about faintest suggestion.

---

Energy waves are not immaterial. There is nothing yet that has been observed that is immaterial.

Are messenger particles material?

It offers the pretension of explanation and even if it's not acknowledged as such it is .

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Religion has never invented or innovated anything

Witchcraft trials, various Inquisitions, the Crusades, genital mutilation, eternal punishment for transient offenses, cross burnings, church bombings, lots more.

Religion is nothing if not inventive and innovative.

Boru

[mordant]

Religion has never invented or innovated anything

Witchcraft trials, various Inquisitions, the Crusades, genital mutilation, eternal punishment for transient offenses, cross burnings, church bombings, lots more.

Religion is nothing if not inventive and innovative.

Boru

That's like saying Trump invented racism, xenophobia and corruption. It's all old news. Those are just the things authoritarian regimes do because they don't have anything to actually offer people. It's the same with religion. Reigns of terror, threats of eternal perdition, learned helplessness, etc are just crude cudgels to keep people in line.

None of the things you're listing are non-derivative. Political strongmen put people on trial on trumped up charges, conduct purges, torture, have overbearing punishments and terror campaigns, just for slightly different excuses.

Terrorizing and robbing people is easy work in terms of it not requiring an original thought -- assuming you're part of the power structure. And you get to live in luxury at other's expense. The things that make the world a kinder, gentler place, like self awareness, empathy, sharing and compassion, are by comparison hard work and require thinking outside various boxes and taking actual personal responsibility for your actions.

Name me one time religion ever actually corrected an actual scientific error. "I'm sorry, but your equation is incorrect, because god".

Name me one time religion built something that increased freedom of thought and freely available information.

Religion didn't invent the internet, for example; it's forced to COPE with it. And sure they build their own propaganda machines on top of that system, but the best they can do is propagate bullshit that is easily seen through.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.  Religious people were the ones responsible for the witch trials (for example).  If someone does something based on their religious belief, I suppose you could make the case that the religion didn't do it, the person did.

But that's kind of problematic, innit?  Since scientifically-minded people solve problems and invent things, then we might say that 'science' did nothing, the people using science did.

I can think of a LOT of instances where deeply, sincerely religious people corrected scientific errors, a lot of them out of religious motivations. But these people were also scientists.  Which way will you have it?

Name me one time religion built something that increased freedom of thought and freely available information.

This is an easy one.  Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.  Happening around the same time as mass printing, this put spirituality into the hands of individuals as opposed to it being filtered through the priesthood.  Are you going to claim that Martin Luther wasn't religious?

Boru