The Black Vault

humphreys wrote:Therefore a perfectly just being cannot be omnipotent, it must be limited to only just acts. Ergo, the concept of a maximally great being is an impossible one.

An omnipotent being is not required to perform all actions, as such a requirement would be ridiculous and logically absurd. Omnipotence does not entail performing logical absurdity. The omnipotent being orchestrates the laws of causality.

I did indeed directly answer your demand and you deliberately ignored the realization ...or you did not comprehend.

The omnipotent being defines its own acts and its own laws, it is not limited by its own determinations. We define our own actions and live by the law of cause and effect and experience the consequences.

Khan, a maximally great being cannot be unable to do something I am able to do. That is clear. An act of injustice is neither ridiculous or logically absurd, in fact, I can commit such an act right now if I please. But your all-powerful maximally great being cannot?

I'll put it in a way you might understand.

1. A maximally great being is perfectly just
2. A perfectly just being cannot commit acts of injustice, and is therefore limited in his power
3. An omnipotent being, then, cannot also be perfectly just
4. A maximally great being is defined as being perfectly just and omnipotent, and is therefore an impossible being following step 3

Any being that is not perfectly just, or all-powerful is not maximally great, so a maximally great being must by definition contain conflicting properties, so is an impossible concept. Without a maximally great being, the ontological argument fails from the get-go.

humphreys wrote:Khan, a maximally great being cannot be unable to do something I am able to do. That is clear.

"cannot be unable"

I am assuming that you made a typo and mean "cannot be able" or "is not able".

A maximally great being determines its own laws and its own constraints. Ability, but choosing not to do something would not mean a limit on omnipotence. Omnipotence is a property, it is not consciousness itself.

DIss0n80r wrote:Khan seems to be arguing in favor of a God limited by human reasoning. Can God do the impossible? No, says Khan, but that doesn't invalidate omnipotence. It just limits God to "the possible".

How does Khan know what is possible and what isn't, though?

If you say square circles are possible then you will have a difficult time in a logical debate...

Humphreys made a good point about morality's conflation into a defining property of a deity.

If God is limited, God is not strictly "God" in the most meaningful sense. If God is unlimited, however, then perfect morality cannot be imposed on God as a defining property.

So we seemingly are left with a choice between an amoral limitless God or a God that is necessarily moral and therefore a limited being.

DIss0n80r wrote:
If God is limited, God is not strictly "God" in the most meaningful sense. If God is unlimited, however, then perfect morality cannot be imposed on God as a defining property.

So we seemingly are left with a choice between an amoral limitless God or a God that is necessarily moral and therefore a limited being.

An unlimited God that must perform all actions would also be a limitation in that such a requirement of being unlimited, in the sense that you and humphreys are implying means that God would do everything, even that which is a self extinguishing possibility and logically incoherent like determining the rules of reality then opposing those rules with a contradictory action. As I said, and I hope you will start to see, is that performing such actions against the self, after creating the laws of reality is the same thing as creating a rock so heavy that the omnipotent being cannot lift it. Creating the rules then opposing them is a logical absurdity for an omnipotent being. Omnipotence does not entail logical absurdity.

I am not suggesting this God needs to be able to do everything, but he is supposed to be maximally great, and if he is unable to do something I can do with ease (commit an unjust act), then he obviously is not.

For example. Let's say there an infinite number of logically possible tasks one can perform. If God cannot do all of those logically possible tasks, then he is not maximally powerful, as we can always imagine him capable of performing more tasks.

His maximally just nature limits the tasks he is able to perform, so there are logically possible tasks the he cannot perform. He is limited by his own nature, and cannot be maximally great. There has to be a trade off because each attribute cannot each be infinite. When justness is increased, power and flexibility of action are decreased, so the concept of maximal greatness is completely incoherent.

A maximally great being must be infinite in power and justness, but such a thing is not possible. So, do we limit God's power, or do we limit his justness? Who decides which is "greater" when we are force to limit God?

It is not the same as creating a rock so heavy that one cannot lift it. That is a logical impossibility because both the size of the rock and the extent of his power must both be infinite.

It is not logically impossible to commit an injust act, because human beings do so every day. Your God in some sense has less power than us, so cannot be maximally great.

I am not simply pitting God against himself, I am showing that when you increase the value of one property you must decrease the value of another, meaning maximal greatness is not a coherent idea in which all properties must extend to an infinite value. We must limit God in some property to allow another to become infinite.

It's a bit like trying to get both ends of a see-saw to touch the ground at the same time. You can't do so because when you raise one end, the other lowers. There must be balance between the properties, but maximal greatness implies the impossible, that both sides must be touching the ground, and as such is an impossible concept - it cannot exist in reality, it is, itself, a logical impossibility.

No maximal greatness means the ontological argument fails.

What is greater, a God who is limitless in power but unjust, or a God who is limited in his powers but is perfectly just? Both are limited in their greatness, and there is no way to decide which is the greater of the two possible beings.

Actually, Khan, you've misunderstood. Or you refuse to concede a fair point because you cannot accept you might be wrong.

The point Hum made, as I see it, is that a deity cannot be defined as equivalent solely to all that we call virtuous without effectively being limited and thus not God.

This seems to be an argument about defining the legitimacy of God as a moral agent, as well as logical consequences of equating God with idealized morality, which many people intuitively do, eg. "God is perfect, God is love, God is fair, God is sweetness and light, God is the most positive of positives and can do no wrong" ect.

You must at least address the point, not merely argue against your own exaggerated straw man. Otherwise you will have a difficult time in a logical debate.

humphreys wrote:I am not suggesting this God needs to be able to do everything, but he is supposed to be maximally great, and if he is unable to do something I can do with ease (commit an unjust act), then he obviously is not.

Maximal greatness does not entail the ability to do something that is not great; greatness + non-greatness would be logically contradictory.

humphreys wrote:For example. Let's say there an infinite number of logically possible tasks one can perform. If God cannot do all of those logically possible tasks, then he is not maximally powerful, as we can always imagine him capable of performing more tasks.

God defines what is logical.

humphreys wrote:His maximally just nature limits the tasks he is able to perform, so there are logically possible tasks the he cannot perform. He is limited by his own nature, and cannot be maximally great. There has to be a trade off because each attribute cannot each be infinite. When justness is increased, power and flexibility of action are decreased, so the concept of maximal greatness is completely incoherent.

God defines his own maximal nature. Maximal greatness entails that which is great. Unjust actions are not great, therefore God does not perform unjust acts.

humphreys wrote:A maximally great being must be infinite in power and justness, but such a thing is not possible. So, do we limit God's power, or do we limit his justness? Who decides which is "greater" when we are force to limit God?

infinite ability[power] is logically compatible with infinite justness[execution of that power].