Suppose a woman defines God as a pancake. She has given us a bizarre, even silly—but nonetheless intelligible—definition. We can say with confidence that her god exists. Indeed, multiples of her god exist in a diversity of shapes and flavors. In the unlikely event that I adopted her definition of God, I would be a polytheist. A hungry polytheist.
Suppose she had said, “God is love.” I would interpret that as praise of God or as an allusion to how God makes her feel, rather than as a definition of God. If she insisted that she literally defines God as love, I would acknowledge her definition as clear enough for evaluative purposes. It has meaning within the range of my experience, so I can pass judgment on the existence of such a god.
Here’s the general principle: if we define God with sufficient clarity, we can potentially judge whether he exists. Let’s apply this principle to the Christian god.
The Christian god is defined as a person. No one thinks God is a mortal person like you and me. But he is nonetheless described as a person in that he has a distinct personal identity. To have a distinct identity is to be something, as distinguished from nothing or everything. In other words, to have a personal identity is to have defining limits. Having limits, any limits, is impossible for an unlimited being. Therefore, the statement that God is a person contradicts the popular dogma that God is unlimited. We may presume that God has the power to remove his limits and boundaries, but if he exercises that power, he would cease to be a personal god.
The King James Bible enumerates God’s personal and often distinctively humanlike qualities. He labors (Genesis 1:1-29), rests (Genesis 2:2), changes his mind (Exodus 32:14), and feels regret (Genesis 6:6), jealousy (Exodus 20:5), and pity (Judges 2:18). He has hands (Exodus 7:5), arms (Psalms 89:10), a face (Numbers 6:25), eyes and ears (Psalms 34:15), and a mouth (Psalms 33:6). He walks (Genesis 3:8) and leaves footprints (Psalms 77:14–19). He presumably has legs as well; he would look rather comical with feet and no legs. He sits on a throne (1 Kings 22:19), so he must have an ass. He likely uses his ass for more than just sitting on his throne, given that his bowels make noises (Isaiah 16:11).[i]+ As these Old Testament passages reveal, it is a misconception that only the New Testament portrays God in human form.
The New Testament does, however, present God in a more pleasant and relatable human form. Euro-American Christians have further improved on the biblical Jesus by recalibrating his ethnicity and cherry-picking his moral teachings. They depict him as a handsome, gentle pop culture icon. The improvements have gone so far that Thomas Jefferson sneered that some women “pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus in terms as amatory and carnal as their modesty would permit to a merely earthly lover.”[ii]
The Christian god, whether in his gruff, tyrannical Jehovah phase or his Zen-like, lounge-lizard Jesus phase, exhibits humanlike qualities that are potentially in mutual conflict. For instance, God is often described as just. This is understood to mean that God dishes out rewards and punishments precisely in accordance with what each person deserves. He is also described as merciful, meaning that he dishes out less punishment than a person deserves. A contradiction arises when Christians say that God is merciful and just in every situation. He can be merciful and just, but not both simultaneously.
Christians say God is omniscient (all-knowing). To verify God’s omniscience, the Christian would need to compare, one by one, each of God’s beliefs to full knowledge of everything and show that he is right point by point. This would require the Christian to have access to all knowledge, an impossible task for any mortal. Thus, complete certainty about God’s omniscience is unwarranted.
A flat-out contradiction occurs if an omnipotent god reacts to humans with anger, pleasure, or love (Exodus 4:14, Deuteronomy 26:18, and John 3:16), which he seemingly must do if he has a personal relationship with humans. If God is emotionally affected by humans or by anything else, then he is under some external influence (i.e., he lacks impassibility) and is therefore not omnipotent.
Omnipotence, because it implies not being subject to any external cause, is also incompatible with sentience. All sentient beings are subject to causation. To be sentient—to see or hear, for instance—is to be causally influenced by the physical world. When we hear, our eardrums are subject to mechanical pressure.
Some Christians, notwithstanding biblical statements to the contrary (see above), may presume that God is quite different structurally from humans and can hear through nonmechanical means. Perhaps so, but we humans can’t conceive of nonmechanical perception. We literally have no idea what we are talking about when we suggest the existence of a sentient being immune from outside physical influences. Such a being is as incomprehensible and contradictory as a married bachelor.
Not convinced? Try to imagine some means by which a being can see photons of light without interacting with those photons. If you can intelligibly explain a means by which that is possible, that would prove that I am wrong.
It might be countered that we often believe in the existence of things we don’t fully understand. We can’t dismiss something merely because it’s mysterious. Everything is mysterious if we examine it closely enough.
That’s true, but irrelevant. My point is not that omnipotent sentience is mysterious. My point is that a being whose senses causally react to the physical realm without being causally reactive to the physical realm is contradictory. Therefore, belief in such a god is irrational.[iii]+
A believer could bite the bullet and admit that belief in an omnipotent god is irrational. Most religious philosophers, however, strive to avoid irrational beliefs. Their solution is to adopt a less superlative definition of omnipotence than the one I have been using. They aim to make God plausible, even if that makes God less godly.
Religious philosophers stipulate, for instance, that God is subject to the laws of (1) identity, (2) the excluded middle, and (3) noncontradiction, as discussed in chapter 5. He cannot do the impossible, such as traveling back in time to sterilize your grandmother, thereby preventing your existence. When he interacts with the world, he submits himself to causation.
Lay Christians often say omnipotence means “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 and Mark 10:27, KJV). Given the biblical text, and given that the prefix omni means “all,” these lay Christians can easily defend their stance that omnipotence means “all-powerful.”
In contrast, the philosophers’ god, being constrained by logic, is less than fully omnipotent. He is what we might call logi-omnipotent.
Philosophers and theologians who (at least implicitly) endorse logi-omnipotence in their philosophical papers still crow in their lectures to the general public that “God can do anything.”[iv]+ Alvin Plantinga is notorious for doing this. Richard Swinburne does it. Many do it. They’re not merely simplifying their language; they are alternating between specific tendentious words. For clarity, I will stick to the more precise terms full omnipotence and logi-omnipotence.
Proposing, as philosophers commonly do, that God is subject to the laws of logic (i.e, that he is logi-omnipotent) raises a question: Where do the laws of logic come from if they constrain even God? Some philosophers, like Dean Rickles, say logic is necessary, end of discussion. But most theologians deny that logic can exist independently of God, much less that logic has influence over God. They propose that logic comes from God’s nature.
That’s like saying 2 + 2 = 4 owing to the essence of the Enchanted Emu. It explains nothing. The suggestion that the law of identity originates in God’s nature is especially unpersuasive given that the law of identity is a prerequisite to having a nature.
Setting aside questions about the origins of logic, let’s consider theological advantages of a god subject to logic or otherwise limited. Given that full omnipotence implies the power to know everything (in other words, omnipotence entails omniscience), we confront a tough question: Can an omniscient God know what it’s like to be separated from God? Matthew 27:46 suggests so: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (ESV).
Does God have the power to sacrifice his omniscience? Matthew 24:36 hints as much: “But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (ESV). This admission by Jesus of his ignorance indicates that he assumed a weakened state.[v]+ This voluntarily weakened state is specified in part by the doctrine of kenosis alluded to in Hebrews 2:7, which says that Jesus was made “lower than the angels” “for a little while” (ESV) and in Philippians 2:7: “[God] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (ESV).
Suppose a skeptic said, “According to Titus 1:2, Proverbs 30:5, Numbers 23:19, and Hebrews 6:18, God doesn’t and can’t lie. If God can’t lie, then he is not fully omnipotent. Alternatively, if he can lie, as indicated by 1 Kings 22:23, Ezekiel 14:9-10, 2 Chronicles 18:22, Jeremiah 4:10, Jeremiah 20:7, and 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, that implies that God’s moral standards cannot prevent him from lying. So, can he or can’t he lie?”
An apologist might reply that a logi-omnipotent god, if omni-benevolent, cannot commit a moral infraction. This does not resolve the biblical contradictions, but it plausibly explains why God cannot lie, at least when doing so would constitute a moral infraction.
Our hypothetical skeptic might say, “Does God know how it feels to be consumed by lust? If not, is he truly all-knowing?” Again, logi-omnipotence comes to the rescue. It is logically contradictory for a sin-free god to sin. So, if lust is a sin, God cannot partake in it.
The skeptic may ask, “Can God commit suicide?” The theologian could reply, “No. God is immortal. Furthermore, suicide is a sin, and God cannot sin.” The theologian’s definition of omnipotence is restricted not only by the rules of logic, but also by other aspects of God’s nature, such as his immortality. God is thus sub-logi-omnipotent.
Logi-omnipotence alone can’t fix the problem posed by Adam’s provoking of God’s wrath. A god whose emotional states are influenced by humans is not a logical necessity. A god thus manipulated isn’t merely logi-omnipotent. He is sub-logi-omnipotent.
Theologians, resigned to the need to give up full omnipotence but resistant to giving up the illustrious title “omnipotent,” summarily redefine omnipotence as the capacity for one to perform precisely those actions consistent with one’s nature. By that definition, you and a dry-roasted salted peanut are both omnipotent because each of you can do anything within your respective natures. No matter what limitations are imposed on God’s powers, he is guaranteed to be labeled by his mendacious marketers as omnipotent.
Perhaps you have heard the question, “Is God powerful enough to make a rock too heavy for him to lift?” This question expresses a paradox that dates back at least to Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), also known as Averroës. The rock question reveals the logical absurdity inherent in the concept of full omnipotence. An apologist might respond to the rock question as follows:
Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift? The question is poorly conceived. God can do anything. There is no limit on either the weight of the rocks God can create or on the weight of rocks he can lift. The “too heavy” modifier doesn’t apply to any rock from the perspective of an omnipotent god. The only thing this question reveals is that an omnipotent god can fail at being a limited rock-maker or limited rock-lifter. Failing at being limited really is not a failure in any meaningful sense. The rock question arises from a miscomprehension of the word omnipotence. The person who poses the rock question simply needs to consult a good dictionary to look up the word omnipotence.
A fully omnipotent god can successfully make a rock too heavy for him to lift, and he can successfully lift that rock. The apologist might counter that this combination is logically impossible. I agree. It is logically impossible. So what? A fully omnipotent god can do the impossible. “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26, KJV).
I am not saying that a god who can do the impossible makes sense to me. It strikes me as rubbish. My point is that it’s a flat-out contradiction for an apologist to say God can do anything and to simultaneously say God cannot do the impossible. Only a logi-omnipotent god must abide by the laws of logic, in this case the law of noncontradiction. The capacity to accommodate logical contradictions is implicit in the concept of full omnipotence.[vi]+
Given that most modern theologians insist, as did C. S. Lewis, that God can do only what’s logically possible, does the rock question apply to their god? Absolutely. The rock question, when posed with respect to a logi-omnipotent god, concerns God’s physical capabilities. It’s therefore a perfectly fine empirical question. Indeed, the question has precisely the same legitimacy when directed at a logi-omnipotent god as it does when directed at a human.[vii]+
Most ordinary believers I know embrace full omnipotence. Yet the apologetic response to the rock question above embraces logi-omnipotence and simply calls it omnipotence. That’s fine. Apologists can define omnipotence however they choose. The problem is that the response above falsely implies that logi-omnipotence is the only definition of omnipotence. I wonder what word apologists would propose to identify a god who is truly all-powerful. Hyper-omnipotent? Mega-omnipotent? How would apologists describe a sub-logi-omnipotent god? Hypo-omnipotent? Micro-omnipotent? Designating distinct terms is essential to clear thinking. Unfortunately, the avoidance of clear thinking is essential to maintaining the credibility of religion.
[i] We might utter a sentence such as “Sue has a good heart” to mean Sue is compassionate. We might say “Sue has a good head” to mean she is sensible. Similarly, in biblical times, people spoke of the bowels as the locus of deep emotions. The bowels should be thought of as “deep inside” rather than, say, the colon. Even today, our word “melancholy” derives from black bile.
The NIV changes Isaiah 16:11 to refer not to the bowels, but rather to the heart.
[ii] Quoted in: Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols., 1904), Vol. iv., 358.
[iii] Likewise, the Trinity is no more “mysterious” or “paradoxical” than the claim that the number eight is both even and odd and howls at the moon. Such gibberish typifies lunatics, crackheads, and theologians.
[iv] Religious philosophers avoid explicitly endorsing logi-omnipotence. They persist in calling God omnipotent and saying that he can do anything. They know their views of God differ greatly from the views of God held by most believers, yet they tactfully elide those differences. This is not merely a modern phenomenon. The medieval Catholic Church’s casuistry promoted the notion of “mental reservation.” The word reservation might suggest hesitation or reluctance, but that’s not what they meant by the word. They meant reserving information from full disclosure. This is known in common parlance as a lie of omission.
[v] And that “the Son” is not the same being as “the Father.”
[vi] According to classical logic, a state of affairs is deemed logically impossible if it entails a contradiction. Graham Priest says a contradictory state can be an actual state. But nearly all philosophers disagree. They think our actual world abides by classical logic. In a classical world, God can’t perform contradictory actions. If God is restricted anywhere, in any world, he is not fully omnipotent. Thus, a fully omnipotent god is impossible.
[vii] René Descartes, in his effort to disprove the existence of atoms, insisted that an omnipotent god could not create things so indivisible that he could not divide them. Descartes used the prevailing definition of atoms as indivisible, and he defined omnipotent as “able to do anything short of a logical contradiction.”