I don’t know. All I know is that the logical reasoning you’ve followed here, while perfectly applicable to our understanding of the universe, doesn’t apply to God; you can’t come up with a logical argument against something not bound by logic.
As you say as part of your line of logic, he can do logically impossible things. That means he can do things which may be monstrous without being a monster. Or something. The important point, an argument which begins “if he can do logicially impossible things…” has no meaning when it ends with a logical operator.
Obviously, I can’t claim to know the mind of God, so I can’t possibly answer your question. All I can say is that I don’t believe that you can apply logic to the issue.
[Edit - and don’t get me wrong; I’m not sure I believe in God. I’m certainly not arguing for his existence or omnipotence or anything; I’m just of the opinion that said arguments can’t be framed in a logical basis - or, in fact, in any basis we can comprehend].
Just to quote myself in order to clarify, because that was a fairly clumsy sentence which I’m not sure worked.
What I mean to say is that the reasoning “if he is not bound by logically, then the following logically follows…” doesn’t make sense in that context. IF/THEN are logical constructs. One can’t reason onward from the first part of the sentence, because that part of the sentence immediatelly nullifies any train of reasoning or logic which follows.
Here is the correct position to take regarding God and logical contradictions.
A logical contradiction is a statement of the form A and not-A.
It is a feature of the language that logical contradictions are always false.
Hence, the statement “God can lift this rock and god can not lift this rock” is false.
That it is false is determined by facts about the language, not by facts about God.
In this way, we can see that to insist “God cannot create a rock so heavy he can’t lift it” is not to claim God’s power is limited, but rather is to express a fact about the language.
Generalizing: To say that God can’t do logically contradictory things is not to put a limit on God’s power.
Simlarly, to say “God can not zxyfdlls–because there is no such thing as zxyfdllsing” is not to put a limit on God’s power, but rather is to express a fact about the language.
Just because you can’t know some things without experiencing them, does not mean a more intelligent being couldn’t. It doesn’t even need to be supernatural (which is good because there is no supernatural).
And yet the difference between God and you far outstrips the difference between you and an ant. Obviously, your inability to comprehend life as an ant says nothing about a Creator’s supposed inability to comprehend life as you.
What makes you think that anyone is implying that?
People have said that God would know what it’s like to be you. You pointed out that YOU know what it’s like to be you. Do you honestly think that these two premises, if both correct, would jointly imply that you are God?
I’m quite confident that nobody else here thinks so. I also believe that you can discern the logical fallacy of your implication, and that you don’t need god-like intelligence to do so.
Naturally, which is why I never said that it does. If you look closely at my posting, I think you’ll see that.
Rather, I was addressing the relevance of your statement – namely, that your high intelligence does not enable you to comprehend life as an ant. While that statement is absolutely correct, it says nothing about the inability of an omniscient Creator to understand life as you.
The reason why omnimax gods must do things is their omnibenevolence. A perfectly benevolent and loving and sympathetic good would be irresitibly compelled to correct evil, to bring the world to it most perfect state, either for the benefit of the world’s inhabitants or just because it prefers things to be good.
There are only two possible counterarguments to this. The first is to say that the observable world is already in its most optimal state, which is a pretty outrageous claim. People still ague it, typically by citing free will - constraining murderers would limit free will, and the loss of free will is asserted as being worse than the prevention of murder*. However hurricanes are still a problem for such arguments.
The second counterargument is to say that God can be omnibenevolent while simultaneously not being bothered by humans suffering and dying, which is also pretty outragous. Citing souls is usually the approach here - we’re hurt, but our souls aren’t, so who cares about us? Personally I reject these attempts to redefine omnibenevolence out of hand - that “omni” is there for a reason.
Obviously this defense of god’s benevolence breaks down if he is outside of logic and can both stop murderers and preserve free will.
It’s even worse–arguably, it’s logically possible for God to create everything such that everyone freely always does good.
If freedom means it’s genuinely possible either to do something or not to do it, then it is genuinely possible for a free being to do evil, and to refrain from doing it. This means it is genuinely possible for a free being to refrain from doing evil. So it’s genuinely possible for all free beings to refrain from doing evil. So then, all God needs to do is actualize that possibility–the possibility that everyone freely refrains from ever doing any evil.
