The incompatible-properties argument is the idea that no description of

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

is consistent with

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...

. For example, if one takes the definition of God to be described fully from the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

, then the claims of what properties God has described therein might be argued to lead to a

contradiction In traditional logic, a contradiction involves a proposition conflicting either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...

Evil vs. good and omnipotence

The

problem of evil The problem of evil is the philosophical question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an Omnipotence, omnipotent, Omnibenevolence, omnibenevolent, and Omniscience, omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ...

is the

argument An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persu ...

that the existence of evil is incompatible with the concept of an omnipotent and perfectly good God. A variation does not depend on the existence of evil. A truly omnipotent God could create all possible worlds. A "good" God can create only "good" worlds. A God that created all possible worlds would have no moral qualities whatsoever, and could be replaced by a random generator. The standard response is to argue a distinction between "could create" and "would create." In other words, God "could" create all possible worlds but that is simply not in God's nature. This has been argued by theologians for centuries. However, the result is that a "good" God is incompatible with some possible worlds, thus incapable of creating them without losing the property of being a totally different God. Yet, it is not necessary for God to be "good". He simply is good, but is capable of evil.

Purpose vs. timelessness

One argument based on incompatible properties rests on a definition of God that includes a will, plan or purpose and an existence outside of

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

. To say that a being possesses a purpose implies an inclination or tendency to steer events toward some state that does not yet exist. This, in turn, implies a privileged direction, which we may call "

". It may be one direction of causality, the direction of increasing

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the micros ...

, or some other emergent property of a world. These are not identical, but one must exist in order to progress toward a goal. In general, God's time would not be related to our time. God might be able to operate within our time without being constrained to do so. However, God could then step outside this game for any purpose. Thus God's time must be aligned with our time if human activities are relevant to God's purpose. (In a relativistic universe, presumably this means—at any point in spacetime—time measured from t=0 at the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

or end of

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

.) A God existing outside of any sort of time could not create anything because creation substitutes one thing for another, or for nothing. Creation requires a creator that existed, by definition, prior to the thing created.

Omniscience vs. indeterminacy or free will

Another pair of alleged incompatible properties is

omniscience Omniscience is the property of possessing maximal knowledge. In Hinduism, Sikhism and the Abrahamic religions, it is often attributed to a divine being or an all-knowing spirit, entity or person. In Jainism, omniscience is an attribute that any ...

and either indeterminacy or

free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...

. Omniscience concerning the past and present (properly defined relative to Earth) is not a problem, but there is an argument that omniscience regarding the future implies it has been determined, what seems possible only in a deterministic world.

References

External links

A description of 10 more incompatibilities
— Technical paper on omniscience and time.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Incompatible-Properties Argument Arguments against the existence of God

Evil vs. good and omnipotence

Purpose vs. timelessness

Omniscience vs. indeterminacy or free will

See also

References

External links