The Traditional Attributes Of God
How close is traditional religion in determining the attributes of God? All sorts of religions make all sorts of seemingly wild claims. To separate the chaff from the wheat, I’ve listed some of the most common claims below and given a logical analysis where possible. Note this is not a 'does God exist?' post, God is assumed to exist for the purposes of discussion.
1. Omnipresent - NO
Parts of the universe are moving apart from each other at faster than the speed of light. This means they are casually disconnected from each other (can have no effect on each other - not in each other’s future light cones). To class as one being, all parts of the being must be causally connected, so God cannot be omnipresent. This rules out pantheism too.
2. Infinite - NO
Infinite implies unmeasurable. But a being can always measure itself - it is called self-awareness. So God cannot be infinite.
3. Omnipotent - NO
Could God create a copy of himself? If he did create a copy of himself, he would no longer be omni-potent, so we can conclude God is effectively not omni-potent.
4. Omniscient - NO
To know everything about one’s self requires memory storage larger than one’s self so it is not possible to know everything even about one’s self. For example, say a particle has 4 attributes (mass, charge, position, momentum) then (at least) 4 analog bits (=4 particles) are required to encode that knowledge.
5. Omnibenevolent - NO
This requires infallibility which in turn requires perfect information (omniscience) before making decisions.
6. Immutable - MAYBE
From the perspective of eternalism, God could be seen as static and unchanging - past, present, future, God has ‘already’ performed all possible actions, so he can be unchanging.
From the perspective of presentism, how can God be static and still effect change? Impossible.
7. Eternal Outside of Time - YES
God cannot be eternal in time (he would have no start, no coming into being). God, if he exists, can only be eternal outside of time - timeless. A timeless first cause is the only way to avoid an infinite regress of time stretching back forever (which is impossible).
8. Non-material / Extra Dimensional - MAYBE
Spacetime started 14 billion years ago. The first cause must be from beyond spacetime. We know the first cause cannot exist in any sort of time (because that leads to an infinite regress). A key question is, can space exist without time? IE can 3D exist without the 4th dimension? A similar question is can 2D exist without the 3rd dimension? If length is 0, then width and breath disappear also. So space cannot exist without time (in our universe anyway). So the first cause might be ‘spaceless’ too. That might mean the first cause is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
A non-material or extra dimensional first cause would be able to cause the Big Bang without destroying itself.
9. Transcendent / Immanent - MAYBE
Transcendence is ‘being outside nature’, immanence is ‘being in nature’. God created spacetime so he is from outside nature. Can God get all or part of himself into nature? Tricky question without being able to tie down the nature of God.
10. Male - NO
Referring to God as ‘Him’ is the judaic tradition. But of course ‘he’ cannot be the product of bisexual reproduction. So Jesus is God’s son only in an allegorical sense.
So overall, the picture painted of God by most conventional religion seems a long way off the mark. I am not sure why they invented all these superlative attributes for God? Perhaps they thought they were praising God by doing so? Whatever the case, they seem to have left theology with the task of justifying the impossible (no wonder it can get so complicated).
1. Omnipresent - NO
Parts of the universe are moving apart from each other at faster than the speed of light. This means they are casually disconnected from each other (can have no effect on each other - not in each other’s future light cones). To class as one being, all parts of the being must be causally connected, so God cannot be omnipresent. This rules out pantheism too.
2. Infinite - NO
Infinite implies unmeasurable. But a being can always measure itself - it is called self-awareness. So God cannot be infinite.
3. Omnipotent - NO
Could God create a copy of himself? If he did create a copy of himself, he would no longer be omni-potent, so we can conclude God is effectively not omni-potent.
4. Omniscient - NO
To know everything about one’s self requires memory storage larger than one’s self so it is not possible to know everything even about one’s self. For example, say a particle has 4 attributes (mass, charge, position, momentum) then (at least) 4 analog bits (=4 particles) are required to encode that knowledge.
5. Omnibenevolent - NO
This requires infallibility which in turn requires perfect information (omniscience) before making decisions.
6. Immutable - MAYBE
From the perspective of eternalism, God could be seen as static and unchanging - past, present, future, God has ‘already’ performed all possible actions, so he can be unchanging.
From the perspective of presentism, how can God be static and still effect change? Impossible.
7. Eternal Outside of Time - YES
God cannot be eternal in time (he would have no start, no coming into being). God, if he exists, can only be eternal outside of time - timeless. A timeless first cause is the only way to avoid an infinite regress of time stretching back forever (which is impossible).
8. Non-material / Extra Dimensional - MAYBE
Spacetime started 14 billion years ago. The first cause must be from beyond spacetime. We know the first cause cannot exist in any sort of time (because that leads to an infinite regress). A key question is, can space exist without time? IE can 3D exist without the 4th dimension? A similar question is can 2D exist without the 3rd dimension? If length is 0, then width and breath disappear also. So space cannot exist without time (in our universe anyway). So the first cause might be ‘spaceless’ too. That might mean the first cause is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
A non-material or extra dimensional first cause would be able to cause the Big Bang without destroying itself.
9. Transcendent / Immanent - MAYBE
Transcendence is ‘being outside nature’, immanence is ‘being in nature’. God created spacetime so he is from outside nature. Can God get all or part of himself into nature? Tricky question without being able to tie down the nature of God.
10. Male - NO
Referring to God as ‘Him’ is the judaic tradition. But of course ‘he’ cannot be the product of bisexual reproduction. So Jesus is God’s son only in an allegorical sense.
So overall, the picture painted of God by most conventional religion seems a long way off the mark. I am not sure why they invented all these superlative attributes for God? Perhaps they thought they were praising God by doing so? Whatever the case, they seem to have left theology with the task of justifying the impossible (no wonder it can get so complicated).
Comments (61)
This is the distinction set out by Kantian Noumenon. Noumenon can only ever be known in the “negative sense” and to propose noumenon in the “positive sense” is an item of the “negative sense”.
In more simplistic linguistic terms; if I cannot know something (in the purest meaning of ‘not knowing’) then I cannot know that I don’t know it. If I do not know something that could come to know, then once it is known to me I cannot not know it whilst knowing it - yet I am aware of the historical me NOT knowing it only after it is brought into my sphere of knowing.
What can and cannot be brought into our sphere of knowing either doesn’t exist ever or will never exist. All manners in which the “supernatural” is claimed, as far as I’ve seen, is in reference to phenomenon - which is by definition NOT supernatural, therefore the term is part of a word game where the claimant declares knowledge of what they don’t/can’t know. It is a fallacy of language.
Supratemporal is timeless. There is a little about it in relativity: photons are timeless, but really we have no idea how this could work. Which is a pity because this attribute seems to be logically required.
Quoting I like sushi
I'm a little confused: I cannot know all the digits of ? yet I know that I cannot know? Can you give an example?
Quoting I like sushi
Agreed, I personally use a definition of supernatural as beyond nature; IE beyond spacetime.
I don’t think this is a valid argument. It is true that if God did create a copy of himself then there would exist a being of equal power to him. If being omnipotent requires being the most powerful existing being then it follows that God would no longer be omnipotent [i] after [\i] having created a copy. But this says nothing about whether he is omnipotent before creating the copy. He might well be omnipotent at that time. (This is pretty much Swinburne’s answer to similar problems about omnipotence).
PA
A fair point. I suppose I could resort to the light cone argument but then effecting something outside your light cone is impossible and omnipotent usually excludes achieving the impossible. I could also say that God could not create anything infinite but again that is generally impossible so not really in the spirit of the post. If God was immutable, it would be impossible for him to change himself... still the same problem.
So there is the classic argument 'could God create a stone so heavy he could not lift it?':
"A common response from Christian philosophers, such as Norman Geisler or William Lane Craig, is that the paradox assumes a wrong definition of omnipotence. Omnipotence, they say, does not mean that God can do anything at all but, rather, that he can do anything that's possible according to his nature. The distinction is important. God cannot perform logical absurdities; he cannot, for instance, make 1+1=3. Likewise, God cannot make a being greater than himself because he is, by definition, the greatest possible being. God is limited in his actions to his nature. The Bible supports this, they assert, in passages such as Hebrews 6:18, which says it is "impossible for God to lie.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox
Looks like I should have defined Omnipotence in the OP.
That’s where we differ. I don’t assume ‘anything’ as supernatural. Beyond ST doesn’t mean supernatural to me nor would it to astrophysicists. Beyond our immediate scope? Certainly.
[i]Definition of supernatural
(1) : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
(2a) : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
(b) : attributed to an invisible agent (such as a ghost or spirit)[/i]
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernatural
So I am using the word in the sense of (1) above. That appears to be the only scientific related usage of the word.
(2a) is also similar - transcending the laws of nature
(b) I think this is the most common usage of the word. Correct to say we cannot make assumption about such.
Supernatural comes from the Latin word supernaturalis, meaning beyond nature.
It's strange that you would attempt to counter a valid argument by validating it.
If someone points to a house and says "that's a house", would you then say "yes, it's a tree, but it's also a dolphin"?
First, if this is the case, the speed of light is not actually a (universal) speed limit.
It's due to the very fabric of space expanding. It's likened to a balloon inflating. So nothing breaks the speed of light limit but things on the opposite side of the universe are moving apart faster than light.
If nothing breaks the speed of light limit then nothing is moving apart faster than the speed of light. If something is moving apart faster than the speed of light, then something breaks the speed of light limit. We can't have it both ways. It's a simple contradiction.
It's not the galaxies that are moving; it is the metric of space expanding - it's as if new space is appearing between the galaxies. I'm no expert, here is what Wikipedia says:
"The expansion of the universe is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not expand "into" anything and does not require space to exist "outside" it. Technically, neither space nor objects in space move. Instead it is the metric governing the size and geometry of spacetime itself that changes in scale. Although light and objects within spacetime cannot travel faster than the speed of light, this limitation does not restrict the metric itself. To an observer it appears that space is expanding and all but the nearest galaxies are receding into the distance."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe
The one I highlighted, if you click on the link of your name, it'll take you to it.
Is it moving faster than the speed of light? If so, then something can move faster than the speed of light, and the speed of light isn't actually a universal speed limit.
(which isn't to mention the incoherence of positing "the metric of space" as something that exists abstractly somehow)
Either something --some part of the rubber band, say, is moving faster than the speed of light or it isn't.
Basically, we're either positing something--some existent, that's moving faster than the speed of light or we're not. Whatever we're focusing on re motion. Again, we can't have it both ways.
If I stretch these dots out (by stretching a pretend rubber band that they are inscribed upon):
..____ ..
To:
.._________________________..
The closely neighbouring dots are still close to each other - they not moved. But the distance between the two pairs of dots has increased dramatically.
Then we can't say that parts of the universe are moving apart from each other at faster than the speed of light, lol.
It's ridiculous how simple this is.
OK. I'm not sure how to describe it. Parts of the universe are being stretched apart at FTL maybe?
Which would be moving faster than the speed of light. Unless we're somehow trying to argue that "stretching" isn't "moving"?
If it's instead a matter of some mathematical theory suggesting that things would move faster than the speed of light, then either that theory or the theory that nothing can move faster than the speed of light is wrong.
- What is not clear about the rubber band analogy? The dots do not move, the band stretches
- You are going against what all of the astronomers tell us.
Isn't stretching moving?
Quoting Devans99
You don't go with what someone tells you non-critically. Anyone can say something wrong. You need to critically assess anything anyone tries to sell you.
The medium (space) is stretching. The things in the medium (the galaxies) are not moving.
Imagine inflating a ballon full of floating particles. The particles themselves don't move - but new air adds to the space between the particles.
I don't have the knowledge of general relativity needed for this. Its explained a bit more here:
"The expansion of the universe causes distant galaxies to recede from us faster than the speed of light, if proper distance and cosmological time are used to calculate the speeds of these galaxies. However, in general relativity, velocity is a local notion, so velocity calculated using comoving coordinates does not have any simple relation to velocity calculated locally. (See Comoving and proper distances for a discussion of different notions of 'velocity' in cosmology.) Rules that apply to relative velocities in special relativity, such as the rule that relative velocities cannot increase past the speed of light, do not apply to relative velocities in comoving coordinates, which are often described in terms of the "expansion of space" between galaxies"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Universal_expansion
Quoting Terrapin Station
Agreed. Wish people would be more critical of established knowledge - we know for a fact some of it will be wrong.
What I asked is if stretching is moving
What does that have to do with whether stretching is moving?
So if nothing is moving, how is something moving faster than light?
You wrote "Parts of the universe are moving apart from each other atfaster than the speed of light. "
Parts of the universe are inflating apart from each other at faster than the speed of light.
My point is that someone explained to you that all phenomena are natural, and if there's ever a phenomenon that is supernatural, the natural world can never interact with it. You disregarded this and proceeded with repetitions of previous claims regarding the supernatural, which is by definition and by valid argument impossible for you to discuss. What you insist is supernatural is based on the natural world and your perception of it, yet you maintain a stance whereby you preach its Truth as though incontrovertible.
I was in simplistic terms conveying the humour I see in your paradoxical message of Truth and total disregard for rationality.
" inflating apart from each other " isn't motion?
I've not once said anything about galaxies per se.
Is space moving?
Do you have a beef with the speed of light speed limit by any chance?
If space is nothing, how is it doing anything, such as inflating?
You can't prove creation, and in no way in any of your commentary have you pointed to anything but its absence.
You can move goal posts around to suit your fancy, and you can define whatever word as whatever meaning regardless of the tradition of language, but if you continue to do so no rational person will take your position seriously, and you'll only succeed in contradicting yourself. People will argue with you only because it's easy or humorous, or people will ignore you because you speak only of Truth and Proof in relation to paradoxes.
I have a beef with us positing nonsense under the rubric of science. Nonsense like "nothing can move faster than the speed of light" while we also say "X is moving faster than the speed of light"
Or nonsense like "space is nothing" while we also claim that space is doing things like inflating.
If you want to debate whether the universe is a creation or not, I suggest this thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5577/was-there-a-first-cause-reviewing-the-five-ways/p1
I have laid out all the evidence there. IMO it is clearly a creation.
This thread I had intended for a discussion of God's attributes.
Why re the part I bolded? As I said earlier, if we have evidence that things are moving faster than the speed of light, then "Things can't move faster than the speed of light under any circumstances" is obviously incorrect. It's a problem to worship theories, so that we figure the theory must be correct, so that recalcitrant evidence must be accounted for some other way (whereupon we make up some incoherent nonsense in order to not have to retool our theories).
- The speed of light speed limit is one of the best empirically established facts in science
- It is also predicted theoretically (see Maxwell)
- It makes intuitive sense. If there was no speed limit; it would be possible to accelerate things unto infinite velocities and straight out of the universe (this is possible with Newtonian mechanics)
So I see FTL as extremely unlikely, hence space is inflating FTL and the speed limit is being obeyed.
Not if there's empirical evidence of things moving faster than the speed of light.
FTL is just too far fetched.
You just said that space is nothing. But it's doing something.
It's making up incoherent nonsense so that we can theory-worship.
What is your counter theory?
How can you discuss the attributes of something that is impossible for any natural thing to interact with, something supernatural? Shouldn't you first demonstrate that your creator is something other than a natural phenomenon with a beginning and an end? I don't need to read your Proof again.
What you're basically arguing is that the Big Bang is God.
That if we have evidence that things are moving faster than the speed of light, then "Things can't move faster than the speed of light under any circumstances" is obviously incorrect.
Quoting whollyrolling
I believe that God causing the Big Bang is the mostly likely explanation.
How does your theory account for the fact that only distant galaxies appear to move FTL and closer galaxies do not?
There is a relationship between how far a galaxy is away from us and how fast it is receding - how does your theory explain that?
I don't think we know exactly why that's the case yet. We'd simply describe it (primarily mathematically, since that's the preferred language of physics). The thing to do is not to just make up stuff that's incoherent to explain it.
Inflation explains it perfectly though - just like an expanding balloon, the further apart the dots/galaxies are, the faster the distance between them increases.
You can perhaps see why I am reluctant to accept your theory when the established theory is so in agreement with the facts.
There have been numerous speculations, theories and observations concerning "big bang" events. The big bang is not believed to have been an isolated incident, and there is a growing body of evidence in support of this. At present, even with science and physics in support of such a concept, I believe it's premature to make bold claims of Proof either way.
You are referring to the theory of Eternal Inflation? That is the dominant cosmological theory and it posits a common first cause for all the big bangs.
There are of course some less popular cosmologies out there, but they typically posit time is past eternal - which is impossible - because infinite regresses are impossible and other reasons I've posted here before. CCC by Penrose is one such example theory.
You haven't sufficiently demonstrated any of the things you're stating as if they're incontrovertible facts.