Does god have to act logically or predictably? Why?
Does god have to act logically or predictably? Why?
Does god have to act logically or predictably? Why?
I don't like saying it(makes me feel funny), but it should be noted that if God doesn't act logically or predictably it makes reasonable discussion nearly impossible. I do think it's easy to say that at least what we know from scripture God appears to have both logical actions and motives.
Well that's true. But also I think that God would be so advanced and vast that human logic wouldn't be able to encompass it.
Imagine modern desktop computers. They work based on logic, but understanding how they work is not clear without aid and being able to understand all the myriad parts. Imagine how much harder to understand God would be, being so much more vast, and beyond examination.
It'd be logical but there's no way of telling how that logic pans out.
The foundational crisis of mathematics (in German Wikipedia article: Grundlagenkrise der Mathematik) was the early 20th century's term for the search for proper foundations of mathematics.
Several schools of the philosophy of mathematics ran into difficulties one after the other in the 20th century, as the assumption that mathematics had any foundation that could be consistently stated within mathematics itself was heavily challenged by the discovery of various paradoxes (such as Russell's paradox).
The name "paradox" should not be confused with contradiction. A contradiction in a formal theory is a formal proof of an absurdity inside the theory (such as 2 + 2 = 5), showing that this theory is inconsistent and must be rejected. But a paradox may either refer to a surprising but true result in a given formal theory, or to an informal argument leading to a contradiction, so that a candidate theory where a formalization of the argument might be attempted must disallow at least one of its steps; in this case the problem is to find a satisfying theory without contradiction. Both meanings may apply if the formalized version of the argument forms the proof of a surprising truth. For instance, Russell's paradox may be expressed as "there is no set of all sets" (except in some marginal axiomatic set theories).
Gödel was a convinced theist. He held the notion that God was personal, which differed from the religious views of his friend Albert Einstein.
He believed firmly in an afterlife, stating: "Of course this supposes that there are many relationships which today's science and received wisdom haven't any inkling of. But I am convinced of this [the afterlife], independently of any theology." It is "possible today to perceive, by pure reasoning" that it "is entirely consistent with known facts." "If the world is rationally constructed and has meaning, then there must be such a thing [as an afterlife]."
In an unmailed answer to a questionnaire, Gödel described his religion as "baptized Lutheran (but not member of any religious congregation). My belief is theistic, not pantheistic, following Leibniz rather than Spinoza." Describing religion(s) in general, Gödel said: "Religions are, for the most part, bad—but religion is not". About Islam he said: "I like Islam, it is a consistent [or consequential] idea of religion and open-minded.
@Barnabas
Additionally lifting is relative.
If you had the heaviest thing in the universe, the size of a basket ball and of incredible mass, and the strongest man possible, standing on the surface of the earth, and the heaviest thing by some magic doesn't destroy everything with its incredible mass:
Let's say the strong man tries to lift this heaviest object off the ground, but he can't actually move it. But let's say that what does happen is that when he tries to lift the object, he pushes away the earth. Therefore to nearby observers on the earth it would appear the man has lifted the object, but actually it hasn't moved - the entire earth moved.
What about that, hmm?
Depends on the conception of god you are using. My understanding of God, which falls into a Judaeo-christian classification, would say no, he isn't bound by logic necessarily. However, I do believe that he would act within the bounds of logic as it is something very fundamental to the world he created. I think this must be based in some reasoning he used, and so likely reflects his own actions/thoughts.Does god have to act logically or predictably? Why?