Question

Religious people often tell me that God operates in a realm devoid of logic. This is their only defense against questions like: "If God is omnipotent, then can he eliminate himself forever?"

I understand the possibility of other universes with different laws of physics, but different laws of logic sounds ridiculous.

Answer 1

laws of physics cant describe the GOD's power and what He thinks.

Answer 2

That's not the claim. The claim is that a universe ruled by different laws of logic does not exist.

Answer 3

yeah

Answer 4

I'm waiting for someone to defend the religious claim... or we could just laugh at how silly it is here, lol.

Answer 5

I OBJECT

Answer 6

JK

Answer 7

@across may be it should not say it but dont do argument to the people on religious matter.

If anyone want to find the true path, GOD will surely help that person.

Answer 8

This is not a religious argument. I just said that this is an argument that religious people usually bring up to further their agenda. The argument is that a universe with different laws of logic exist, and I find this to be silly.

Answer 9

how do you define "logic"?

Answer 10

indeed that^ is a question closer ;-)

Answer 11

There we go. That's a great question, xD. As a mathematician, I tend to think of logic in somewhat set-theoretic terms. That is, pick a few axioms and rigorously extrapolate from them. To keep things simple, let's pick one axiom pertinent to this discussion: an object either exists or it does not exist; it cannot both exist and not exist.

Answer 12

I'm sure we all agree on that.

Answer 13

does quantum superposition violate that?

Answer 14

It is easy to imagine an universe with a different value for gravitational constant, and the laws of physics will be completely different. When it comes to logic, it has to be universally acceptable ?

Answer 15

Let's lift the discussion a bit higher: Can a universe exist where the theorems of mathematicians would be illogical in ours?

Answer 16

Superposition is a probabilistic statement.

Answer 17

Alas, this whole question comes down to how we define our words, and in the end we will have spent all our time on definitions and not done any math :P

Answer 18

It's hard to imagine an universe where 2+2 is not 4

Answer 19

In our universe, the statement: "If something is black and white, it is a penguin. Therefore, my TV is a penguin." is ridiculous. Could there exist a universe where that is an axiom?

Answer 20

Very unlikey... I'd be skeptical on this though as I haven't gone to every universe and verified if things are not upside down for few of them...

Answer 21

Axioms are statements that are taken as true without proof, and they are concerning abstract systems.
It could be an empirical fact of some possible world that only black/white things are penguins. It would be a pretty minimal universe, no newspapers.

Answer 22

The beautiful thing about reason is that sometimes do not need to exhaust every possibility before we can be sure of something. Consider subatomic particles. Physicists have theorized the existence of dozens of them decades before they were actually discovered. How? Reason. We can reason about possible universes from what we know now.

Answer 23

sometimes we*

Answer 24

again whatever we fancy is within our own reason
how do you know your imagination has exhausted all the possibilities ?

Answer 25

For example, we now know how to effectively pack spheres in an 8-dimensional universe thanks to Maryna Viazovska. All possibilities have been exhausted there.

Answer 26

you guys are just wasting your time on this bad argumentation

Answer 27

Can God both exist and not exist?

Answer 28

Mathematics can tell you all the possible shapes of the universe, but to find which shape it actually is requires empirical evidence. So mathematics or reason does limit what you imagine as far as shapes for the universe is concerned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe

Answer 29

The day we figure out what shape the universe has, though, we'll say something like: "Oh! It's a 4-manifold equipped with the Lorenz metric!"

Answer 30

A thing either exists or doesn't exist
To simultaneously exist and not exist is against the logic

Answer 31

Mathematics actively pushes the limits of our imaginations. I wonder how that is a limiting process.

Answer 32

We may never know exactly what shape the universe has, due to the intrinsic error of our measuring tools. Unless there was some way to get out of the universe and 'see' what shape it has.

Answer 33

You are right that we might never know *exactly* what the topology of the universe is, but we can come pretty close by making observations. We've done a good job so far: we've been able to put a washing-machine-sized probe to orbit a comet billions of miles away.

Answer 34

By definition, universe is everything that exists
So you can't go out of the universe and see it.... I think mathematics is the best tool that we have to see it while staying inside the universe. (the phrase inside the unvierse makes no sense either)

Answer 35

I guess with "universe" we mean the observable universe, not its hypothetical surroundings or anything that we have not yet observed nor measured.

Answer 36

regarding 'mathematics is a limiting process'
Given your axioms, definitions, and rules of inference, when you say proposition p is true you are putting a limit on the truth value of p; you are saying p cannot be false.
Imagination can be used to find different ways to prove p, find more true propositions, and can be used to consider alternate axiomatic systems.

Answer 37

Aren't you still using mathematics/logic to develop those alternative axiomatic systems ?

Answer 38

yes, classical logic

Answer 39

basically you're using math and logic to prove that math and logic are limiting :P

Answer 40

'mathematics is a limiting process'
not in the calculus sense, but in the sense that mathematics limits what can be known about a given topic, given the axioms or rules of the game.

Answer 41

it seems to me , though, that mathematics is boundless. the number of propositions you can prove and axiom systems to consider

Answer 42

It reeks of Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Answer 43

Maybe there is a god or gods, but if he, she, it or they operate from outside of our logic, then he, she, it or they are not anthropomorphic.

Answer 44

I don't think you can imagine something that contradicts logic. You will still be referring to the basic logic while trying to contradict it. Our brains are hardwired to logic... Imagination can't help here

Answer 45

I feel like an Einstein quote is apropos
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality"

Answer 46

Thanks for the chat, guys. I'm going to bed. <3

Answer 47

Enjoyed the chat, have good sleep :)

Answer 48

"laugh" sounds like the best option

Answer 49

This might be useful for further research, speaking of alternate logic systems.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/


The relevance of this to mathematics may be small as maths uses classical logic.

As far as the original question, I don't think it's possible for God to operate in a realm devoid of logic. There are certain things like God's consistent nature and identity which are logical claims.
God cannot do or create absurd things, because absurd things cannot exist. An example of an absurdity would be god attempting to color a tree leaf both green and red simultaneously.

I hope I'm not begging the question by saying an absurd thing cannot exist.

Moreover, a god that operates in a realm devoid of logic could destroy people capriciously one moment and be generous in another. It would not be a god that mainstream religions worship.