God and First Principles of logic

[mandangalo18]

I've heard several debates where this is brought up. Usually something like: "Can God be not God?" to which I've only heard the theist answer: "No"
When a theist takes this position, it seems that God must be bound by the first principles of logic, if he is subject to these laws, he can not have authored them. This seems like a pretty big concession on their part.

My question is this: What if the theist took the affirmative position on this? What if God can make x not x? I have simply never heard anyone take that position, what are the implications of it?

 

[EveningPhilosopher]

A sentence has to follow certain rules in order to be meaningful or make sense. The sentence "ºGod can be not God"¹ is grammatically correct, but not very meaningful. If you ever found a person who would say something like that, my guess would be that he couldn't explain the meaning of his own sentence very well.

When a theist says that "ºGod can't be non God"¹, he is most likely trying to say that we can talk about God in a meaningful way. A theist saying that "ºGod can be non God"¹ is on the other hand saying that we can talk about God in a meaningless way. And who would say something like that when trying to preach or defend a religion?

However, a similar sentence "ºGod is both God and non God"¹ is what many Christians use to describe the incarnation, when they use the phrasing that "ºJesus is both God and man"¹. This sentence contradicts the clear distinction between God and humans, that's otherwise the essence of orthodox in Christianity. To Christians, this contradiction is excused or explained because Jesus is supposed to be something very special, "a miracle". To the rest of us, it's nothing than a more or less meaningless sequence of words.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

If you want to play that game... any sentence containing the word "God" may be grammatically correct, but it isn't very meaningful. :lol:

Getting back on topic, my understanding of most of the trancendental arguments that invoke the logical absolutes claim that "God" is subject to the logical absolutes, and yet somehow also their author, which doesn't make any sense but also seems no more contradictory than any other nonsense from religious people.

 

[EveningPhilosopher]

If you want to play that game... any sentence containing the word "God" may be grammatically correct, but it isn't very meaningful. :lol:

Good point.

By the way, your own sentence contains the G word!


About the gradation of nonsense:

In my post, I presumed that most theists will have an anthropomorphic concept of God and talk about it (the god) as a person. In that case, it's more meaningful to say that God is angry or revengeful or insane, than to say "ºGod is both God and non God"¹ or whatever a theist might be saying about his imaginary friend.