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THE PARADOX OF THE CHRISTIAN GOD BY DUSTIN LEO GERMAIN



The Christian God must be redefined in terms of the essence of his Divine nature, or he cannot be conceptually conceived and therefore, may not exist. That is the conclusion that seems eminent for me. There is a paradox that exists, when all the characteristics of God are played off each other. When God is given eternal everything, there is no way that such powers create any sort of real or rational being. Is there? This is the question that faces many philosophers and apologetics, but rarely is confronted so forcefully in common laypeople of the Church. It is not an ambivalent, understated question, but rather an emphatic search for truth, wherein hangs the balance of faith, in what must be one of the most tangled concepts that exists.

It would seem that God cannot exist as he is currently conceived. Not that there is no God, but that if there is one, he must be different than we believe him to be. At the moment, he is understood by believers and non-believers alike, as having unlimited qualities. The assessment of the Christian God, Jehovah, using Biblical texts, Early Tradition, and History, has taught us that God possess may great characteristics. Concluded are the following: Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omni-benevolent, Impassable, Immaterial, Infinitely Just, Infinitely Merciful, Eternal, Knowable by Nature, Omni-present, Absolutely Perfect, Absolute Immutability, The First Efficient Cause etc. God is essentially a perfect being, not lacking nor deficient in any way. Within the confines of these characteristics, we have created, or at least, defined a being that has no beginning or end, is eternal, able to do every and all things, all knowing, and is the be all end all of existence. That, in a nutshell, is God. A being that is so unlike anything else that has ever existed. Yet my contention is this: that such a being cannot be. It cannot. As someone who had followed the tenants of Christianity very carefully, such an admission is admittedly hard on me. But is there a choice? What else can possibly be concluded? Let us examine further these qualities, and create some definitions for them.

Omnipotence may be defined as All-Powerful, having the power to perform certain tasks, or to bring about certain possible states of affairs (understood as propositional entities which either obtain or fail to obtain). Also understood as having unlimited power. It is put forward that this definition, is fair.
Many try to refine the idea of omnipotence and put limitations on said definition. They would say that omnipotent includes only that which is logically possible, or maximally powerful. Bunk. Any limitation destroys the spirit and sensibilities of the argument. Omnipotence refers to God’s ability to do absolutely anything God wants. ALL-Powerful. This characteristic is usually treated as implied from God’s characteristic as absolute creator. If God is capable of creating all of existence (whether ex nihilo or ex deo), would it not be nonsensical to then assert that there are things beyond God’s abilities? Any being capable of creating existence itself must therefore be capable of anything at all — right? It is easy to scoff at those who allow for the possibility that God exists, but assert that he is not able to do such things as miracles, or create the earth, or create mankind. If you can accept that God exist in the first place, a being who has always existed and has no beginning or end, then surely it is not a far leap to assume that he may have created us. It is not difficult to imagine. The origin or his nature is shrouded in mystery. Any being like that must be able to pretty damn powerful. So then, everything that can be conceptually done, by nature of all powerful, can be done. All means all. It implies the most. All is similar to the concept of the definitions of high, higher, and highest. There can only be one highest. No matter how high the other’s may get, or if something is built that is higher than high, the idea of highest can go on infinitely, because it is the maximal allowed by definition. Therefore, the establishment is made. We are not concerned about definitions that invalidate absolute Omnipotence.

What is Eternal? Ageless. Continuing forever or indefinitely. Everlasting. Never ceasing. In short, this being is immortal and is going to always be. As a characteristic of God and an integral aspect of his Divine nature, it is understood and generally accepted that God has no beginning or end, but simply always was. No one created God, nor caused him to come about/ God just always has been, (as difficult as that concept is to wrap one’s head around) If God has never had a need to be given life, and is all powerful, it would logically conclude that he cannot die. If God by definition is eternal, that definition has been granted under the assumption that he will not be killed or come to cease to exists at any point in time. His fate is that to just always unceasingly be, forever and ever, until forever meets no end. Omnipotence also backs this up. If God is all powerful, then he should not be
able to die.

Omniscience is having universal knowledge. It is the knowledge of all things, being infinitely wise. This means that God knows everything. He has intimate and complete knowledge of the past, present, and future, and every action or reaction that takes place with existence, he has knowledge of. This could be something such as what day CS. Lewis died, or something astronomically useless like how many chemical reactions take place every nanosecond within the pancreas of the collective population of Asia. There is nothing that he cannot know, and in fact, cannot be anything less than perfectly knowledgeable.. These are not trifle definitions. These are the defining characteristics and conditions that must be met into order for God to claim to be God. God is, by definition, perfect. He is Eternal, omniscient and omnipotent. These are characteristics that it would seem the biblical texts make clear, and that history and Orthodoxy have clung to. If God were anything less than these, he would not be God, as each and every one is integral to his nature. If He was lacking in one of these, he would not be God.

So therein lays the ground work. God has been bestowed and characterized by absolute all-isms and Omni’s. He has been locked inside these premises, and resides within them. But what is to be made clear, and is the point that I just can’t seem to be able to wrap my head around, or to get around, is that when expressed in this absolute perfectionisms, which is, the definition, the natures of God cannot be compatible and coherent with each other. They fall apart. Holes arise that cannot be possibly be explained away. I have never given it thought prior to this, yet find myself forced to reevaluate all my prior concepts and beliefs about God, which is not altogether a pleasant experience.
Yet what are these paradoxes and mysteries and “what the hell’s�? I speak of? Here are a few thoughts. God is supposedly omnipotent, yet to say that God can do literally everything that can be imagined is a position that is untenable, and instantly reduces God to a mindless creature capable of killing himself, being ignorant, and giving away his abilities. Hell, God, with the exerting of that kind of power, can turn himself into ostrich feces if he so desires. Allow me to ponder a few inconsistencies and indulge me in my meanderings. Can God create a 90 year old teenage. Can he create a married Bachelor. Can He create a egg that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? Dare we believe that God could alter the past? Even though the Past is a cumulating of free choices. Could God change this? Can God win an arm wrestling match against Himself?" or, "If God beat Himself up, who would win?"

Can he do all manner of impossible acts? It would not appear so. In fact, in closer inspection, we would conclude that If there are states of affairs that an omnipotent agent is powerless to bring about, then how is the notion of omnipotence intelligibly to be defined? It cannot be. Could God create a being that could outwit himself? Could two omnipotent beings exist at the same time? if two beings were omnipotent, and Being A wanted to kill a human, but Being B wanted to keep him alive (both possible, certainly) would not both beings be rendered impotent and not omnipotent?. This is just scratching the surface, but once we pair these questions with other attributes, the fun really starts.
God by definition is eternal. Can God then, choose to end his life? Can he
choose to simply disappear, or make it so that a child could destroy him? Conventional wisdom would say, not a chance is Hades, as God be definition is eternal. If God could be killed, he would cease to be timeless, immutable, All Powerful, and eternal.. Paradox indeed. Yet all aspects are seemingly tied in to his nature. It is not a matter of saying such actions are against his nature, and so he could not do them, but rather that the nature of God, is that he is simply unable. If God is indeed unable, omnipotence, true absolute omnipotence, cannot be realized.

Yet bank it off his omniscient Nature. Can God choose to be ignorant? If he is all powerful, could he make it so that he is reduced to a mindless dolt? Can he give up his knowledge? Can he forget? How hard would it be for the being who created existence, to choose to not know the amount of hair’s on little Johnny’s
head? Even one time? What if God said, “For 30 seconds, I will not know how many time the young man’s heart beats.�? That is all. Even single, tiny admission
such as that would nullify this perfect omniscience. Therefore, another thing
that God cannot do.

Let us give thought to God’s supposed Omni benevolence. Can God sin? Can he do evil? Can he break a promise? Can he go against his word? Can he randomly kill someone? Can he lie? Can he cheat? It wouldn’t seem so, as these are things that God said in Scripture that he would not do. If God says that he does not lie, he has limited himself already. For God to lie, would be to break his word, making him not only a liar, but not omni benevolent.

God is all powerful, yet can God choose to do evil? If God were truly omnipotent in an absolute and unlimited sense, then God could be capable of both existing and not existing at the same time, meaning that every form of theism and every form of atheism would be equally justified at all times simultaneously. This would naturally follow and is possible. Yet this would give rise for the possibility of a God being capable of informing humans of certain requirements for attaining heaven and avoiding hell but actually holding to entirely different requirements without ever actually lying. Conceptual problem indeed.

Can God even perform basic human tasks? Can God have sex? Can he sit down? Can he eat? Can he breathe? Can he taste and hear? Can he walk? Can he speak? Theism has always postulated a non-material, disembodied divinity. Thus, it simply would not be possible for God to sit down — an apparent contradiction to omnipotence, especially since I am capable of sitting down all I want. In this sense, God cannot run, play, jump, eat, etc. All actions that involve a material body. We therefore, can do thousands of this God Cannot. In many ways, I am able to bring about many things that God cannot. We can sin Kill, rape, murder. We can do what is morally wrong. Suddenly, there becomes an almost near unlimited amount of things that God cannot do. And they aren’t even logically impossible to theorize or to imagine. They are everyday actions. God has Perfect and Absolute Omnipotence? Not a chance. God is certainly very powerful, but to make said sweeping declarative statement does not hold up. I would be able to cope with the powers of God being redefined as “Able to do everything that can logically be done, which is consistent with the other attributes of his divine nature�? Yet many people would balk at that.

But in defense to the question of the paradox, can we take the position that we need accept that we will never understand God, and so who are we to question? can we say that we just don’t know? I do not believe so. Many individuals take the position that because an omnipotent God can do anything, he can do things that we cannot possibly ever understand, and that That is where the argument ends. Or they may be more eloquent, and assert that God is beyond our comprehension; omnipotence and all his other infinite qualities are beyond our comprehension too, because our minds are not infinite. An example could be as such. Imagine an infinite number. You understand what is meant by infinite, but you cannot truly form a conception of the infinite. Such is the way with God.
I certainly have many sympathies for this view, but hold it wildly untenable.
This view may be true if God were some silent and unknowable being that we are forced to make guesswork about. Cold. Distant. Does not concern himself in the affairs of mere mortals. Yet Christian Teaching is that God does care to know us personally, and even sent his son to become as man and then to die for the sins of the world. I would say that that would quantify as a fair bit of involvement. But alas, here we go from here. Why then, should we not know God? We have a collection of writings 4500 years old from 30 different writers, all contained as a history of God and his involvement with his creations. We have the supposed words of God, and everything that we know about him, finds it’s revelation in these words. Therefore there is an abundance to know. What we are doing therefore, is not trying to piece together some abstract idea of God, but rather, are taking what he gave us, the revelation of himself, and trying to make it work with the other revelations of himself. That is all. This should not prove to be difficult, but rather should be commended. These are not the ideas of great complexities. They are fairly simple to understand, and the same God who has blessed us and granted us wisdom and intelligence, should surely not intend for us to ignore or forgo their use.

The whole question of the Paradox of God’s natures could be summed up as following; To fulfill the role and to quantify as God, certain conditions must be met. A deity cannot be accepted if he is not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and omni benevolent. These must exist in the truest sense, or else it is conceivable that another being could exist that matches the qualities of the first being, but also surpasses it. It could be thought of in maximal power. God is the “greatest�?. Yet these attributes contradict each other and limit God in a very real way. Not only does it catch God in a logical quandary, but even things that are relatively simple and are not the product of logical contradictions, (such as, “Can God eat?�?) are answered in the negation. When all these natures are compared, contrasted, and questioned off each other, it becomes apparent that there are numerous affairs that God cannot do, and that he is limited in countless ways. This naturally conflicts with the idea of God being omnipotent, able to bring about anything that can be conceived. As God continues to be defined in such rigid and impossible absolutes, the less “powerful�? he becomes. If God were given a little bit of leeway and not subjected to assumptions about his nature, it might be that he is able to do more, or rather, that he is able to express his power in meaningful ways that do not conflict with his Nature. God is not omnipotent, and that should be accepted. It does not affect the nature of God or the identity of God or the powers of God in any practical way, but rather only offers a new conceptual framework in which we are able to make sense of God. A God who has no restrictions or limits, and bows not even to logical contradictions in his character, cannot be. However, A God who is perfect, eternal, omniscient, omni benevolent, and is as powerful as he can be within that those limits, is possible. A God who is able to do everything that can be done, so long as it is not illogical and is consistent with his nature and attributes, makes sense. He can still hold on to his characteristics, but omnipotence must be tweaked. God cannot do everything, and that needs to be accepted, and needs to be ok with us.