Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 1/11/2012

Question
Hello there,

As i see from your previous topics that you are well versed in the both arguments of God.

Therefore, I will like to ask you a simple question and show you a explanation to see is you can refute it. I'm sorry its kinda long but i will like you to take your time to read and respond to it as accurately, clear and concise as possible.


The general question is : Is God Logical?

The explanation is as follows:

[
These are the well known virtues attributed to "GOD":

All knowing,
All powerful,
Omnipresent,
Eternal
These below are the attributes of Logic:

It determines what the facts will be. It maintains that each fact in reality must be consistent with every other fact in reality; nothing that exists can prove that anything else that exists in fact does not exist. Therefore, the present must be consistent with the past in that everything that exists today has developed in a logical order from its constituents that have existed in the past. And likewise, the future is predestined to develop from the facts in the present, so in this sense that Logic determines what all the facts in reality will be, Logic is all powerful.

And if in theory all the facts can be deduced from those in the present, then Logic knows all things.
The rules of logical consistency exist at any and all points in reality whether it be here or the farthest galaxy simply because reality is defined as the complete set of all consistent facts that can be derived from logical principles. So Logic in this sense is Omnipresent.
And of course, the rules of logical consistency will remain the same for all time. For we know that the facts in the future must be consistent with the facts of the past. So in this sense Logic is Eternal.

So, I reason that if two concepts share ALL the same attributes, then they are the same thing. The burden on those who object is now to show that there are attributes that one has but not the other. I can't think of any.
Thus, I say that God is Logic. What else could He be - some being who is constructed of more fundamental parts - some intellect that has developed over a vast period of time? These cannot claim to have always been Eternal, nor Omnipresent, nor all powerful, nor all knowing, which are required attributes for a claim of being "GOD".

And if God is Logic itself, then you can not argue that God does not exist. For you would only prove by the effort of making your argument that you are relying on the principles of Logic which you presuppose exists. Or more formally, if it is not true that there is something that will prove that logic does not determine the facts, then it must be true that all things do prove that logic does determine the facts.


Another argument is as follows: The constraints of Logic determine what the facts will be. And the ancients attributed God as that which controls everything in the universe. So I conclude that they both must be the same concept. For since any given fact cannot be both true and false, and then Logic and God must agree on absolutely everything that exists. They are one.


Why write about logic? It is because logic is reasoned and reasonable judgment (see Web or dictionary definitions for logic). We (humans) think, reason, and evaluate using our gifted brain. A human's brain is one of the tools that have been given to mankind, and we are supposed to use it. If we do not use our brain, we then we'll have problems.

In addition, we must keep educating our brains with new knowledge. What used to be logic in the past; today is not. That is because facts have uncovered the truth; and that happened because of more knowledge, education, learning, and experimenting together with being opened minded.

Note: Closed minded people never progress. Many of closed minded people do not want to change their way of thinking even if it's pure fact and truth.

It is the same with us, we are expected to use our brain, and if we do not use it, we then will face lots of problems.

For Example: Suppose you have a mechanic shop, and you hired a mechanic to help you. The new hired mechanic keeps refusing to use tools to fix the cars. He keeps trying to take engines apart without using any of the tools. Of course, he will not be able to do the job.

What would you do? He is expected to use the tools to do the job, but he keeps refusing to do so. Unfortunately, you will have to let him go. Will you not?
Why? Because the hired mechanic had refused to use the giving tools he was given. Similarly, God Almighty has given us our brains and the ability to reason and to think logically. Shouldn't we then use that ability and reason accordingly?

Over the year's people have been debating about the relationship between logic and God. Did God create logic like he created humans? Did logic exist before God, so that God is subject to logic? Can't God do away with the laws of logic? Can't he violate the laws of logic?
The first thing we need to do is define what logic is. A simple definition of logic is "the study of right reason." The foundation of right reason is embodied in three laws of logic that are undeniable.

The law of non-contradiction states that a thing cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense.
The law of excluded middle states that a thing is either A or non-A.
The law of identity states that if a thing is A, then it is A.
All logic, and thus all right reasoning, is built off of these three laws. They are undeniable.
So, now to the question. Are these laws subject to God or is God subject to them?

The answer is that the laws of logic are part of the nature of God. In other words, logic is built into God. He did not create logic like he created humans, but neither did logic exist as some sort of entity outside of God. Since God has always existed, and the laws of logic are based in God, then the laws of logic have always existed as well.
Can God violate the laws of logic? No, because he cannot not be himself. Whatever God is, he is eternally. God does not shut down various attributes of his being, like cutting off lights in different parts of the house. God is logical, he always has been logical, and he always will be logical.

Someone might object, "Doesn't this mean God is limited by logic?" This objection has always struck me as strange because logic is synonymous with rationality. Is God limited to being rational? Well yes, in the same way he is "limited" by his goodness, or his beauty, or his holiness. God is never evil, ugly, or unholy; likewise, God is never illogical or irrational.
The law of contradiction is not to be taken as an axiom prior to or independent of God. The law is God thinking.
For this reason also the law of contradiction is not subsequent to God. If one should say that logic is dependent on God's thinking, it is dependent only in the sense that it is the characteristic of God's thinking. It is not subsequent temporally, for God is eternal and there was never a time when God existed without thinking logically. One must not suppose that God's will exist as an inert substance before he willed to think.
As there is no temporal priority, so also there is no logical or analytical priority. Not only was Logic the beginning, but Logic was God.

Logic in man

With this understanding of God's mind, the next step is the creation of man in God's image. The non-rational animals were not created in his image; but God breathed his spirit into the earthly form, and Adam became a type of soul superior to the animals.
To be precise, one should not speak of the image of God in man. Man is not something in which somewhere God's image can be found along with other things. Man is the image. This, of course, does not refer to man's body. The body is an instrument or tool man uses. He himself is God's breath, the spirit God breathed into the clay, the mind, the thinking ego. Therefore, man is rational in the likeness of God's rationality. His mind is structured. That is why we believe that spaniels have teeth. In addition to the well-known verses in chapter one, Genesis 5:1 and 9:6 both repeat the idea. 1 Corinthians 11:7says, "man ... is the image and glory of God." See also Colossians 3:10 and James 3:9. Other verses, not so explicit, nonetheless add to our information. Compare Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 2:6-8, and Psalm 8. But the conclusive consideration is that throughout the Bible as a whole the rational God gives man an intelligible message.
It is strange that anyone who thinks he is a Christian should deprecate logic. Such a person does not of course intend to deprecate the mind of God; but he thinks that logic in man is sinful, even more sinful than other parts of man's fallen nature. This, however, makes no sense. The law of contradiction cannot be sinful. Quite the contrary, it is our violations of the law of contradiction that are sinful. Yet the strictures which some devotional writers place on "merely human" logic are amazing. Can such pious stupidity really mean that a syllogism that is valid for us is invalid for God? If two plus two is four in our arithmetic, does God have a different arithmetic in which two and two makes three or perhaps five? The fact that the Son of God is God's reason-for Christ is the wisdom of God as well as the power of God-plus the fact that the image in man is so-called "human reason," suffices to show that this so-called "human reason" is not so much human but as divine quality. That is why Jesus said in John 10:34 and quoted Psalm 82:6 that we (humans) are gods. -- See document "Why Men, Angels and Jesus are called 'God' or gods?"

Of course, the Scripture says that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. But is it good exegeses to say that this means his logic, his arithmetic, his truth are not ours? If this were so, what would the consequences be? It would mean not only that our additions and subtractions are all wrong, but also that all our thoughts-in history as well as in arithmetic-are all wrong. If for example, we think that David was King of Israel, and God's thoughts are not ours, then it follows that God does not think David was King of Israel. David in God's mind was perchance prime minister of Babylon.
This can be further illustrated in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We humans have the tendency to make assumptions of facts while God does not have that problem. He simple knows the facts. In Genesis 18:23-3, here Abraham is bargaining on the lives of the "supposed" innocent victims in the cities and God is giving him options to not destroy them. Abraham, in other words, was not concerned with the question of whether anyone in Sodom and Gomorrah is sinless. Instead, he was wondering about the fate of those who were innocent of the charges in question. Surely God knew something that Abraham did not know; for the thoughts of Abraham were not the thoughts of God right?
Abraham was acting upon a normal human assumption of innocence while God was looking at the facts (past, present and future) showing that the ways or thoughts of Abraham was not the same as God's. None the less, this did not mean that Abraham could not logically know or understand what God knew.
To avoid this irrationalism, which of course is a denial of the divine image, we must insist that truth is the same for God and man. Naturally, we may not know the truth about some matters. But if we know anything at all, what we must know must be identical with what God knows. God knows all truth, and unless we know something God knows, our ideas are untrue. It is absolutely essential therefore to insist that there is an area of coincidence between God's mind and our mind.

Logic and Language

This point brings us to the central issue of language. Language did not develop from, nor was its purpose restricted to, the physical needs of earthly life. God gave Adam a mind to understand the divine law, and he gave him language to enable him to speak to God. From the beginning, language was intended for worship. In the Te Deum, by means of language, and in spite of the fact that it is sung to music, we pay "metaphysical compliments" to God. The debate about the adequacy of language to express the truth of God is a false issue. Words are mere symbols or signs. Any sign would be adequate. The real issue is: Does a man have the idea to symbolize? If he can think of God, then he can use the sound God, Deus, Theos, or Elohim. The word makes no difference, and the sign is ipso facto literal and adequate.
The Christian view is that God created Adam as a rational mind. The structure of Adam's mind was the same as God's. God thinks that asserting the consequent is a fallacy; and Adam's mind was formed on the principles of identity and contradiction. This Christian view of God, man, and language does not fit into any empirical philosophy. It is rather a type of a priori rationalism. Man's mind is not initially a blank. It is structured. It's like a pre-embedded ROM of instructions that increases and expands over time. In fact, an unstructured blank is no mind at all. Nor could any such sheet of white paper extract any universal law of logic from finite experience. No universal and necessary proposition can be deduced from sensory observation. Universality and necessity can only be a priori.
This is not to say that all truth can be deduced from logic alone. The seventeenth-century rationalists gave themselves an impossible task. Even if the ontological argument be valid, it is impossible to deduce Cur Deus Homo or the Trinity. The axioms to which the apriori forms of logic must be applied are the propositions God revealed to Adam and the later prophets.

Conclusion
It is extremely important to note that humans could never know anything about God without the laws of logic. Without the laws of logic, God could exist and not exist, God could not be God, God could be good and non-good (evil), and so forth on and on. Logic is essential to our knowing God. Christians who denigrate logic are, in effect, denigrating the foundational tools that we have to know anything about God.

Another objection that has been raised is that since God can do the impossible, then when we say he cannot be illogical, then we are saying he cannot do the impossible. The misunderstanding comes from the word impossible. Biblically, God may do what is impossible for human beings to do, but the Bible does not say that God can do what is logically impossible.
For example, objectors may argue, "God can raise people from the dead, but that's impossible!" Well, that's impossible for humans, but it's not logically impossible. There is a big difference between the two.
In summary, logic is built into God as part of his nature, so God is not subject to logic as if logic is some force outside of him. But he is "subject" to logic because he cannot deny himself.
To repeat, even if it seems wearisome: Logic is fixed, universal, necessary, and irreplaceable. Irrationality contradicts the Biblical teaching from beginning to end. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not insane. God is a rational being, the architecture of whose mind is logic.

This is why God was not, is not and will never be a Trinity because its breaks the laws of Logic. ]

Thank you and hope to hear your response to the explanation above.

Answer
Hi! You've got a lot to talk about so I've tried to condense my main thoughts and reactions into a couple of subsections that should hopefully make my response easier to navigate.


Definitions of logic and physics:
You make frequent reference to the notion of logic, but you seem to apply different meanings to the word "logic" at different times. Right now the argument runs the danger of equivocation[1], but you may find a way to save the argument by using more precise language. Logic (expanded to its fullest meaning which would include all mathematics and philosophy) is simply a process deducing results (conclusions) from axioms[2] (premises) while avoiding contradictions. Logic by itself cannot tell you what axioms are actually true, it can only tell you which axioms are compatible with each other.

It may turn out that the laws of physics are in some way so fundamental that they are the only laws of physics of possible, but right now that has not yet been shown to be true (and I would argue that there is some evidence against it). But even if logic and the laws of physics turned out to be the same thing, the laws of physics still need to be applied to physical facts (also called initial conditions[3] or boundary conditions[4]) like the existence and trajectories of particles in the universe. Not only are these physical facts too numerous and too varied to be natural candidates for fundamental constants of the universe, the existence of indeterministic quantum mechanical processes (at least in the Copenhagen Interpretation[5]) suggests that it is impossible for such physical facts to be fundamental. When you say "in theory all the facts can be deduced from those in the present", it would appear that this not actually true.

So in order to know all the facts in universe one would need to know some logic and mathematics, all physics and casual agents, and a very very large sampling of physical evidence across space and time. So if you want to say God's omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience are literally indistinguishable from physical facts, than I would think you should simply say God is the Universe itself (and in doing so you would avoid the problem of universals[6]). If you were to say that than you wouldn't be the first and you would be classified as a Spinoza-ist[7][8] or a pantheist[9]. There are some Bible passages which could cherry-picked[10] to support this idea[11][12].


(Religious) Critiques of Pantheism (and similar ideologies):
To me, a pantheistic notion of God is nearly indistinguishable from atheism, and therefore I don't really take issue with it. I would find the usage of the word God to describe nature to be slightly misleading, and for that reason I prefer to just call myself an atheist when the differences are only semantic[13]. In addition (as Spinoza found out), a mainstream Jewish or Christian audience wouldn't tend to recognize pantheism as sharing their religion, because it is lacking in both supernatural and ethical content.

Take for example Wikipedia's list of attributes typically associated with God[14], which includes Graciousness, Holiness, Jealousy, Love, Mission, Omni-benevolence, Providence, Righteousness, Sovereignty, and Wrath - these attributes don't naturally follow from the universe (if the universe is said to have "opinion", than its descriptive rather than prescriptive[15]), and therefore pantheism doesn't serve the same purpose as religion in lives of people who follow it. Even your idea that God wants us to be logical is not a necessary conclusion from the notion that God is Logic, because it requires an additional property that logic does not typically have. Many people turn to religion to answer the question "What should I do?" and a description of God as a machine[16] does nothing to advance that quest.

In addition many people turn to religion because they find it comforting to believe that the usual laws of physics can be broken by an entity interested in guiding human affairs. Some intervening activities typically associated with God: answering specific prayers, providing verbal guidance or visual signs, empowering holy men, blessing artifacts or locations with powers, rewarding the good, punishing the wicked, creating ethical scenarios, judging the actions and beliefs of people for their afterlives, greeting the deceased, making prophecies, etc. To people who want a God that they can pray to or want to find a priest who can act as an intermediary to God, the only God which interests them is one who is supernatural. While it is possible to imagine a God who exists in both natural and supernatural events, it does tend to pose the question of why God acts so inconsistently[17]. So to me, a pantheist God seems to fit more elegantly in the universe of a metaphysical naturalist[18].


Humans can be partially Logical:
At one point you say: "But is it good exegeses to say that this means his logic, his arithmetic, his truth are not ours? If this were so, what would the consequences be? It would mean not only that our additions and subtractions are all wrong, but also that all our thoughts-in history as well as in arithmetic-are all wrong. If for example, we think that David was King of Israel, and God's thoughts are not ours, then it follows that God does not think David was King of Israel. David in God's mind was perchance prime minister of Babylon." This seems to be a false dichotomy[19], because it seems to me that humans are wrong about some things and right (or in agreement with God) about other things and that this is the chief concern of people who oppose relying on logic alone. Maybe I got this passage wrong, but I justed to make sure we were on the same page before continuing.


Conflict between Theology and Reason:
I don't know of any religion which argues that God is illogical, they instead define logic to be compatible with God. But sometimes religions instead argue that God is only partially accessible by human attempts at logic. These religions may refer to God as too incomprehensible or too mysterious or too aloof to be understood by humans and consider it a type of blasphemy to hold God subject to the rules of logic as they would be fully understood by a human. Proverbs 3:5 supports the idea of relying on dogma over reason[20] as does the Book of Job, but the Book of Ecclesiastes does not. I am not quite a scholar on Christianity, but I do know that Martin Luther argued that a true Christian uses logic and reason as little as possible: "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but--more frequently than not --struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."[21], whereas Descartes envisioned God as guiding humans to come to the correct conclusions[22]. But here is what I see as the basic conflict between theology and reason: What if your reason would seem to indicate that scripture is wrong or contradictory [23][24][25], what do you do then? As an atheist I feel that the scripture is too flawed to be taken seriously and for rationality's sake I don't take it into consideration when I make decisions. If you want to keep (traditional) Christianity and logic both, I think you need to do some pretty extensive mental gymnastics to come up with a theodicy that explains the apparent inconsistencies.


Logic as a requirement for person-hood:
At one point you say: "he non-rational animals were not created in his image; but God breathed his spirit into the earthly form, and Adam became a type of soul superior to the animals." . This implies that all humans are logical and that all non-humans cannot be logical, neither of which is true (here[26] and here[27] respectively). In addition, people can be better or worse at analytical skills (as shown by the distribution of scores on various standardized tests) and I wouldn't assign worth to individuals proportional to their logical skills.


Exercising Logic:
I also share an interest in trying to use human reason and trying to get better at rationality in everyday life. If you wanted to see some websites on the psychology of human rationality that are accessible to the layman, I would recommend the following websites: [28][29][30][31] Hopefully you like them as much as I do.


Conclusion:
I don't see the argument that you presented to me being particularly persuasive with either a secular or religious audience. If you want to make a world-view out of these ideas, than hopefully I pointed out enough possible objections to provide a way for you to improve on your ideas or how improve on how your ideas are presented. Of course I had a lot of ground to cover so if you feel like I did do your ideas justice or if wanted to discuss any part of this in more detail you can always ask me a follow-up question.


Links:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_condition
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_value_problem
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Spinoza
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_%28fallacy%29
[11] http://bible.cc/colossians/1-17.htm
[12] http://www.frimmin.com/faith/godinall.php
[13] http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2010/9/atheism-13.htm
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributes_of_God_in_Christianity
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine
[17] http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2010/8/Paradox-Design-Argument.htm
[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_naturalism
[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy
[20] http://bible.cc/proverbs/3-5.htm
[21] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#Table_Talk_.281569.29
[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descarte%27s_meditations#Meditation_VI:_Concerning_
[23] http://www.project-reason.org/bibleContra_small.pdf
[24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Logical_problem_of_evil
[25] http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2009/12/Best-best.htm
[26] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_hemisphere_brain_damage
[27] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=primate%20logic&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=311l175
[28] http://measureofdoubt.com/
[29] http://youarenotsosmart.com/
[30] http://lesswrong.com/
[31] http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/