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ABB LOGICAL ANTINOMIES.
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ABBA THE THEOLOGICAL ANTINOMY 1
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At the base of most theologies one finds a proposition postulating
the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent God. This proposition is
known in the history of philosophy as the Theological Antinomy. Indeed,
if God is omniscient, He knows every detail of the cosmos and cannot
change it without contradicting His own knowledge: an omniscient entity
appears to be necessarily impotent. On the other hand, an omnipotent
entity appears to be totally ignorant, as all objects of its knowledge
are constantly submitted to arbitrary changes due to its own illimited
freedom and power.
From the traditional logical point of view omniscience and omnipotence
appear to be mutually exclusive i.e. they may be assigned to the same
entity only if related with the operator ORR ("either-or", "exclusive
or"). The Theological Antinomy relates them however with the operator
AND, thus appearing to be a logical contradiction.
Logic has often claimed to be the base of human intelligence. According
to this claim logical contradictions have to be banished from the human
universe of discourse. Consequently, all religions should have vanished
since the discovery of the Theological Antinomy which, from the
traditional logical point of view, seems to prove that God cannot
possibly exist.
However, strangely enough, humanity does not seem to care in the least
about the claims of the logic and has never ceased to be religiosly
minded. Should we conclude that humanity is hopelessly unintelligent
with exception of a few logicians? Or should we rather look for some
compromise making on the one hand religious ideologies not necessarily
incompatible with human intelligence while, on the other hand, somehow
restricting the olympic claims of logic?
The contradictory character of the Antinomy results from a logical
scrutiny which the foundation rule restricts to rigorous propositions.
Now, is the Antinomy rigorous?
None of the usual formulations of the Antinomy refers to any foundation,
so that it appears to be implicitly founded in UH. Under this assumption
the foundation rule states:
1.an omniscient entity may only be situated at the end of all times,
2.an omnipotent entity may only be situated at the beginning of all
times.
ABBA THE THEOLOGICAL ANTINOMY 2
On the one hand the attributes are mutually exclusive and, on the other
hand, logic is applicable, because we have assumed the Antinomy to be
rigorously founded in UH. An ominiscient and omnipotent entity is
therefore contradictory and essentially impossible in UH.
However, a cognizant and projecting entity founded in UH is usually a
human being. Under this assumption the Antinomy asserts that an
omniscient and omnipotent human being is impossible. Now, there is
nothing wrong with this assertion, as nobody ever postulated the
existence of such a human being.
What happens, when we replace the human being with the new entity God?
Upon unchanged foundation, the new entity becomes a man-like, an
antropomorphic God and the Antinomy states that such an entity is a
logical contradiction. Again an acceptable conclusion from all points of
view: the humanist excludes God from the human universe, the theologian
says that he has never postulated an antropomorphic God and that he is
first to ban such a hybrid, totemic and blasphemous concept from the
universe of discourse. More, the incompatibility of his concept of God
with the human universe does not disturb him the least. His concept of
God transcends this universe and has to be founded in some adequate
transcendental universe UT comprising some theological referential RT
in which the attributes omniscience and omnipotence are not mutually
exclusive, but complementary.
What can be said about this RT? It has certainly nothing to do with
a lexicon of religious terms in which Jahve appears alongside with Amon
and Zeus and which is a more or less folkloristic part of the UH.
RT raises the ontological claim to support the objective existence of
an omniscient and omnipotent God, just as SR supports the existence of
invariant speed of light. It has therefore to be sufficiently precise
to support a logical calculus allowing to utter rigorous theological
propositions.
To the best of our knowledge such a calculus does not exist so that RT
is as yet unprecised. However, it does not mean that it is undefined.
Indeed, the very concept of omniscient and omnipotent God supplies its
definition, just as invariance of c supplies the definition of SR.
RT has the initial status of a newly defined, but not yet precised
referentials, which we have discussed in AAA. As such, it represents a
pertinent foundation of research endeavouring to precise its details,
in spite of having kept the intial status for a considerable time and of
anybody's possible personal doubts as to the chances of this research.
However, as long as it stays unprecised, it is non-pertinent with
respect to concrete theological propostitions which, consequently,
cannot pretend to be rigorous.
ABBA THE THEOLOGICAL ANTINOMY 3
Consequently, it is legitimate to claim the existence of omniscient and
omnipotent God, as long as this claim is not founded in UH, but
postulates, on the contrary, some transcendental UT comprising an
adequate theological referential RT. However, this claim cannot be
proved, nor disproved, nor even rigorously discussed as long as RT
stays unprecised. Indeed, any proposition founded in a non-precise
referential is non-rigorous and logically undetermined.
What we just said applies in particular to the Theological Antinomy,
which, consequently, turns out not to be a logical antinomy at all.
It is instead a non-rigorous proposition to which logic cannot be
legitimately applied. Rather than being contradictory, it is logically
undetermined. It becomes a Theological Postulate rather than Antinomy.