Question Can an all powerful God make a square triangle?

Accepted:
June 28, 2009

Comments

No.

But that's no limitation on such a god's power. We're not saying that there is some possible task that this god fails to be able to pull off. We're saying that there isn't any task that is coherently describable as "making a square triangle".

For consider: what could possibly count as making a square triangle? To be a square requires having four sides. To be a triangle requires not having four sides but only three. So nothing can possibly count as being both a square and a triangle. Hence whatever the god (or anyone else) does, it couldn't correctly be described as "making a square triangle" for that isn't a coherent description of anything.

Take a mundane case. I pass you the cookies. You can take one. Or you can take none. Both are within your power. But you can't simultaneously both take one and not take one. But saying that plainly isn't to say that there is some limitation on your powers of choice vis-a-vis cookies! The point is that nothing could count as simultaneously both taking one and not taking one -- it's just not a coherent description of a possible action. Likewise to say that some god can't make a square triangle isn't to limit his creative powers: the point is that nothing could count as succeeding at that.

Question Can an all powerful God make a square triangle? Accepted:June 28, 2009

Question Can an all powerful God make a square triangle?

Accepted:
June 28, 2009