God, Logic, and Free Will

This article explores the idea that logic is the ultimate constant, and that if God exists, then He is that logic. Free will operates within those logical bounds rather than outside them.

Credit to “ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔢𝔰” for the debate.

Foundations of the Argument

Overview

Many religious arguments rely on scripture as primary evidence. For readers who do not share that commitment, this can appear circular. Apologetics may then look unpersuasive outside the faith community.

Logic is a shared standard. It does not rely on revelation but on internal consistency. If there is a God, one view holds that He operates through logic rather than beyond it. See the Law of Non Contradiction for the principle that underpins rational argument.

The Limits of Omnipotence

The question "Can God make something more powerful than Himself?" is used to test the idea of unlimited power.

1. If He can, He ceases to be the most powerful.
2. If He cannot, there is something He cannot do.

• Either outcome challenges absolute omnipotence.

These are not limits imposed from outside but logical boundaries that avoid contradiction.

1. God cannot both exist and not exist.
2. God cannot know what is fundamentally unknowable.
3. God cannot end Himself without removing the condition for His own existence.

On how classical theology treats what cannot be known about the divine, see Apophatic Theology.

Why Limits Enable Power

Limits inside logic do not weaken a perfect being. They are the structure that makes power coherent. Without logical structure, there is no distinction between success and failure, truth and falsehood, being and non being. The capacity to do what is possible in every possible case is maximal power; the “power” to do contradictions is not a power at all.

Logic as the Fundamental Constant

Logical Boundaries

If God exists, His limits are not physical but logical. Violating logic would dissolve the coherence that makes existence and meaning possible.

God as Logic

From this perspective, saying God is logic treats the divine not as a person with changing emotions but as the stable framework that makes reality intelligible. This is a philosophical stance rather than a doctrinal claim.

Infinity, Consciousness, and Existence

Eternal Consciousness Paradox

If there is infinite time or a looping universe, then an eternal consciousness would never encounter a first moment of itself. The desire for an end could arise, yet be unreachable without contradiction.

For what could any entity, conscious of eternal existence, want more than an end?

Human Parallel

A parallel appears in human life: we are finite minds within large but limited possibility. Whether consciousness is emergent or fundamental, it still follows the same logical structure; a thing cannot negate itself and remain the same.

And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

Free Will and Determinism

Free Will Within Bounds

Free will and determinism are compatible. Choices arise from prior causes, yet they remain yours because those causes include your character, memory, goals, and reasoning. For surveys of positions, see Free Will, Determinism, and Compatibilism.

Free will here means the ability to act according to one’s own nature within the structure of reality. For example: you cannot teleport or fly at will, but within human limits you still plan, choose, and act.

Applying the Same Structure to Free Will

You can test “absolute free will” with the same form used for omnipotence.

1. If free will means the ability to do anything whatsoever, it includes doing what is logically impossible. That collapses into incoherence.
2. If free will excludes the logically impossible, then it already operates within limits.

• The coherent view is that free will is the rational capacity to choose among possibilities that reality allows. Limits are not defects; they define what it means for an action to be yours rather than a contradiction.

Deterministic Chaos and Unpredictability

Chaos Theory and the Three Body Problem show that deterministic systems can be hard to predict because tiny differences in starting conditions can grow into large differences in outcomes.

In practice, this means outcomes can feel open and be open even when the rules are fixed/deterministic. Human thought shows similar complexity; many factors interact, so the result feels like free choice even when it is fully within the system. On this view, free will is deterministic chaos made conscious: the self organizing unpredictability of a rational agent operating inside an ordered universe.

Common Arguments in Reply

“He can do it because he is God.”

This reply sets aside the very rules that make claims meaningful. If “anything” includes logical contradictions, then terms like God, power, good, or exists lose stable meaning. The Law of Non contradiction is not a human preference but the condition for any statement to be true or false. A claim that erases the conditions for meaning is not a solution but an escape from logic.

“With God all things are possible.”

In ordinary usage, possible already means logically possible. A square circle or two plus two equaling five is not a real state of affairs, it is an incoherent description. Power ranges over realities that can exist, not over contradictions. This is exactly what the Omnipotence Paradox exposes. Clarifying possibility does not limit God; it preserves meaning so that statements about God can be true rather than undefined meaningless noise.

“Human logic cannot contain God.”

If logic as we know it does not apply, then no statement about God has fixed content. Theology and scripture rely on identity and the Law of Non contradiction to say what God is and is not. Applying logic does not shrink the divine, it makes discourse about the divine possible. See Classical Logic for the background that underwrites all such reasoning.

“Logic is a human creation. God transcends logic because He created it.”

Creation already presupposes logic. To create X rather than not X requires identity, difference, and cause. Saying God existed before logic makes before, existence, and cause undefined. A framework cannot be produced by an act that needs that framework to be intelligible. It would mean God did not exist either. Classical theology treats the logically impossible as not within the scope of power at all. See Apophatic Theology for limits of knowing, and Aquinas on divine power.

“If everything is determined then free will is an illusion.”

Freedom does not require escaping causality, it requires being a self causing part of it. Your choices arise from reasons, values, and character that are genuinely yours. This is the core of Compatibilism. You cannot teleport or fly at will, but within real options you deliberate and act in a reasons responsive way. Complex deterministic systems in Chaos Theory and the Three Body Problem show how tiny differences can yield large outcome differences, explaining why agency can feel and be nondeterministic while remaining inside a deterministic reality.