Something Which God Cannot See

Someone asked me if there is something which God cannot see.

Here is my reply:


Your question is related to Bertrand Russell’s conundrum:

"If God is omnipresent (present in every imaginable place), then God must be present in the heart of Satan. If Satan has God in his heart, then Satan cannot be all bad. BUT, if Satan does NOT have God in his heart, then there is at least one place where God is not present. Ergo, God is not omnipresent."

Here is a second example of such puzzles: "One assumes that God is perfect in the sense of completeness and lacks nothing and that God is all wise. Now, if a being who slacks nothing chooses to create a universe, then, that is an action which appears senseless. But an all wise being would never do something senseless. Yet, if there was a sensible purpose for creating the universe, then, something must have been lacking and needful, prior to the act of creation, which refutes the notion of completeness."


The work of logicians such as Russell, and mathematicians, show that certain seeming impossibilities arise due to the very limitations of the language and syntax of our axiomatic systems.

The existence and nature of rabbits in no way violates the laws of chemistry and physics. Yet, a complete knowledge of all such laws would never lead us inductively to the notion of a rabbit.

Somewhere, Einstein stated that there is no way that anyone might empirically, inductively arrive at the concepts of relativity and physics.

It is ok for us to speak of a red wagon, or a red flower. But when we attempt to speak of redness itself, as a qualia, in the abstract, then, we run into certain linguistic and epistemological problems.

So, there are certain prior questions we must ask before we ask the question about something which God cannot see.