Yo! It Ain’t No Mystery: Who Is God?

Godz N the Hood

“Whad up G?” This is how young godz stepped to older godz back in the day in my old hood, Queensbridge. Nas’s recital on “Life’s a Bitch” (Illmatic) and Mobb Deep’s chronicles of life from the cradle to the grave on The Infamous represent just how much life has changed from when I was a young G growing up in the Bridge on the 41st side of Vernon. As Havoc schools us, beef is settled nowadays not by fists but by blessing sons with iron, loaded with hollow-tips in Gotti clips. And “Whad up G?” is how young and old hood gangstas step to one another. Young headz in the old hood—where many men wish death upon one another, as 50 Cent preaches on Get Rich or Die Tryin’—are livin’ the life of gangstas, straight thuggin’, and anticipating the day when death comes around the corner, so that after their downfall they can follow Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. and be buried as a G.

But back in the day when we rolled up on older godz we weren’t seeking beef. We sought the fifth element of hip hop—knowledge. We offered much respect to the older godz who schooled us on the science of the divine mathematics and the divine alphabet. And the older godz were always game for droppin’ science. On “Older Gods” (Wu-Tang Forever), Ghostface Killah and Raekwon reminisce about the days of old when the older godz put young Gs on and taught us daily life lessons. Back then lyrically gifted godz used rhyme skillz to transcribe the lost and found lessons into a form that made them really real for us—hip hop. Like Mobb Deep represents it on the “Quiet Storm” (Murda Muzik), from our perspective the older godz were kickin’ “the real shit, shit to make em feel shit . . . drugs to your eardrum, the raw uncut.” From their project window pulpit, these poor righteous teachers and lyrically gifted MCs gave their congregations a street side perspective on abiding philosophical questions concerning the nature and existence of God, the problem of evil, and questions concerning how righteous godz and earthz should be livin’. This perspective was informed by an astute yet realistic appreciation of the project plight, and by a prophetic vision of how the select five percent could enlighten and rescue the lost and misguided eighty-five percent from the devilish ten percent by studying and preaching knowledge of self.

Some things have certainly changed in the old hood where many were beginners as Five Percenters before turning to sinners, as Nas recalls on “Life’s a Bitch.” But praise be to Gomars O Dubar that some things have stayed the same. Although many young Gs in the hood now view themselves as young gangstas and not young godz, some of hip hop’s divinely inspired rappers, the microphone fiend Rakim Allah, Brand Nubian, Nas, and the Wu-Tang Clan, continue the venerable tradition of using rhyme skillz to preach divine wisdom to gangstas and non-gangstas alike. They shepherd the lost sheep in search of what Inspectah Deck and Method Man envision on Wu-Tang Forever as a better tomorrow in which godz and earthz attain true knowledge of self and overcome the Devil’s trickery, trickery which has lured lost souls in the concrete hell to party, drink, smoke, fuck, dream, and scheme their lives away causing their seeds to grow up the same way. This posse of divine rappers knowledge us on many longstanding questions in the philosophy of religion. But on this track I’m gonna rap about just one, the question Rakim Allah explores on his joint “The Mystery” (The 18th Letter): Who is God?

Who Is God?

God, as conceived by traditional Western theism, is an omnipotent (all-powerful), wholly benevolent (perfectly good), and supreme creator of the universe. There are other aspects of divine nature, such as omniscience (all-knowing), timelessness (eternal existence), and immutability (incapable of undergoing any change in essence). The great medieval philosophical theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is a canonical source for philosophical reflection on all aspects of the presumed nature of God and for classical arguments concerning God’s existence. And there are logical connections between how we conceive of God’s nature and how we go about showin’ and provin’ God’s existence, though we won’t peep them on this track. This track will speak to just one aspect of God’s nature, his power. The other aspects of divine nature would need equal billing if we wanted to produce a complete CD on God’s essence. But only a fool would give up too many hot tracks before signing with a label. Word up!

Divine Omnipotence

What can an omnipotent being do? On The 18th Letter, the microphone fiend Rakim Allah tells us that by his mental intercourse God created the sun, all planets, and all forms of life including man, as well as one of his best designs, man’s mind. God also displayed his awesome power by splitting seas for Moses and making waves for Noah. Peepin’ all the great works and powers attributed to God might lead us to conclude that an omnipotent being can do all things. You name it. God can do it. This is precisely what it means to say that God is omnipotent, namely, that God is a being who can do all things. But can God really do all things?

To be sure, splitting the Red Sea, flooding the entire Earth, and designing and creating the world are impressive works requiring great power. But let’s suppose that we can imagine even greater works requiring even greater power. On “Let’s Get High” (2001), Kurupt invites fellow Gs to get high. And on “Bury Me a G” (Thug Life Volume I), Macadoshis raps about how thugged out Gs kick it with homies in the hood, gettin’ drunk and hittin’ blunts. Under the influence of Cali weed—some serious Cali weed no doubt—one might challenge God to roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it. It won’t do, of course, to simply say that God don’t get high because God is perfectly good. It remains to be shown and proven that a perfectly good being can’t get high.

For one thing, weed is legal in other parts of the world, as Young Buck reminds us when he reflects on his trip to Amsterdam.⁵ Moreover, as he points out, weed is also legal in the U.S.A. in certain states such as Alaska where weed is deemed necessary for medical purposes. So this rules out the objection that a perfectly good being can’t get high because gettin’ high is illegal and a perfectly good being can’t do what is illegal. No doubt many of us join Young Buck in wondering: “Why you giving it to the person if it’s so fucking bad for you?” Furthermore, Young Buck peeps the fact that gettin’ high has certain positive consequences: “Weed helps my brain, it relaxes things for me. I love that it eases my mind. I can be mad at the world, smoke me a blunt and kind of like weigh out my problems a little.” Somewhat more controversially, he also claims that weed could lower the crime rate if it was legal everywhere: “You could be madder than a muthafucka, like, ‘I’ma feel to kill this muthafucka,’ Next thing you know, smoke a fat-ass blunt and be like, ‘Fuck it. I’ll forget about that shit.’” These reflections suggest that being perfectly good and getting high are not necessarily incompatible. It appears, therefore, that God could indeed be challenged to roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it.

But for the sake of argument with the weed haterz, suppose that the divine attribute of benevolence prohibits God from actually inhaling the blunt and gettin’ high much like Bill (and I don’t mean Bushwick Bill) was prevented from inhaling his weed. Still, God’s benevolence certainly does not prevent God from merely rolling a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it and showin’ and provin’ that he really can do all things. This challenge ain’t no joke! And it can’t be ignored by those who believe that God can do all things by virtue of being an omnipotent being.

Here’s the dilemma. If God can roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it, then there will be at least one thing that God can’t do, namely, hit the blunt he just rolled. If God can’t roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it, then there will be at least one thing that God can’t do, namely, roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it. In both cases, of course, God is screwed. Either he can’t hit the blunt he just rolled or he can’t roll the blunt to smoke. So either way God can’t accept Kurupt’s invitation to get high—at least not with heavenly-rolled weed. But more to the point, the claim that God can do all things by virtue of being omnipotent is shown and proven to be plainly false.

This dilemma, which we can call “the paradox of the blunt,” can be generated with other examples. In “U Not Like Me” (Get Rich or Die Tryin’), 50 Cent says that when we see him in the hood he got at least two guns; he carries the glock and his “nigga” Tony carries the M-1s holding 50 down against OGs tryin’ to rock him. So just as we can generate the paradox of the blunt, we can also generate “the paradox of the glock.” Still under the influence of the same chronic that prompted the first dilemma, we can challenge God to create a glock so powerful that even he can’t wield it. If God can’t create the glock, then there will be at least one thing that God can’t do, namely, create a glock so powerful that even he can’t wield it. If God can create the glock, then there will be at least one thing that God can’t do, namely, wield the glock he just created. So in either case God can’t hold 50 down in the hood—at least not with a divinely forged glock—and 50 is better off sticking with Tony and his M-1s for security.

The paradox of the blunt and the paradox of the glock serve the same philosophical purpose, namely, to challenge the claim that God can do all things, which in this context, amounts to challenging the attribution of omnipotence to God. These challenges must be handled with great care by defenders of God’s omnipotence. Theists can’t simply respond to them by conceding that God is not omnipotent after all, since omnipotence and the other aspects of divine nature are assumed to be a necessary aspect of God’s essence. Without these attributes God simply would not be God. A more promising response to these challenges would be to follow Saint Thomas Aquinas’s strategy in Summa Theologica. Aquinas searches for a more bulletproof explanation of what an omnipotent being can do, one that can deflect the blunt and glock paradoxes.

Aquinas’s Solution to the Paradoxes of the Blunt and the Glock

Appreciating the difficulty in explaining in what precisely God’s omnipotence consists, Aquinas proposes that we clarify the meaning of the word “all,” when we say that God can do all things, to arrive at a more satisfactory explanation of God’s omnipotence (Summa Theologica, I, Q. 25, Art. 3). He contends that God’s power extends not to all things but to all things that are possible. Hence the more precise explanation of God’s omnipotence is that God can do all things that are logically possible. This is to say that everything that doesn’t imply a contradiction in terms is within the scope of God’s power. For example, a square circle is a contradiction in terms. So are non-rotating spinning dubs. Therefore, conceding that God can’t create a square circle or non-rotating spinning dubs doesn’t undermine his omnipotence. Rather than saying that God can’t do these things, according to Aquinas, it is more appropriate to say that they can’t be done, period!

Is Aquinas’s definition of omnipotence bulletproof? Can it deflect the paradox of the blunt and the paradox of the glock? Perhaps. But only if these paradoxes require that God do something that implies a contradiction in terms such as creating a square circle or non-rotating spinning dubs. When we first peep the matter, there appear to be no contradictions involved. After all, we all know Gs capable of rolling blunts too strong to hit (some of us may have committed this sin once upon a time) and it is plainly obvious that guns too powerful to be wielded (with our bare hands) can be created. So what’s the problem? If God is truly omnipotent and can do all things that don’t imply a contradiction in terms, why can’t he roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it or why can’t he create a glock so powerful that even he can’t wield it?

Closer inspection reveals that these paradoxes demand too much of an omnipotent being. Hardly any reflection is needed to see that demanding God create a square circle, or non-rotating spinning dubs, is a contradiction in terms. But we must scope the matter a bit closer to see the contradiction imbedded in the blunt and glock paradoxes.

Consider the blunt case. If we accept Aquinas’s definition of omnipotence, then demanding that God roll a blunt so strong that even he can’t hit it amounts to demanding that God roll something that is hittable yet can’t be hit by a being that has the power to hit anything numbered among the possible things. Herein lies the contradiction in terms, which is not substantively different from demanding that God create a square circle or non-rotating spinning dubs. Blunts are rolled for hittin’. Unhittable blunts ain’t really blunts. A blunt too strong for God to hit ain’t really a blunt. Therefore, God’s power is not diminished by virtue of not being able to roll something that is rolled for hittin’ and yet can’t be hit by a being that can hit anything numbered among the possible things. Similar science can be dropped to show and prove that the paradox of the glock also demands too much of a being that can do all things numbered among the possible things.

The bottom line is that the idea of a blunt too strong for God to hit, or a glock too powerful for God to wield, are beyond the realm of the possible. And as Aquinas concludes: “such [things] cannot come under the divine omnipotence; not indeed because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing.”⁶

Of course not all philosophers agree with this limitation on God’s power to the realm of possible things. Some of them will insist that the problem is not with God but with us. Just because our understanding is finite and we cannot imagine a square circle, non-rotating spinning dubs, unhittable blunts, or glocks too powerful to wield, doesn’t mean that God’s power can’t extend to the impossible or contradictory. The great modern philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), who spent time in Amsterdam and could have smoked weed legally,⁷ thought that the problem was with us. Descartes put it this way: “in general we may affirm that God can do everything we comprehend, but not that He cannot do what we cannot comprehend; for it would be rash to think our imagination reaches as far as His power does.”⁸ From here Descartes infers that God could’ve made things so that “it should not be true that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or in general that it should not be true that contradictories cannot be together.”⁹ Likewise he could’ve permitted other contradictions such as squared circles and non-rotating spinning dubs (deuce and a quarter no doubt), though we can’t figure out how he could’ve done these things due to our finite nature.

If we follow Descartes and claim that God’s power has no limits and that God can do all things possible and impossible, then we can simply concede that God can indeed roll a blunt too strong for him to hit or create a glock too powerful for him to wield yet deny that these things undermine God’s omnipotence. For if God can do the impossible to begin with by rolling a blunt too strong for him to hit, or creating a glock too powerful for him to wield, then he certainly can do other impossible things, such as hit the blunt too strong to smoke and wield the glock too powerful to wield. The point is that if skeptics under the influence of the chronic can generate the paradoxes by requiring—on the sneak tip—that God do the impossible in formulating the paradoxes, then we can certainly dispel them under the influence of the same chronic by supposing that God can do other impossible tasks.¹⁰

But even if we suppose that Aquinas’s restriction of God’s power to the logically possible is preferable to Descartes’s unrestricted definition of omnipotence, is Aquinas’s definition totally bulletproof?

Divine Omnipotence and Tupac’s Jailbreak Paradox

If the above paradoxes fail it is because they demand that God perform tasks that don’t fall within the realm of possibility and thus aren’t objects of power. Hence the fact that God can’t perform them implies no limit on God’s power and no defect in the claim that God can do all things that are logically possible. Therefore, they don’t imply a contradiction in terms. But there are other tasks that appear to call God’s power into question, tasks which are logically possible and don’t obviously imply a contradiction in terms.

In a June 1996 interview with the editors of Vibe, Tupac pops a cap in Aquinas’s supposedly bulletproof definition of omnipotence. In explaining his skepticism about Five Percenters claiming to be God, Tupac recalls his challenge to a Five Percenter on lock down with him in the joint: If you God, then pop the fuckin’ gate and get me free and up outta here.

Peep the dilemma underlying this challenge. If you God then you can do anything that is not impossible, that doesn’t imply a contradiction. Aiding and abetting Pac’s escape is possible and doesn’t imply a contradiction. Hence God should be able to pop the gate and set Pac free. Yet God can’t set Pac free. But if God can’t pop the gate then God is even weaker than we thought. With this challenge, Pac has shown and proven that God can’t even do certain things that are possible and don’t imply a contradiction.

This dilemma, which we can call the jailbreak paradox, is similar to a dilemma raised by Aquinas in Summa Theologica, which can be called the paradox of sin. Sinning isn’t a logical impossibility and doesn’t imply a contradiction. Gangstas and non-gangstas sin all the time; some non-gangstas and gangstas even get high all the time! If God can do anything that is not impossible or doesn’t imply a contradiction, then God should be able to sin. But God can’t sin! Hence God can’t do some things that are possible and don’t imply a contradiction.

Although rolling a blunt too strong to hit or creating a glock too powerful to wield are states of affairs that imply a contradiction and prove to be impossible, springing Pac from the joint and sinning are logically possible and don’t imply a contradiction, so a God that can do all things that are possible should be able to do these things. If he can’t then his omnipotence appears to be a sham!

Tupac’s jailbreak paradox and Aquinas’s paradox of sin force us to yet another redefinition of God’s omnipotence, one that takes into account that divine essence consists of other attributes in addition to omnipotence. As Rakim reminds us on his track, “The 18th Letter,” God blesses his flock with dialogue by virtue of being beneficent. Because God has many perfections we must explain the meaning of his omnipotence in relation to other aspects of his divine nature, in particular, we must explain it in relation to God’s beneficence.

In his Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God, seventeenth-century British philosopher Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) distinguished between natural and moral contradictions. God creating a glock too powerful to wield is an example of a natural contradiction and is ruled out by the constraint that God can only do that which is possible. In contrast, God springing Pac from the joint or sinning are examples of moral contradictions. If God were to do these things he would contradict his nature as a perfectly good being. Hence insofar as injustice and sinning are contrary to God’s benevolence then his failure to do these things is no diminution of his power.

Socrates (469–399 B.C.), the great ancient Greek philosopher, was arguably as close to being perfectly good as any mortal could be, and he rejected an invitation to be sprung from the joint by his homie, Crito. And Socrates’s situation was graver than Tupac’s because Socrates was on death row (and I don’t mean the label). Socrates dropped several powerful arguments on Crito against popping the gate to set him free. One argument was that a perfectly good person intent on living righteously would never return a wrong for a wrong, and because escaping from the joint would be to return the wrong of being sentenced to death unjustly with the wrong of preventing the state from carrying out its verdict, Socrates was gonna chill and face death. Another argument was that a perfectly good person discharged his obligations, and owing to his debt of gratitude to the state in return for having enjoyed all of the benefits it provided him during his lifetime, Socrates was gonna abide by its ruling that he face death and be buried as a G.

Now I’m not saying that Tupac would have found these arguments compelling, especially coming from a Five Percenter on lock down with him trying to explain why he wasn’t going to set Pac free though he could if he wanted to. But if we assume that God is perfectly good, in addition to being all-powerful, with Clarke’s distinction between natural and moral contradictions and Socrates’s arguments in hand, we can bump off the jailbreak paradox. In one sense, the sense of being able to do that which is possible, God can certainly set Pac free by popping the gate. But in another sense, namely, in the sense of being able to do so given who he is, God can’t pop the gate and spring Pac from the joint, since to do so would morally contradict his divine nature as a omnipotent being who is also perfectly good. God simply ain’t gonna return injustice with injustice. Now of course one could reply that if God did pop the gate to spring Pac from the joint then Pac’s jailbreak must be a good thing since God can do no wrong. But this rap is for another track.

Ain’t No Mystery

On “Ain’t No Mystery,” Brand Nubian’s Lord Jamar speaks to the futility of looking to the sky to find a Mystery God (In God We Trust). Instead he implores us to look within self for knowledge of God. For Lord Jamar, this means using his Third Eye to see that the Black Man is God and that it ain’t no mystery. From a more general perspective, however, looking within self for knowledge of God means using the light of reason to discern God’s essence and the implications of God having this essence. And when we do this, we can conclude with respect to God’s omnipotence that the plain truth of the matter is that God can do anything that can be done by God.

Now unlike the microphone fiend, Ra, I don’t know how many 7s I got in my head. But I do know that it’s gonna take more than a couple of philosophers and professors from the smartest colleges to figure out the science I’m droppin’ on this track because it’s much deeper than it sounds. Like Nas and Nature, I’m in too deep. I’ve been exposed to too many arguments for too long and can go on and on, knowhatImsayin’; so I better end it right here. Yo! It ain’t no mystery. Word is bond. Peace, God.¹¹