Can God be beaten at chess?

Which “god” are you referring to?

@IWillDrinkYourBoneMarrow It is unimportant which. The essence of the question is that the player referred to as “God” can not err. Every move they make is informed by not only perfect strategy, which would be enough, but also knowledge of the fallible opponents future moves.

Assuming that there is a god, and that he is perfect, and knows the future moves of his opponent, then logically, no, he cannot be beaten.

Aren’t you answering your own question with your statement:

“Every move they make is informed by not only perfect strategy, which would be enough, but also knowledge of the fallible opponents future moves.”

@IWillDrinkYourBoneMarrow No, that is precisely my point. The system could be fallible. The game of chess could have a sequence that when played by white, cannot be defeated by black.

Or vice versa.

Yeah easy, once you’ve taken his bishops he’s more or less toast :¬)

God would loose…

If god is omnipotent, then he can not fail, not even is he wanted to, if he can not fail, there is something he can’t do. if there is something he can’t do, then he is not omnipotent, and thus can indeed be beat.

God would be so perfect that he would be flawed.

@Ltryptophan Ahhh, I think I see your point. It would seem the game could entirely depend on who makes the first move? And how is that generally determined?

@IWillDrinkYourBoneMarrow randomly, the drawing of straws, who won last time, agreement of the parties…

@poisonedantidote Why does being omnipotent equal not having the option to choose to fail?

@IWillDrinkYourBoneMarrow Yes, poor wording on my part by adding “not even if he wanted to”. Failing implies that it’s involuntary.

But yea, look at it this way if you want, if god is omnipotent then he is by definition also omniscient and omnipresent, if he is omnipresent he can’t leave a place, therefore there is something he cant do, therefore he is not omnipotent, therefore he can be beat.

I have only been awake a little while, so this is probably not the best time to be debating paradoxes, but thats basically what im getting at. The paradox of omnipotence would give you a chance to win.

@poisonedantidote that is only a semantic paradox. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Your little prison of omnipresent meaning stuck everywhere doesn’t work that way. Omnipresent unlike all other states of being is first order. So not being somewhere is a non thing. God cannot not be, you are right. But “not be” is nothing. There is no non-place. The limitation is fictitious.

I would think not; you’d win only if he or she let you win. But, if indeed there is a god, whether or not god could be beaten at chess would depend entirely on what the attributes and nature of god actually are.

@lillycoyote for the purpose of this question the relevant portion of God’s makeup is all knowing strategy, and future knowledge of the opponents moves before they are chosen.

@lillycoyote Hehe, oh crap, here goes again.

Some of god’s limitations:

- An omniscient god can’t solve a mystery.
– An omniscient god can’t make discoveries.
– An omniscient god can’t be surprised.
– An omniscient god can’t grant free will.
– An omniscient god can’t hear something new.

Therefore is not omnipotent, therefore you have a chance to win. I could go on, I once made a list of 101 things an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god can’t do. I’m not going to pull the paradox of the stone, because that question is actually illogical in an of it’s self. But yea, sufice it to say omnipotence is a paradox.

@poisonedantidote your mortal semantic confines are laughable.

If the god is considered to be the creator, then, having created a world in which paradoxes are possible, he would then be able to tailor any paradoxical situation to suit his needs.

@Ltryptophan why? just because? thats not a good enoug reason.

But yea, before this turns from a hypothetical question in to a theological debate… If we simply accept that god is omnipotent, because he just is, and thats just a fact, then I would change my answer to: “the best you can hope for is a stalemate or a tie.”

The reason for my answer, would be based on the mechanics of chess rather than the nature of the god you are playing against. I play chess on a program called Fritz, you can make the computer play perfect games, and can make the computer play vs the computer. When you do this, you often see end games that end in a draw or stalemate. usually with 1 king and 1 pawn per side.

Because they are semantic. Surprise, a human emotion, is not an impossible feat. An omnipresent, omniscient God, knows surprise right at its heart. In the feeler of the emotion. I am sure He delights in all beings happiness, since He makes that possible.

When you attribute your own constraints onto something bigger than all that you can comprehend you are going to find semantic things that don’t fit just right. You are over anthropomorphising God.

@Ltryptophan Ok, well, lets just say god is omnipotent for the sake of the question. We can have a debate on omnipotence and what not if you like, we could start a new question, suffice it to say that I disagree.

Getting back on topic, I would answer as I mention in my previous answer, that the best you can hope for is a tie or stalemate. However, I would add to that statement, that it may very well be impossible to even achieve a draw. My reason for saying this is, after my last post, I realized that while the computer can indeed calculate all possible moves, in all possible trees, and “predict the future”, it does not “know” the future. It can calculate the 100% best move to be made at the time of the calculation, and can anticipate several counter moves, it still does not know the countermove until it happens. With that in mind, if god knows the future, even if you play a perfect game, it may turn out that even a draw is too much to hope for.

I am no grand master at chess, but I have played against a couple of great players, and even though they had me totally outclassed, it was still ver hard for them to take one of my pieces without me taking one of theirs. Other than forks, and a couple other exceptions, it seems very hard to gain material in chess without a loss. So maybe this fact, would let you get a draw or stalemate.

So yea, loss, draw or stalemate, but no win.

No.
Assuming all assumptions about God, he invented chess, because he invented the critter who invented chess.
Plus, according to believers, He has a plan, that we can not know, but it is there. Chess is here as well, and therefore it must be part of the plan.
At that point, only two things can be true. God always wins at chess, or he loses on purpose, probably to make us feel good. But if God exists, he knows better than to engineer our self esteem. Creating the illusion of success is immoral. Only success is valid. Fake success is a lie, and therefore a sin, according to the Ten Commandments.
Thus God would always win, because pretending to lose would be bullshit, and without God, there is no bullshit.
Therefore, God can not be beaten at chess.

@josie So how do you treat what I was saying about a possible perfect sequence. In essence a math problem.

2+2=4, it’s a fact. And just like you mentioned He doesn’t lie. So He will always tell us that math is good, at least currently.

Same thing. If He is going to agree to play, then there may be a sequence that is as infallible as 2+2. In that case agreeing to play, is agreeing to potentially lose. Lose being very serious to us, but for Him it is a game, just a game. Even though it would take everything we could ever fathom to accomplish that, if it’s even possible, to Him, it would be like yeah, big whoop. Next…

It is like this, He could say, “Why do you want to play me in Chess, you won’t win. I already see it. You would have to make no mistakes to win. When and if you do, and I won’t tell you if that will happen, all it will be is the winning of a game.”

“You can have just as much fun playing me without ever considering winning! I have watched all Chess games, and know that the most rewarding games were the ones played by friends. The outcomes, were hardly relevant!”

That is what I imagine the conversation would go something like, but far be it from lowly I, to place the tenth part of a fraction of a syllable in the worthy, holy, mouth of the Almighty.

like Spock said when the computers failed on the enterprise… “since the computers never make a mistake and I an Infallible one should expect stalemate after stalemate… but I have won the past 6 games…” So I would go with Stalemates… but I’ve been beaten in chess… but it’s rare; so a god can be beaten in chess : )

@Ltryptophan Dude, we are talking about God here
First, there is no God
But for the sake of engaging you, I will pretend that there is.
Nothing you say means anything at all.
There is no logic or argument.
God sets the terms. There is no negotiation or debate. A queen can move any direction, or maybe the queen can not move at all. It is all up to the whim of God.
So give up.
God always wins, depending on what mood he is in when you confront Him.
What if Moses met God in front of the burning bush, and God was irritable, because he had a hangover? A whole civilization victimized by a headache!
Why worry about chess?
You move to checkmate. God says, screw you. What are you gonna do?

God can only be beaten in chess by other fictional characters, such as Ron Weasley. In fact, Ron always beats God at chess, something the other denizens of Imaginationland think is very good for Him.

If God can do anything, He could chose to lose, in which case he had a reason for doing so.

Ron beats God at chess even when God is trying to win.

If you got him drunk enought and you fed him really, really, really hot hot wings. Because then he would probably have to spend some time in the bathroom and he would be distracted and not really concentrating. But if you used this method, you should really apologize to him and offer him some Pepto Bismol.

Chess is a finite game and doesn’t really begin to test God’s abilities. I think He could be beaten in a fair contest but his opponent would be so wary of God losing his temper he would deliberately choose to lose the game.