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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
A rock so big, it can't be moved.
- Thread starter HitchSlap
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elopez
Well-Known Member
Whether or not there is reason for there to be a deity is besides the point. We are not talking about existence but omnipotence. And no, just because God cannot lift a rock too heavy for Him does not mean He lacks omnipotence. That is faulty reasoning all the way around.
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Again, what is being said is: "[Barring differences in how terms are defined between reader and writer,] there's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being."
Although I should think that it only matters whether or not the deity has some characteristic if the deity actually exists, which is what I felt compelled to point out.
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I'm trying to say that God operates within a context, that if you create a context where He creates a rock so big it can't be lifted, you can just change the context to one where he can lift it.
The question only works as a diversion because people think the context is fixed.
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That's a reasonably meta way of thinking about it.
However, it doesn't change anything, for what I previously wrote can be phrased equivalently in the situation you've set up as:
There's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, in all contexts, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, in all contexts, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, in all contexts, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being.
I.e. given the situation you've put forth, my way of describing the contradiction was simply incomplete.
P.S. But because you've made an effort to answer, i'll say this: Interestingly, if you were to take the revised statement above and do the same thing again (you say that each 'context' from before is now a part of it's own mega-context, each of which contains many smaller, regular contexts), then the statement, at least the first part, becomes:
There's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, in all contexts a part of all mega-contexts, which is part of having all abilities.
And if you were to do the same again, except this time to suggest that each mega-context (each of which contains many smaller, ordinary contexts), is now a part of it's own super-mega-context...:
There's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, in all contexts a part of all mega-contexts a part of all super-mega-contexts, which is part of having all abilities.
....and so on, into infinity. Interesting, no? It's almost as though your attempting to express a concept which you would probably define as something so completely beyond a person led to a response which, if followed with a counter-response, then another, and so on and so forth, would lead to something endless and infinite. I.e. something not "limited to time and space" at all.
Anyway.
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elopez
Well-Known Member
Well that's the problem. Omnipotence is not defined as the ability to create anything or do anything. It literally means "all - powerful." God has power over all things, which entails that noting be too heavy for Him to lift, which means just because there exists no such rock doesn't mean He lacks omnipotence.
The argument is simply inconsistent.
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The third sentence doesn't follow from the fourth one, in so as the third is a description of the being.
And so, as before: "[Barring differences in how terms are defined between reader and writer,] there's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being."
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It was rewritten to be more concise and somewhat more direct, if you like, but what was written is true, in so as we're talking about concepts.
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Again: "[Barring differences in how terms are defined between reader and writer,] there's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being."
Nothing you've written makes this particular contradiction disappear, and there was an internal contradiction in the last significant response of yours.
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elopez
Well-Known Member
Everything I sad dismantles the omnipotence paradox. I'll restate this again. One cannot say God lacks omnipotence because there is nothing too heavy for Him to lift. I mean, it should be fairly simply to acknowledge that. If God has power over all things and is more powerful than anything, nothing could have more power than Him or out power Him.
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Again, nothing in the above contradicts what was written, which was this: "[Barring differences in how terms are defined between reader and writer,] there's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being."
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Again, nothing in either of your two significant responses contradicts what was written, regardless of how well or not you feel that what was written, or the content of your responses, has been 'addressed.' That it is repeated does not make the contradiction it details any more or less present, nor does anything in your two significant responses. What was written is also not an example of what is commonly called circular reasoning.
And, indeed, your first response contained a contradiction of it's own.
[Barring differences in how terms are defined between reader and writer,] there's a contradiction between the idea of being omnipotent and being able to create anything, which is part of having all abilities.
If a being is said to be able to create anything, but is also said to have the strength, in whatever form, to manipulate any object, then there are a few actions which cannot be done by the being.
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elopez
Well-Known Member
Everything about my statements show wrong the omnipotence paradox. You're just merely saying my response doesn't address the paradox when you fail to explain or show how that is so. Whereas I can and did show the omnipotence paradox wrong by pointing out the inconsistency in the argument.
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