A paradox

[rozerz]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

 

[DamianWarS]

If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?

This question assumes God looks like a human and so we visualize in our heads a human form trying to lift a huge rock. If God however is truly limitless (such as being all powerful) he is without form because some sort of form would suggest a limitation in space and time. So then how can something without form be limited by something with form like a large rock? How can something without form even lift? It is a flawed question that assumes God is limited to human attributes.

we all can create circular reasoning for any perspective but the only thing they prove is our own limited minds and assumptions.

For example I can make my own circular reasoning for this very argument. This argument is suggesting there is no God but if there is no God there is no absolute truth and if there is no absolute truth than what this argument is suggesting is also not absolute. See how circular logic really accomplishing nothing at all.

 

[solarwave]

This paradox is interesting but it is one of the weakest arguments against God's existance in my opinion, but it useful for helping us having an understanding of God that makes sense.

It comes down to our definition of what 'all-powerful' means and it seems to me (and many others) that all-powerful doesn't mean able to do anything, since that means God can kill Himself, add 2+2 and get 5, and it able to kill someone who has never existed. All of these things make no sense at all and lifting a rock which can't be lifted is one of these illogical questions.

My answer is that God can only do what is logical. By logical I don't mean according to science, but what makes logical sense.

Also the problem tends to be phrased as if size or weight means anything to God when it doesn't. God doesn't act by power in the same way we think of power, but by the mere choice of His mind.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

This is only a problem if you think omnipotence supersedes what is logically possible. Can God created a married bachelor? How about a square circle? Those questions are exactly the same as the "unliftable stone" one, just with different subject matter.

 

[chingchang]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

Christians don't have to overcome it. Man can not reach God through intellect. "Problems" like these don't stop anyone from having faith...they are just a nice excuse. At the end of the day some will believe and some will not...then we die and we'll find out.

CC

 

[rozerz]

Thanks for the replies, these answers did come up in some responces to this paradox. i guess it shows the true miss-understanding of the athiest

 

[Harry3142]

What would be the purpose of a large rock? What God creates has purpose. It isn't there just to show that he can do it. Would it be a giant planet? We already have those in this galaxy. Would it be a star many times the size of our sun? We already have those in this galaxy. Would it be a black hole? We already have those in this galaxy. Would it be the creation of billions of other galaxies, some of which are monstrous in size when compared with our own? He's already done that. For us as mortals they would pose a serious problem if we came too near to them. But for God they're simply a part of his creation.

We like to measure everything by the ratio of its power to either our own power or to horsepower. But that measurement simply will not work when trying to describe God. We believe that gravity itself came into existence as a result of his work. But that same gravity is so complex that it enables the sun to have a firm hold on all the planets and planetoids of this solar system, while at the same time allowing a pen to float in midair on a space shuttle.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

If God created something that big, it would destroy all life on earth, so instead of talking about an object too big to be moved, lets just talk about an object that cannot be moved.

For simplicity, let us assume we have a universe where there is only our sun and the earth. Now, God creates a rock which cannot be moved at the North pole. Now, God proceeds to move both the earth and sun so that the rock is now at the South pole. Without moving the work, God has caused the rock to be moved.

Yes, this is a contradiction, but not about God put about the way we metaphysically view the idea of moving something, which is at odds with how the universe works.

 

[onemorequestion]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

Hand the person that posed this question a drool cup. They'll need it sooner or later.

 

[Isserus]

Hand the person that posed this question a drool cup. They'll need it sooner or later.

I believe he said it was a question originally posed in his class. Should not the teacher have the drool cup?

 

[elopez]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

To say that God cannot do something that something must be a genuine state of affair. Therefore to claim that God is not omnipotent because He cannot create a four-sided triangle, a square circle, or a rock too heavy for Him to lift is fatuous, for those things are not possible to be created in the first place. It becomes a meaningless argument against God or really no argument at all.

So it must be said that God can do anything logically possible and not anything including the intrinsically impossible such as creating a rock too heavy to lift. God cannot create a rock that is too heavy for Him to lift, not because He lacks the power but because it is impossible in the first place, and moreover nothing could be more 'powerful' than God.

 

[derDenker1992]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

This straw-man-argument hold the premise of a faulty definition of omnipotence.

 

[wayseer]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

I would change philosophy classes. The question has been done to death.

Have you come to be part about epistemology yet? The question suggests one way of thinking whereas there are other ways of thinking.

 

[Verticordious]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

Omnipotent does not mean that one is able to do anything. There are obviously things that are impossible to do because they are logical contradictions, so having a word that refers to something as being able to do anything would be a completely useless word since it could never be used to accurately describe anything. The word omnipotent simply means to be able to do anything that can be done.

That means that the question presented in your class is just a straw-man argument, and is the equivalent of asking "can God do something that cannot be done". The answer is, of course, no. Something that cannot be done cannot be done, not even by God. God, however, never claimed to be able to do anything, only to be able to anything that can be done.

 

[William_0]

This paradox is interesting but it is one of the weakest arguments against God's existance in my opinion, but it useful for helping us having an understanding of God that makes sense.

It comes down to our definition of what 'all-powerful' means and it seems to me (and many others) that all-powerful doesn't mean able to do anything, since that means God can kill Himself, add 2+2 and get 5, and it able to kill someone who has never existed. All of these things make no sense at all and lifting a rock which can't be lifted is one of these illogical questions.

My answer is that God can only do what is logical. By logical I don't mean according to science, but what makes logical sense.

Also the problem tends to be phrased as if size or weight means anything to God when it doesn't. God doesn't act by power in the same way we think of power, but by the mere choice of His mind.

But isn't science just the application of logic?

 

[rozerz]

I would change philosophy classes. The question has been done to death.

Have you come to be part about epistemology yet? The question suggests one way of thinking whereas there are other ways of thinking.

im unsure of what epistemology is so i guess i havnt come across that yet.the class does seem to be attcking God on many levels, but the idea of God always gets the uper hand in the end. i think its down to people's ignorence and refusel to accept these ideas that fuels the arguments against Him.

 

[William_0]

im unsure of what epistemology is so i guess i havnt come across that yet.the class does seem to be attcking God on many levels, but the idea of God always gets the uper hand in the end. i think its down to people's ignorence and refusel to accept these ideas that fuels the arguments against Him.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. We have the right to justify to ourselves what we believe in, and if someone uses sound logic that finds contradictions with scripture and teachings of the church, that's quite the opposite of ignorance.

 

[solarwave]

But isn't science just the application of logic?

Well science can be wrong and works on certain assumptions, such as all things having a physical cause.

If I were to be more careful with my wording I might say that God is a force outside of the realm of science and so the laws of science (which may be wrong anyway) don't apply to Him.

 

[Harry3142]

To be a rock, it must be a solid.

To be a solid, it must have borders beyond which it does not exist.

To have borders, it must be of finite size.

The question itself is illogical.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hi there
Im currently studying philosophy at college and we have come to the point where we start to look at the idea of God and the origins of the ideas.
One philosopher ponited out a paradox as follows,
If God is all powerful, could He creat a stone so big that he can not lift?
this causes problems which ever answer us Christian would give, if he can, then He is not powerful enough to lift it, if not then He doesnt have enough power to create it.
how would we as Christians over come this?

p.s we will be looking at responces soon

Rozerz, I know that these paradoxical questions are still new for some people, especially those in an introductory philosophy class, but don't be fooled by them.

Just realize this. These kinds of questions are really a misuse of language. They are utilized, typically by atheists, to WOW and AMUSE us with supposedly contradictory concepts related to the nature of God. Despite the initial cognitive shock that these questions at times impose on us, the reality is, these questions are conceptually and contextually obscure.

In fact, these questions are really cheap and well-worn imitations of larger and more sophisticated inquiries within the field of 'analytic philosophy.' Simply put, such questions are nonsense because they iqnore the act of laying out clear definitions of each of the terms that are to be used in the question before GOING INTO the act of question making.