Can God create a rock big enough...

[Late_Cretaceous]

Can God make beings with free will and intelligence enough that He cannot control them?

 

[blixation]

yeeppee lunch time i'll be back to answer your question Karl. God Bless.

 

[Freodin]

Except all that Freodin had said when you launched your arrogant little insults was that there never was a time when the universe didn't exist. How's that an insult hurled at God?

Please let it go! I am not offended. My Avatar IS a (silly) little man with a feather in his hat.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

I'm not as patient as God, I would have wiped us out a long time ago.

He tried that before, remember? It didn't take.

But thats why God is patient with all of humanity, including myself, not willing that any should perish unless its there choice.

This "choice" is not really a choice at all, since we never chose to be here in the first place.

 

[ej]

But some things are not impossible because of a lack of power. but because they are logically meaningless, like square circles. God cannot draw a square circle.

Returning to the OP, my immediate thought was the same as Karl's.

The question is one which has no answer.
I like the analogy of square circles , the other which sprung to mind for me was the square root of -1.

Ultimately, you're asking 'Is an infallibe being (God) fallible?' By definition, He cannot be. To run with your analogy, I think that if God, for some reason, wanted to make a big rock, he could make one of infinite size, and still lift it.

After all, it would require a gravitational field to give the rock a mass

 

[Meatros]

Meatros - Interesting development in theology pre- and post-exile, isn't it?

Yes it is...

Hmmm - omnipotence. Doesn't mean God can do anything. It means He has as much power as is needed to do anything - so there is, for example, no speck of dust too small for God to see.
But some things are not impossible because of a lack of power. but because they are logically meaningless, like square circles. God cannot draw a square circle.

Interesting, although perhaps I just can't wrap my head around it. Why couldn't the creator of everything create a square circle? What we see as reality today, doesn't apply to an all-powerful God. God could just change reality, couldn't God? Yet it's impossible.

I realize to an extent that logic shouldn't extend to God, although I don't agree that it wouldn't. IF that made any sense...

Nor can God make a rock so big He can't lift it. Such a rock cannot exist, because, logically, God can lift all possible rocks.

And what of the problem of Hell and suffering? While I could admit that I don't know what an all wise being would think, I would never think that those places exist with a benevolent God.

 

[nyj]

Interesting, although perhaps I just can't wrap my head around it. Why couldn't the creator of everything create a square circle? What we see as reality today, doesn't apply to an all-powerful God. God could just change reality, couldn't God? Yet it's impossible.

A square circle is simply a logical impossibility. It's not "possible" because God could just change reality. If He did change the reality, we would be unawares of it anyways, so asking the question is moot. Can God make a circle be a square? What if He already has? Can you prove He hasn't?

 

[Meatros]

A square circle is simply a logical impossibility. It's not "possible" because God could just change reality. If He did change the reality, we would be unawares of it anyways, so asking the question is moot. Can God make a circle be a square? What if He already has? Can you prove He hasn't?

Very true and I realize I can't defend my position, although I can't shake the idea (sorry). I mean, for the sake of the discussion, couldn't God make us aware of it?

 

[ej]

A square circle is simply a logical impossibility. It's not "possible" because God could just change reality. If He did change the reality, we would be unawares of it anyways, so asking the question is moot. Can God make a circle be a square? What if He already has? Can you prove He hasn't?

Bleurgh, nyj, that's irony... if there's one thing more frustrating than having a question answered with a question, it's having an unanswerable question answered with another unanswerable question!

I at least thought you might pick up on my idea of the rock requiring a gravitational field in order for it to have a mass... otherwise it would float in space like a big lump of butter...

 

[blixation]

Here are some things that are logically impossible but it does not mean it didn't happen.

*Jesus walking on water.
*Jesus Feeding the 5000 with several loafs of bread and two fish.
*Jesus being physically raised from the dead by His own power...so on and so on.

 

[nyj]

Very true and I realize I can't defend my position, although I can't shake the idea (sorry). I mean, for the sake of the discussion, couldn't God make us aware of it?

If God made us aware of the fact that circles were once squares, and likewise squares were once circles... do the terms circle and square continue to hold any relevancy for us then? What matters is the distinct nature of what we currently perceive as a circle and a square. They are distinct natures, they are different natures, they do not coincide.

/me wonders if that makes any sense or if he's just talking rubbish now.

 

[nyj]

Here are some things that are logically impossible but it does not mean it didn't happen.

*Jesus walking on water.
*Jesus Feeding the 5000 with several loafs of bread and two fish.
*Jesus being physically raised from the dead by His own power...so on and so on.

Those are not logical impossibilities.

 

[-Jae-]

Those are not logical impossibilities.

They are not even near it. Even I could feed 5000 people with some loafs and a few fish. I just need a really good knife =p

 

[blixation]

Those are not logical impossibilities.

So any one can just walk on water, calm the storms, feed the multitudes with the equvalent of a two person meal, die and raise your own body from the dead? I know what you are saying though. I was just stating those things as logically impossible if there was no higher power than ourselves

 

[ej]

And I could walk on water were I substantially less dense than it

 

[blixation]

And I could walk on water were I substantially less dense than it

go for it, I'll be standing by with a lifesaver =p

 

[blixation]

Try this interesting experiment: Empty your garage of every piece of metal, wood, paint, rubber and plastic. Make sure there is nothing there. Nothing. Then wait for ten years and see if a Mercedes evolves. Try it. If it doesn’t appear, leave it for 20 years. If that doesn’t work, try it for 100 years. Then try leaving it for 10,000 years. Here’s what will produce the necessary blind faith to make the evolutionary process believable: leave it for 250 million years.

"New scientific revelations about supernovas, black holes, quarks, and the big bang even suggest to some scientists that there is a ‘grand design’ in the universe." (U.S. News & World Re-port, March 31, 1997)

"The universe suddenly exploded into being...The big bang bears an uncanny resemblance to the Genesis command." Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal science writer

 

[Meatros]

If God made us aware of the fact that circles were once squares, and likewise squares were once circles... do the terms circle and square continue to hold any relevancy for us then? What matters is the distinct nature of what we currently perceive as a circle and a square. They are distinct natures, they are different natures, they do not coincide.

* nyj wonders if that makes any sense or if he's just talking rubbish now.

Well, God could give them the exact same relevancy if God could do anything...right?

*Head is about to explode....10...9...

 

[Meatros]

Try this interesting experiment: Empty your garage of every piece of metal, wood, paint, rubber and plastic. Make sure there is nothing there. Nothing. Then wait for ten years and see if a Mercedes evolves. Try it. If it doesn’t appear, leave it for 20 years. If that doesn’t work, try it for 100 years. Then try leaving it for 10,000 years. Here’s what will produce the necessary blind faith to make the evolutionary process believable: leave it for 250 million years.

Please don't tell me you think this is a good analogy for evolution. This isn't even a good analogy of abiogenesis.

"New scientific revelations about supernovas, black holes, quarks, and the big bang even suggest to some scientists that there is a ‘grand design’ in the universe." (U.S. News & World Re-port, March 31, 1997)

Interesting clipping...I wonder what the context was.

"The universe suddenly exploded into being...The big bang bears an uncanny resemblance to the Genesis command." Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal science writer

Except for the mistaken assumption that the big bang was an "explosion".

 

[charliebebout]

The real question is this. We acknowledge man as being a creator. We know God is the creator.
So with proof outside of the Bible(a book written by man) who created who? Did man create God to keep the world rational? Or did God create man for some unknown reason?