Can God Create An Object Too Heavy For Him To Lift?

[Chriliman]

When did I disagree with Jesus about that?

When you said this "if intellect and reason are not the ways for reaching God, what are? I told you, hesychasm, ascesis and apophatism"

If you were following the teachings of Jesus I would have expected you to instead say "if intellect and reason are not the ways for reaching God, what are? I told you, Jesus, because this is what Jesus himself says"

Jesus rescues us from sins through Baptism and the sacrament of Confession and eating His most moly Body at Communion, and through humble mind and soul He gives us His grace because without His grace we cannot do anything.

Believing in Jesus, yes, but it's not only mentally accepting Jesus, is participating in the life of His Church, doing what He commanded and healing with the means He gave to us.

I agree and all that can be simplified into the two greatest commandments

Matthew 22:36-40

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

[Cush]

From a Christian standpoint, for me personally, I haven't been much experienced with controversy in a huge debate and this definitely stumped me. But as a Christian, if you were asked this, how would you respond in a manner that doesn't refute God in any way?

Can God create an object too heavy for Him to lift?

Too many Christians attempt to defend God rather than letting the Scriptures defend God.

The answer to the paradox is No. The question even suggests God can lie. If one says no, then the charge is that God is not omnipotent, because there is something He cannot do. It is impossible for God to do something against His Character, the question should not be whether God is omnipotent, but whether said action is supremely good.

Can God create a stone too heavy to lift?

 

[Wryetui]

When you said this "if intellect and reason are not the ways for reaching God, what are? I told you, hesychasm, ascesis and apophatism"

If you were following the teachings of Jesus I would have expected you to instead say "if intellect and reason are not the ways for reaching God, what are? I told you, Jesus, because this is what Jesus himself says"



I agree and all that can be simplified into the two greatest commandments

Matthew 22:36-40

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This all relies on the fact that you don't understand what the words I said means. Read and study about it.

 

[Chriliman]

This all relies on the fact that you don't understand what the words I said means. Read and study about it.

Why should I read and study about it, when Jesus has already warned me about such teachings that is not of Himself.

1 Timothy 6:3-6
"If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment."

Read this scripture, then read it again and let it speak to your heart.

 

[Wryetui]

Why should I read and study about it, when Jesus has already warned me about such teachings that is not of Himself.

1 Timothy 6:3-6
"If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment."

Read this scripture, then read it again and let it speak to your heart.

What are you talking about? You are just showing your inculture and ignorance about this subject. What doctrine are you talking about? How can you call the greatest and highest level of theology practised by the saints a doctrine that is against Christ? If you don't know something, learn and study about it, and as I see that you don't want to learn or study by yourself, I will explain to you what those heavy words I said meant, ok?:

Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχασμός, hesychasmos, from ἡσυχία, hesychia, "stillness, rest, quiet, silence") is a mystical tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches of Byzantine Rite practised (Gk: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo: "to keep stillness") by the Hesychast (Gr. Ἡσυχαστής, hesychastes).

Based on Christ's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray", hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God (see theoria).

Asceticism (/əˈsɛtɪsɪzᵊm/; from the Greek: ἄσκησις áskēsis, "exercise" or "training") describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetical theology is the organized study or presentation of spiritual teachings found in Christian Scripture and the Church Fathers that help the faithful to more perfectly follow Christ and attain to Christian perfection.

Apophatic theology (from Ancient Greek: ἀπόφασις via ἀπόφημι apophēmi, meaning "to deny"), also known as negative theology, via negativa or via negationis (Latin for "negative way" or "by way of denial"), is a type of theological thinking that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God. It stands in contrast to cataphatic theology.

An example occurs in the assertion of the 9th-century theologian John Scotus Erigena: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

In brief, negative theology is an attempt to clarify religious experience and language about the Divine through discernment, gaining knowledge of what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion or by the conditioned role-playing and learned defensive behavior of the outer man.

So these are not pagan or weird practices, are the right path that Christ gave to the Church and led to redemption thousands of souls.

 

[Chriliman]

What are you talking about? You are just showing your inculture and ignorance about this subject. What doctrine are you talking about? How can you call the greatest and highest level of theology practised by the saints a doctrine that is against Christ? If you don't know something, learn and study about it, and as I see that you don't want to learn or study by yourself, I will explain to you what those heavy words I said meant, ok?:

I realize I don't know everything there is to know about Jesus and God, but I do know that Jesus says He is the way and the truth and the life. You seem to be implying that having a personal relationship with Jesus is not enough for salvation. I believe anyone who claims that, does not have the truth, but a warped version of the truth.

An example occurs in the assertion of the 9th-century theologian John Scotus Erigena: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

This is simply a bad assertion. God is well aware of Himself. He would not be able to do anything if He didn't know what He is. God says "I am". According to John Scotus Erigena, God actually says "I am not", do you see how this seems heretical? You say God is not anything? How about God is everything, seems like a better answer to me.

2 Peter 2:1
"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction"

In brief, negative theology is an attempt to clarify religious experience and language about the Divine through discernment, gaining knowledge of what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion or by the conditioned role-playing and learned defensive behavior of the outer man.

So these are not pagan or weird practices, are the right path that Christ gave to the Church and led to redemption thousands of souls.

Except that Christ does not teach negative theology because if He did, He would be denying himself. I want nothing to do with your so called "negative theology" that is based on the denial that God is.

I pray you find the truth of Jesus Christ.

 

[Davian]

From a Christian standpoint, for me personally, I haven't been much experienced with controversy in a huge debate and this definitely stumped me. But as a Christian, if you were asked this, how would you respond in a manner that doesn't refute God in any way?

Can God create an object too heavy for Him to lift?

Could we start smaller? Could God move a paperclip?

 

[suzeequeue]

blah blah blah... if i had a nickel for every time i've been asked, and answered, this question.

the answer is NO. God cannot create a rock too heavy for Him to lift.

there are lots of things that God can't do... He can't lie. He can't be wrong. He can't be unjust, and no, He cannot make a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it.

 

[Songsmith]

This view of God as having the ability to do anything, even that which is outside of the realm of possibility, is a dumb view of who God is. It's like saying that God can create a blue dog that's green. It's simply not possible due to how light waves work. You change the frequency of the wave and you change the color. Not a paradox. Neither is the rock thing. Omnipotence is not the ability to do that which is impossible, but having ultimate power over everything else in the universe. This does not lessen the power of God, it simply means that he is logical and cannot do that which is truly impossible intrinsically.

Of course, because of God's character, it would be very easy for him to create a rock that he could not lift. All he would have to do is say of any rock, "I will not lift that rock, neither in time nor eternity." Because he is a God who does not lie he will be unable to lift that rock. Ever.

There are actually a lot of things that God cannot do. He cannot lie, steal someone's agency, let sin go unpunished, sin himself, stop loving, go out of existence, etc. This is actually the reason that Jesus came to this world in the first place. Jesus lived a perfect life and accepted the punishment that he was not due so that those who so choose can rely on that punishment for their sins instead of taking it on themselves.

 

[bhsmte]

Anyone else find discussing this question, completely useless?

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

God doesn't have to move something to lift it. He could just move the rest of the universe.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

As I said, human intellect is perfectly good, and we use it to learn about God, but it is not the tool to reach God. You seem to misunderstand me. I said that reason is not something to be used on knowing what God is, or knowing His secrets because that is something impossible, since He is beyond our comprehension, so, if intellect and reason are not the ways for reaching God, what are? I told you, hesychasm, ascesis and apophatism.
You seem to keep missing the mark, I wrote a whole post about "proofs of God's existence" and you still ask: "can you give us some evidence?" No. But I did told you the way of reaching God.

Arguments for God's existence can be applied to every god out there, arguments from morality, ontology and etc... can be used with every man made conception about God, what I talked about was experience, I never told you to trust me, I told you if you want to meet God, to see His shining light you do this: ascetism, hesychasm and apophatism. Only when your heart experiences God you can talk, please, read the Philokalia or the writing of the saints that already got there and you will see that you are not alone, that those people talk from experience, but the only thing you can do, is to experience yourself.

First, I don't know why you are treating intellect and experience as separate. Our experiences are interpreted through our intellect, so it's not as though experience is free of intellect. One of the reasons we do science and philosophy is because we know that experiences can sometimes be misleading and that our intellect can bias us to draw particular conclusions from those experiences, even if those conclusions are not fully warranted. Second, it does appear that you are presenting an argument; namely, the argument from religious experience. As you noted, traditional apologetic arguments can be applied to almost every god concept. The same is true of the argument from religious experience.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Too many Christians attempt to defend God rather than letting the Scriptures defend God.

The scriptures condemn god, particularly the Old Testament.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

An example occurs in the assertion of the 9th-century theologian John Scotus Erigena: "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

Now that is unintentionally funny. Let me ask you, how is this different to saying that God does not exist?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

In brief, negative theology is an attempt to clarify religious experience and language about the Divine through discernment, gaining knowledge of what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion or by the conditioned role-playing and learned defensive behavior of the outer man.

So these are not pagan or weird practices, are the right path that Christ gave to the Church and led to redemption thousands of souls.

This is interesting. The practices you just described are basically examples of meditation, which is something even non-Christians practice. Once again, the intellect seems to play a role because theists seem prone to interpreting this is an experience of "divine reality." Atheists tend to describe it as either transcendent or spiritual, though not in any supernatural or theological sense.

 

[Davian]

...
How can you call the greatest and highest level of theology...
...

Was this put to a vote somewhere?

 

[Wryetui]

This is interesting. The practices you just described are basically examples of meditation, which is something even non-Christians practice. Once again, the intellect seems to play a role because theists seem prone to interpreting this is an experience of "divine reality." Atheists tend to describe it as either transcendent or spiritual, though not in any supernatural or theological sense.

Orthodox spirituality differs distinctly from the "spiritualities" of other confessions, so much the more does it differ from the "spirituality" of eastern religions, which do not believe in the Theanthropic nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit. They are influenced by the philosophical dialectic, which has been surpassed by the Revelation of God. These traditions are unaware of the notion of personhood and thus the hypostatic principle. And love, as a fundamental teaching, is totally absent. One may find, of course, in these eastern religions an effort on the part of their followers to divest themselves of images and rational thoughts, but this is in fact a movement towards nothingness, to non-existence. There is no path leading their "disciples" to theosis-divinisation (see the note below) of the whole man.

This is why a vast and chaotic gap exists between Orthodox spirituality and the eastern religions, in spite of certain external similarities in terminology. For example, eastern religions may employ terms like ecstasy, dispassion, illumination, noetic energy, etc. but they are impregnated with a content different from corresponding terms in Orthodox spirituality.

Again, you can't know this if you don't experience it, you can say it is the same and all religions are alike, but if you don't experience it it would be only bald words.

 

[Wryetui]

The scriptures condemn god, particularly the Old Testament.

What if I tell you only you see it that way?

 

[Wryetui]

I realize I don't know everything there is to know about Jesus and God, but I do know that Jesus says He is the way and the truth and the life. You seem to be implying that having a personal relationship with Jesus is not enough for salvation. I believe anyone who claims that, does not have the truth, but a warped version of the truth.




This is simply a bad assertion. God is well aware of Himself. He would not be able to do anything if He didn't know what He is. God says "I am". According to John Scotus Erigena, God actually says "I am not", do you see how this seems heretical? You say God is not anything? How about God is everything, seems like a better answer to me.

2 Peter 2:1
"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction"



Except that Christ does not teach negative theology because if He did, He would be denying himself. I want nothing to do with your so called "negative theology" that is based on the denial that God is.

I pray you find the truth of Jesus Christ.

Your heretical protestant teachings won't let you see the light and the truth of the old Orthodox Church, it's not your fault, you don't want to learn the truth neither to study, so you being unchecked by the wisdom of the true church you are unaware of those things.

I tell you again, learn, study and get culturalized, because your ignorance is very big on this subject and I am not saying this to insult you, the fact that you are calling the practices of the Orthodox Church a lie made by false prophets is the biggest lack of culture and maybe one of the biggest insults I have ever seen, ignorance is the reason you do it, calling the One, True, Church something like that is one of the biggest sins in the eyes of God, to insult His Church and His saints.

I pray for you to find the truth and to get culturalized, you can show me thousands of passages of the Scripture because you are just showing that you have no idea of their meaning and you don't know at all to interpret them.

 

[Wryetui]

Now that is unintentionally funny. Let me ask you, how is this different to saying that God does not exist?

Because saying that God does not exist is not anymore apophatic theology, but is already asserting God a positive attribute which limits Him. Anyone who limits God is spiritualy dead.
The necessity of genuine contemplation and purification can be best highlighted by contrasting the true apophatic theology of Orthodoxy with the philosophy of rational negations which has been sometimes practiced within Catholicism and Protestantism. These two approaches often lead to writings which bear certain surface similarities,
so it is important to ferret out the core distinction.

When using the philosophy of rational negations, the philosopher relates some property or attribute with which he is acquainted, and then he simply negates it in reference to God. For example, I have a personal experience of what it means to be limited and finite, so I can simply negate that term and say that God is “infinite”. By saying this, I have added no information to the concept of what it means to be “finite”. Rather, I simply plead ignorance, and recognize that God exists in a plane which I can neither comprehend nor describe. Everything I know is finite. Yet God lives beyond the realm of everything I know and understand. Thus I simply negate everything I know, and call God “infinite”. This is the approach of rational negations, and it is helpful as far as it goes.

Apophatic theology bears a surface similarity to the philosophy of rational negations, because both approaches result in verbal declarations of “what God is not”. Both approaches plead the ignorance of the human being, and confess God to be transcendent. The key distinction between the two approaches is that rational negations start from the basis of speculative philosophy alone, whereas true apophatic theology begins with a personal experience of the Triune God.

Genuine apophasis is initiated by God, when He grants the theologian a direct experience of His energies. The theologian is swallowed up and dumbfounded by the ecstasy of the experience, and recognizes that nothing in all of creation is truly worthy to be compared to this mystery. Lacking any references which are fitting for positive comparison, the theologian grasps for terminology which at least points in the direction of what he has just experienced. “It is not this . . . it is not that . . . it is better than this . . . it is far superior to that …” In no case can the theologian ever find human words able to convey the experience to those who have never likewise experienced it. He can only ultimately tell his readers that union with God is like nothing they have ever experienced. At the end of the day, the semantics of the theologian are filled with many negations. But this is only a surface similarity to the philosophy of rational negations.

The speculative philosopher has not directly met God, he recognizes his own ignorance, and he attempts to name that which he has never seen. The theologian meets God, experiences his own ignorance in the process, and then attempts to name that which he has seen. The difference between these two approaches is vast.

If true apophasis requires an acutal, personal experience of God, then it is easy to understand why genuine contemplation and purity of heart are prerequisites for apophatic theology. God is perfectly holy, and Jesus said that only the pure in heart will see God
(cf. Matthew 5:8). If the passions are roadblocks to purity, then they are also roadblocks to seeing God. And if the passions are roadblocks to seeing God, then they are also roadblocks to engaging in apophatic theology. Thus, asceticism and holiness are prerequisites for performing genuine theological apophasis.
Fr. Dumitru Staniloae sums up these observations thus:

That cleansing from the passions and the acute sense of one’s own sinfulness and insufficiency are necessary conditions for this knowledge shows that it is not a negative, intellectual knowledge as has been understood in the West, that is, the simple negation of certain rational affirmations about God. It has to do with a knowledge that comes through experience. (Staniloae, The Experience of God, p. 101)

The verbal indescribability of an actual encounter with God is at the heart of apophasis, and it is far superior to the mere rational negations of the philosophers. Nevertheless, the full range of apophatic theology is not exhausted even in this case. One aspect of apophatic theology occurs when the theologian experiences God, and then struggles finding words to explain the experience. But there is also a second aspect of apophatic theology, which recognizes the partiality of the experience itself. Vladimir Lossky aptly notes that “Apophasis is the inscription in human language, in theological language, of the mystery of faith” (Lossky, Orthodox Theology, pp. 24-25). And since the mystery of our faith is directed toward a God of utter transcendence, the direct experience of His energies leaves the theologian with an awestruck recognition that God’s essence lies yet beyond those energies, and that the theologian is forever unable to experience it. Thus he is left not only negating correlations between his experience and nature, but also negating correlations between his experience and God’s essence. As Fr. Staniloae has described the situation:

We can say that there are two kinds of apophaticism: the apophaticism of what is experienced but cannot be defined; and the apophaticism of that which cannot even be experienced. These two are simultaneous. (Staniloae, The Experience of God, p. 103)