Can God create a rock so big that he can not lift it?

Answer:

The old conundrum is that if God can not create a rock too heavy to lift, how can he be all powerful and be God? Conversely, if he can not lift the rock, again how can he be all powerful and be God?

The answer is that God can create a rock so big that he can not lift it, because he chooses to consider at that moment that he can not. At any time, however, God can change his mind and lift it.

An all powerful God has the power and freedom of all choice.
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Source withheld until permission is granted.

JHAustin

Originally posted by JHAustin
Answer:

The old conundrum is that if God can not create a rock too heavy to lift, how can he be all powerful and be God? Conversely, if he can not lift the rock, again how can he be all powerful and be God?

The answer is that God can create a rock so big that he can not lift it, because he chooses to consider at that moment that he can not. At any time, however, God can change his mind and lift it.

An all powerful God has the power and freedom of all choice.
-------------------------------------------

Source withheld until permission is granted.

JHAustin

I think we all here know who the source is.

It is a fundamental error to say God cannot do something.


I think the paradox stated is from Saint Augustine.
Along with the notion of the square circle, is a classic Catholic postulation of the limitations of God's omnipotence. In the one case, the possibility of impossibility is the paradox; in the other, terms which cancel each other out; square and circle represent two disparate concepts that cannot be identical, as such. The capability of God's inadequacy isn't applicable. To answer the paradox is about as useful as killing oneself in order to demonstrate that you are (were) alive.

Why would the Creator make a rock so big he could not lift it in the first place?

Is that not the real question?



Edited to add this...

Funny, I asks this question on another forum (who's Admin lives here on ATS) and get banned and accused of spamming. Then right out of cyberspace, lo and behold the answer to the question I asked arrives staight from a noobie that already has a warning against him and cannot release his source.


Nah, nothing suspicious about that at all.

AV ya want a conspiracy, I got one for ya!


[Edited on 12-6-2003 by MiStErBeLLaTrIx]

Uh, I asked this a loooong time ago. No answers though. Just some "you go to hell, you go to hell and die evil satan worshipper! God is all powerful!"(not in those words, but there is so much more said with feelings than actual words) without ever giving a real answer.

Then some tried. One said that one needs to change the definition of omnipotent. Others said god could, that he could make one that he couldn't lift. Just like we make cars, we can't lift them, yet we can make things that can.


Also, if god is all powerful, can he make a square circle? A round rectangle? A seven sided decagon?(all don't exist, so can it make them?)

But still, want someone to try and answer them. JHA, you sure you didn't read my post that asked this question? Look for it, it is under the religon board. I think page three.

JHA, you sure you didn't read my post that asked this question? Look for it, it is under the religon board. I think page three.

Hello JTL,

Honestly, no, I hadn't seen your post before. But let me tackle your questions.

Actually, all of the questions require the same answer.

If God wanted a circle to be square or rectangular or he wanted a decagon to have only 7 sides then all he would have to do is change what we currently perceive them to be. When the original word circle was first conceived, he could of had that person call it a square or a rectangle in the first place. Then when you saw a round object, you would naturally call it a square because that is what you were told that it was from the very beginning. An Elipse would be a rectangle and a 7 sided polygon would be a Decagon. Blue would be Red and Black would be White.

The only problem with this theory is that then our question would be: Can God make a circle rectangular or a square? Which in our previous perceptions would have always been that way anyway. On that note, how do we know that he hasn't already done this?

Thank you
JHAustin

An old mental exercise that is asked anew with every freshman class in Seminary.

TC's answer: I can't even figure out the U.S. tax code and you want me to contemplate such a hypothetical question? Ask God.

To be truly infinite one must also be finite as such one encompasses all that is.

As a result there is an aspect to God which cannot lift every stone but at the same time can.

If God decided not to lift the rock, then the rock is unliftable despite its size. This brings "cause" and "effect" (as well as choice) into determining the motion of lifting. Of course, motion, lifting, weight, size, and rocks are all a matter of the natural physics of our relative space (and perhaps the whole universe). God, existing outside of the universe and spacetime, does not have to follow our rules. A circle, when distorting your perspective, can look as if it were a square. This causes relativity and perspective to determine what one sees and how one understands their reality.

The whole question proves the failure of the duality system. That is why the Chinese use the Yin-Yang and aspire to overcome simplistic comparisons, such as the question of God and the rock. Another simple problem is "how does one define 'God,' let alone what God is capable of?" If you are a mechanic, do I define you by your ability to use a wrench? No, because you are also a human with many other qualities and assuming that the wrench defines you is like assuming that you are the wrench and all of the wrench's limitations. You exist beyond the wrench and beyond the title of "mechanic." Being a mechanic is only an expression of a particular ability that you have, which can change over time.

Philosophies based upon Duality's pertain to the existence of what is as well as beyond the resultant oneness inherent, as well as the existence which precluded
it.

Humans usually define themselves by there ability to do work as well as there families, just as an animal is defined by its capacity to feed and procreate.

Just to name a few examples.

But inherent to the model is the total person

this assumes God actually does his/her own physical labor. lifting rocks seems to be rather below an all-powerful deity...
/missing the point

First question that needs to be asked JH Austin is:

Why would G-d want to create a rock for the matter of testing Himself?

He has nothing to prove to Himself, nor to you, nor to me, nor to anyone. He is beyond 'testing'. Rather foolish question leaning more to 'doubt' then true insight.

regards
seekerof

i don't believe in rocks.

time my friend. As soon as he had created the rock, he would be the first to be able to rock it.

If you were able to create a rock, wouldn't you also be able to trave vaste distances and make a fixed poit in space? I could lift any rock if the universe is indeed neverending and if I could travel physically wherever I wanted. Hey, I learned this in childrens' school. You forget time or development as a factor. Most of us are all two dimentional beings, sketches, uppon which fools leave their markings

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Blessings,
Mikromarius

[Edited on 20-6-2003 by mikromarius]

The question has the same relavance as "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?".

If God is infinite then the weight of the rock is logically infinite.

Stating that it is a matter of choice does not prove an answer. There is no proof that God would not keep trying to lift the rock for infinity.

but we look at this through a finite mind. which is very limited

Isn't the earth just like one big rock?

True. But the question was finite.
The question doesn't take into account the infinite.

Originally posted by Leveller
The question has the same relavance as "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?".

Obviously the egg came before the hen. The egg is one cell (two) that becomes billions. God is rational. He painted the hen and the rooster, then he scanned his drawing into his brilliant thinking machine and out came a DNA string for the nonflying practical Godprooving bird called the hen and it all fitted nicely into an egg.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

besided it would need to move in order to exist. Edit: Either move or be omnipresent

[Edited on 20-6-2003 by mikromarius]

and sice God is everywhere he lifts everything that is

Originally posted by mikromarius


Obviously the egg came before the hen. The egg is one cell (two) that becomes billions. God is rational. He painted the hen and the rooster, then he scanned his drawing into his brilliant thinking machine and out came a DNA string for the nonflying practical Godprooving bird called the hen and it all fitted nicely into an egg.

I was using it as a metaphor.

Your reply is nice and logical until you bring the question of infinity into that equation.

Take the infinite chicken and the infinite egg and go backwards in time. There is always going to be an egg and there is always a chicken. Neither can come first.