If God Is All Powerful, Can He Make A Rock So Big, That Even He Cannot

June 16, 2011

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1308175967' post='2254264']
because I don't only believe in thngs I can prove in the materialist sense. I can argue a priori philosophical reasons why I believe in God, I can give you a posteriori reasons from my own experience that you could discount as nothing more than imagination and coincidence. but no, there's no way I can show you God lifting a rock without human intervention.

that doesn't mean God can't lift a rock. I can't make Him do it though, and He invented the law of gravity so that rocks would lie exactly where he wanted them to.
[/quote]
That's the dilemma that I find with regards to all god theories. Its always completely non detectable, non measurable and non testable. To me, if we can't do these things, then how can we know that the theory is correct? To me much of theology seems to be simply conceptual, without the requirement of being spacial, temporal and constructed of substance, it is purley conceptual, and we are required to simply believe what we are told. I've never been good at doing what I am told. I am always the little kid that says "..but why?"

June 16, 2011

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1308212200' post='2254491']
That's an easy one.

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h119/NoonienSoong_2006/phatmass/tndiugoivs.jpg[/IMG]
[/quote]
I'm calling shenanigans!

June 16, 2011

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1308223012' post='2254507']
That's the dilemma that I find with regards to all god theories. Its always completely non detectable, non measurable and non testable. To me, if we can't do these things, then how can we know that the theory is correct? To me much of theology seems to be simply conceptual, without the requirement of being spacial, temporal and constructed of substance, it is purley conceptual, and we are required to simply believe what we are told. I've never been good at doing what I am told. I am always the little kid that says "..but why?"
[/quote]

There are a lot of mysteries connected to faith, and the Catholic Church recognizes, perhaps, more mysteries than most other religions. At least we recognize a mystery when we see it, and some of the official answers to some of the complicated questions in the Baltimore Catechism are, "Because it is a mystery."

To my mind, the most mysterious mystery is why religion requires faith - why does God want us to [b]believe[/b] rather than [b]know[/b]? Many, many people, including you and some of my relatives, would "believe in God" if they could be shown satisfactory proof. But having seen proof, we would not "believe in God," we would [b]know[/b] about God. And, for reasons I cannot explain, God wants us to believe rather than know - and He could certainly reveal Himself through means other than faith/belief if He wanted to.

Catholics, based on some things St. Paul has written, recognize faith as a gift from God - Lord knows my parents have prayed for years that certain of their children be blessed with faith; they've shown no evidence of it lately, even though they were "taught the faith." It's a mystery to the old folks why some of their children have been blessed with faith and others haven't.

There are verses in the Old Testament about not testing God. The show-me-some-solid-proof-and-then-I'll-believe mentality can be interpreted as a kind of "testing God." For instance, you use the terms 'non-testable' and 'god theories.' Personally, I can imagine God saying, "I'm nobody's [i]theory[/i]!"

There's also the parable Jesus told about Lazarus. Poor, hungry, bottom-of-the-socioeconomic-ladder Lazarus dies and goes to heaven. The rich man who refused even the crumbs from his table to Lazarus dies and goes to hell. The rich man sees Lazarus enjoying eternal happiness while he himself is stuck eternally in hell. The rich man says to God, "At least tell my brothers what's going to happen to them so they can change their ways before it's too late." God tells the rich man, "They have the prophets and the law - let them learn from that." So, in other words, God seems to think that He has revealed Himself satisfactorily to us - Moses, the law, the prophets, Jesus, gospels, epistles, sacraments, crucifixion, resurrection, yada yada yada.

You're "the little kid who always says... 'but why?'" I can describe the situation as I understand it (limited though that is). But I can't explain why God wants faith/belief instead of knowing. Not really, not to your satisfaction.

It's a mystery.

June 16, 2011

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1308177517' post='2254299']
yes, God is all powerful, AND He cannot make a rock that He cannot lift. ie, because by definition He is all-powerful, He cannot make Himself not all-powerful.

He cannot limit the unlimited, because to do so would make it no longer "unlimited". if something is by definition unlimited, it cannot have any limits. if something is by its nature all powerful, there can be no rocks it cannot lift. so His inability to make one simply reflects the definition of the word all-powerful.
[/quote]

i'll go with this. i always said 'one cannot limit the unlimited', and al expressed why pretty well, by definition, etc. and, before i had said things like 'he could make the rock if he wanted to, then if he wanted to change his mind, he could'. but then, that'd mean that, ultimately, he couldn't make that rock, cause he could always change his mind.
so given he could always change his mind, and given one cannot limit the unlimited... i'm going to say no

June 16, 2011

i'm not convinced that my answer though gets around the dilemma. if he's all powerful, he should be able to make that rock... and if he can't make the rock, then there's a limitation there. "can't limit the unlimited", is a limit, in some sense. not a true limit, though, and i s'pose this is the heart of what al is getting at. instead of all that 'square circle' stuff, some better analogies would be... something that i'll think of later. something like 'decreasing at an increasing rate is still decreasing', though that's not quite right as an analogy.
i actually like what that wiki post i did said... perhaps our concept of his 'unlimited' nature is wrong, or perhaps his 'omnipotenice', though my deifnition issues is probably different than others'

June 17, 2011

Luigi, you're admissions are comforting, though you're repeating of doctrines a bit disconcerting. You seem divided.

You admit the Bible and Christianity instructs its faithful to not test their faith. So at what point could a Christian say that their faith is ineffective or misguided?

Hypothetically, what makes Christianity different from any other mythology or world religion in regards to faith?

But I admit, I always liked the admission that faith is a gift. Since faith seems to be a process, the trick of faith seems to be starting and maintaining that process. Which in my personal opinion is the whole construct of religion and spirituality. Perhaps why I am hesitant to say someone is taught the faith, because if I am taught science my agreement with every facet of science is irrelevant ([i]in fact science teaches skepticism and critical thinking[/i]), all that matters is if I can demonstrate understanding. But when it comes to faith, it doesn't matter that I can demonstrate understanding, what matters is I agree with as many facets of that faith as I can. So it seems to be a process to me, a sociologically and psychologically driven one. If there is a "god" in the design of those factors, I don't know, but I don't see any reason to think so.

With the scientific theory of electromagnetism, regardless if I understand or agree with it, it works. But with religious faith, if I lose that faith, it no longer works. In fact many of the facets of faith become nearly impossible to understand or agree with. Why do you think that is?

Edited June 17, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat' timestamp='1308269361' post='2254835']
Luigi, you're admissions are comforting, though you're repeating of doctrines a bit disconcerting. You seem divided.

You admit the Bible and Christianity instructs its faithful to not test their faith. So at what point could a Christian say that their faith is ineffective or misguided?

Hypothetically, what makes Christianity different from any other mythology or world religion in regards to faith?

But I admit, I always liked the admission that faith is a gift. Since faith seems to be a process, the trick of faith seems to be starting and maintaining that process. Which in my personal opinion is the whole construct of religion and spirituality. Perhaps why I am hesitant to say someone is taught the faith, because if I am taught science my agreement with every facet of science is irrelevant ([i]in fact science teaches skepticism and critical thinking[/i]), all that matters is if I can demonstrate understanding. But when it comes to faith, it doesn't matter that I can demonstrate understanding, what matters is I agree with as many facets of that faith as I can. So it seems to be a process to me, a sociologically and psychologically driven one. If there is a "god" in the design of those factors, I don't know, but I don't see any reason to think so.

With the scientific theory of electromagnetism, regardless if I understand or agree with it, it works. But with religious faith, if I lose that faith, it no longer works. In fact many of the facets of faith become nearly impossible to understand or agree with. Why do you think that is?
[/quote]

I don't know. I just know that faith isn't science - they're fundamentally different approaches to... what... knowing something? Although faith focuses on knowing only God, not everything else in the panoply of science. Those with a scientific bent of mind approach almost everything from that "skepticism and critical thinking" perspective - and Lord knows I could use a more scientifically bent mind since the sciences were always my weakest subjects. But God doesn't make himself available for microscopic inspection or laboratory experimentation. And, indeed, why should He? If I were creator of the whole freaking universe, I think I'd take it as an insult when some of my creations had the audacity to say, "Prove yourself to me."

I think maybe God got tired of proving himself to feeble human minds. I mean the Egyptian plagues, the column of fire, the parting of the Red Sea, daily manna from heaven, and water from the rock weren't enough to fully convince all of the Israelites in the desert. Jesus himself, walking the face of the earth, preaching the very Word of God, and performing six or seven miracles a day wasn't enough to convince all of the Israelites of his day, either.

If I was God, I'd have given up my human creations a long time ago.

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1308272209' post='2254860']I don't know. I just know that faith isn't science - they're fundamentally different approaches to... what... knowing something? Although faith focuses on knowing only God, not everything else in the panoply of science. Those with a scientific bent of mind approach almost everything from that "skepticism and critical thinking" perspective - and Lord knows I could use a more scientifically bent mind since the sciences were always my weakest subjects. But God doesn't make himself available for microscopic inspection or laboratory experimentation. And, indeed, why should He? If I were creator of the whole freaking universe, I think I'd take it as an insult when some of my creations had the audacity to say, "Prove yourself to me."

I think maybe God got tired of proving himself to feeble human minds. I mean the Egyptian plagues, the column of fire, the parting of the Red Sea, daily manna from heaven, and water from the rock weren't enough to fully convince all of the Israelites in the desert. Jesus himself, walking the face of the earth, preaching the very Word of God, and performing six or seven miracles a day wasn't enough to convince all of the Israelites of his day, either.

If I was God, I'd have given up my human creations a long time ago.[/quote]You cite biblical references in you're reply, assuming that it happened. To keep in that context, why did god take away human's "[i]beatific vision[/i]" as a punishment? If a parent took away the glasses of a child and demanded he read, least he face punishment, that would seem cruel to me. Biblically why did god basically do the same?

But I don't blame you for being weak in the sciences or any subject, I was a good student in school and college, but I wasn't great either. :sad:

June 17, 2011

I dunno - like I say, the need for faith is the most mysterious mystery in the whole religion ball o' wax, to me.

I will say that I take an awful lot of science "on faith." If faith is belief in things that you can't see...

1. I can't explain why an airplane flies - on prima fascia logic, nothing that heavy should be able to stay airborne. And I've heard the lectures about air pressure being greater on one surface of the wing & thrust & all of that, but every time I get on an airplane, it's an act of faith on my part. I've never seen lift. But I believe in it.

2. I can't explain how someone speaks in a studio, radio waves emanate from a tower at some distance from the studio, and the waves get re-combobulated inside my car radio as comprehensible speech. I've heard the explanation about it, but I've never seen radio waves. But I believe in it.

3. I've never seen an atom, or its nucleus, or its electrons or protons. I've seen [i]pictures[/i] of them, but I consider those to be merely artists renderings, similar to Michelangelo's depiction of God the Father giving life to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. ('Cause an atom is three-dimensional and the picture's just two-dimensional, right?) But I believe in them.

I could give a hundred other examples, but you get the point.

And you could counter with, "Well, okay, so you persoanlly don't understand it, but it must be true because it works." And I guess I'd counter that with, "Religion works, too - at least it has for an awful lot of people over a very long period of time." Not in the sense that you-say-three-Hail-Marys-and-your-wish-comes-true, but in the sense of developing virtue, commitment to one's cause, productive lifetimes that are pretty well grounded in happiness in spite of difficulties, and so forth. (As a disclaimer to those who would jump down my throat with both boots, productivity is not the purpose or goal of a Christian life.)

And actually, I sometimes think that all the biology & physics I learned - and more especially, the stuff I [i]didn't[/i] learn - is just a bunch of fairy tales from dusty books passed down from one generation of science monks to the next. And the priests of science tell us the stories of the saints of science - St. Galileo, St. Descartes, St. Pasteur, St. Mendel, St. Oppenheimer. How do I know they ever existed? Why should I care? If I don't believe in them, they're not going to strike me dead or anything (although I suppose St. Benjamin Franklin could do so if he wanted to).

One of the differences in science & religion is that, if I don't understand the science, somebody else does and they see to it that the plane stays airborne - I don't have to make it stay airborne through my belief - it's not personal. But religious faith really is very personal - it has to be - nobody else can believe for me ('cause my mom really does have enough faith for all her children, but she can't give it to us like was bologna sandwiches or something).

I guess I can summarize it by saying faith is about acceptance, whereas science is about skepticism. Interestingly, now that I think of it, skepticism & critical thinking come to play in theology, but not in faith itself. I find it tougher to believe in science than God, and you find it tougher to believe in God than science. Different gifts, but the same Spirit?

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1308272209' post='2254860']
Jesus himself, walking the face of the earth, preaching the very Word of God, and performing six or seven miracles a day wasn't enough to convince all of the Israelites of his day,
[/quote]

Much like the magic of Benny Hinn, I hope you can understand why people are skeptical of supernatural claims.

June 17, 2011

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9SS95q2kpg[/media]

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308241050' post='2254609']
I'm calling shenanigans!
[/quote]
Say hi for me.

June 17, 2011

God can't create a square triangle, because those are two human words that are mutually eclusive.

God cannot create a being more powerful than an all powerful being, because those two human terms are mutually exclusive.

I don't know how much simpler I can say it. It's not a limitation in God's power, it's not a provisio to the term all-powerful, it's a simple contradiction. why can't God make a person who is absolutely unable to play the piano AND absolutely able to play the piano? He must not be all-powerful if He can't do that, right? He can't do that, because the concept is nonsensical. if God is all-powerful, why can't He make absolutely everything in the universe purple while at the same time making purple cease to exist? because if purple ceased to exist, the whole universe wouldn't be purple. woe is me, God must not be all-powerful, right? no, the concept is nonsensical, it's not something lacking in his power, it's a simple string of human words that describe a scenario that would not be possible even for an all-powerful being, because the human words describe things that by their definitions are mutually exclusive. God can't do it not because he's not powerful, but because the definitions of the words we have used to describe these things make the things impossible; anything God did would immediately fail THE HUMAN DICTIONARY and we could object that he had not done it because of that.

the point is that "more powerful than all-powerful" is grammatically/linguistically incorrect. "so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift it" is gramatically/lingusitically incorrect.

but you will continue to exist that these absolutely nonsensical scenarios demonstrae a limit on the power... I will simply disagree, I suppose, there's not much more I can do to get you to try to approach it from the other frame of viewing things... you're far too attached to your premise.

as far as demonstrating God... well, you can't fully demonstrate. you've got to use purer reason. since there are a few athiests/agnostics around these days, perhaps I'll start up a thread with an argument for God that's been festering in my mind... it's a strange one, prolly won't convince anyone, but it might be fun to toy with. perhaps if I have time and can think of the best way to word it.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Aloysius

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1308298725' post='2254988']
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9SS95q2kpg
[/quote]
That was hillarious

June 17, 2011

Aloysius, you are using linguistics to argue against what you claim is purely a linguistic argument. It reminds me a bit of newspeak, you change it so whatever is contrary to you're beliefs is nonsensical or contradictory. But... You failed/refused to answer my inquiries from before regarding q and god, or demonstrating this god to warrant a more elaborate explanation. You answer like an apologist, I am in no need of you're apologies. I am not convinced that it is impossible, merely that the simpler, easier, and more common explanation is that an omnipotent being is a contradiction... You have made a compelling argument that there is in fact a contradiction, which is the premise of the paradox, but you refuse to admit its a limitation...

I suspect the problem is that you are already determined of you're position. Because as I demonstrated earlier, I played devil's advocate and I presented how I would present it to make it more acceptable, but you seemed to either reject or ignore it... even though you seemed to suggest the same repeatedly. Without sounding offending, I hope, it seems to be the same situation that most theistic apologists fall into. Vague definitions, fuzzy thinking, circular arguments, and lack of proof.

You refuse to give us a coherent definition of this omnipotent being that we can test. You refuse to engage in the logical considerations of what an omnipotent being means, trying to cast doubt into the questions themselves. You argue that god is omnipotent, thus he is omnipotent, because he is omnipotent. More importantly you can't demonstrate this omnipotence or even produce a test to determine if this supposed god is omnipotent.[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1308286578' post='2254960']I find it tougher to believe in science than God, and you find it tougher to believe in God than science. Different gifts, but the same Spirit?[/quote]I don't find it difficult. I merely find no benefit, cause, or purpose to it... and my experience with what faith means is generally bad, but recently I have seen how bad it can be. But sure, I could believe if I wanted... which I think is the ultimate answer of every truly honest believer I met, they "want" to believe. The cause of that want can vary, but its a want.

When my faith vanished... so did everything else with it. I was a free person. I admit, I do miss my faith a bit, perhaps the reason I hang out here. Looking for something I doubt can be given. If there is a god, he doesn't seem to mind.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat

June 17, 2011

I'm not trying to convince you that an omnipotent being exists, I am merely trying to establish that this particular argument (the title of the thread) doesn't prove anything.

define the term omnipotent. then say "something more powerful than an omnipotent being". that's not possible, right? why not? because you've just used words that make no sense. it's like saying "more than infinity". the words make no sense, there's no such thing. saying God can't do it is not saying anything, because the words strung together are simply not referring to anything that could exist at all. God can't make anything more than infinity, if you understand the definition of "infinity". it's a human term that means unending, by definition of the word there cannot be anything more than it. it's the TERM that precludes anything being added.

I am determined of no position, I willingly intellectually submit that there may be no God. again, I'm not even trying to convince you that there is one here. why am I involved in this discussion? because it's interesting to me. it is not a good argument against God to claim that the term "omnipotent" is a contradiction in terms because you string along a sentence that is a contradiction in terms. can there be a rock that an omnipotent being cannot lift? no, because of the definition of the term "omnipotent". therefore, omnipotence cannot create such a rock, since such a rock cannot exist by the definition of the term.

the premise you start with is that the rock you're referring to is any type of potential reality, I continue to submit that it is nothing but a string of nonsensical human terms. "a rock that an omnipotent being cannot lift" is a "square triangle", a "more than infinity" a "simultaneously completely purple and completely not purple at the same time"--things that only exist in language. omnipotent doesn't mean "can do anything that language can talk about", it means "can do anything."

I'm repeating myself in slightly different ways only because I still see a lack of indication from you that you've actually understood the position I'm coming from.

I mean, I guess Q could be all-powerful, I dunno, it was just always my impression that he wasn't. I kind of let it drop because it would prolly involve too much in world star trek discussion lol... Q kind of always annoyed me as a trek character anyway.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Aloysius

June 17, 2011

'a rock so big that an omnipotent being cannot lift it' is essentially like saying 'limiting the limitless'. that's impossible, a contradiction. like stopping the unstoppable. it can't be done, so the answer to the question is 'no', he can't create that rock. he can always decide to lift any rock he created.
just like you can say that one can't limit the limitless as an imperfection, you can say that God not being able to create the rock as an imperfection... but in reality, the truth is that reality says unlimited is just that, unlimited. and it can't be limited. if we think that's a bad thing, we're looking at weak points, or have a misunderstanding of 'omnipotent' etc.

it all reminds me of that batman quote... 'when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object'

Edited June 17, 2011 by dairygirl4u2c

June 17, 2011

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1307329674' post='2250320']
well, if he can make souls stubborn enuff to refuse to Love Him, and who go through life not accepting His Church and the Fulfillment of Truth, why couldn't he make a rock that He couldn't lift?
[/quote]

THAT'S TERRIBLE (cue Randall).....

God should love all people. Oh wait, silly, God does love all people. And all people should love God...

But honey badger don't care. Ooh is that a snake he's eating? Maybe it's Satan....

I love you.

June 17, 2011

[quote name='Cam42' timestamp='1308338260' post='2255186']
But honey badger don't care. Ooh is that a snake he's eating?
[/quote]

LOL. nasty honey badger! honey badger don't care.

June 17, 2011

[quote name='AudreyGrace' timestamp='1308339961' post='2255209']
LOL. nasty honey badger! honey badger don't care.
[/quote]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deq0U8OkwDQ[/media]

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