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Could God make a rock...


Brother Adam

Could God make a rock so big that He could not lift it?  

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Laudate_Dominum

Could God make a bag of chips so big that even He couldn't eat it?

hehe, its just that the question assumes a radical anthropomorphism. God doesn't lift rocks. And there is no such thing as "heavy" to God who is by nature infinite and infinitely beyond quantity as such, or any other accidental.

If we are talking about God Incarnate, in His human nature, I suppose God could and did make rocks so heavy that God couldn't lift them. :hehe:

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Thy Geekdom Come

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Nov 10 2005, 01:36 PM']Could God make a bag of chips so big that even He couldn't eat it?

hehe, its just that the question assumes a radical anthropomorphism. God doesn't lift rocks. And there is no such thing as "heavy" to God who is by nature infinite and infinitely beyond quantity as such, or any other accidental.

If we are talking about God Incarnate, in His human nature, I suppose God could and did make rocks so heavy that God couldn't lift them. :hehe:
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Well, He had the capability of lifting them, but only in as much as, say, Samson did...by the strength of God working a miracle, not by human strength.

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Laudate_Dominum

[quote name='Raphael' date='Nov 10 2005, 08:56 PM']Well, He had the capability of lifting them, but only in as much as, say, Samson did...by the strength of God working a miracle, not by human strength.
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yes, but miracles transcend the laws of nature, even limits of weight and size, therefore that doesn't count. The only way God could "lift" something in any meaningful sense of the word would be if God someone manifested or united Himself with a finite reality, in this case human nature. God does not lift rocks, and if you mean a miraculous lifting, well, size and weight are irrlevent because the entire galaxy is about the same weight as a speck of dust to God because the category doesn't even exist when talking of that which is beyond time and space.

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Laudate_Dominum

[quote name='Raphael' date='Nov 10 2005, 08:56 PM']Well, He had the capability of lifting them, but only in as much as, say, Samson did...by the strength of God working a miracle, not by human strength.
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and besides, I said "in His human nature", which was intended as a qualification specifically to avoid that objection. No miracles allowed.

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Laudate_Dominum

I still don't like the question because it is so stinking anthropomorphic. Why not say something more abstract like, can God create a being that is in some respect greater than or more perfect than God?
If God can create a being more perfect in some respect, then God is not the fullness of absolute perfection. But if God cannot create a being with at least some greater perfection, than God cannot do "everything" and thus is not omnipotent in any strict sense of the word.

This entire argument as well as the conclusions are fallacious just so you know. I just wanna see what people say.

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Laudate_Dominum

what I don't get is how people can think that these types of "arguments" prove that God does not exist.

Assuming an argument of this kind was even valid, it hardly touches the numerous arguments for the existence of God, so in my mind the best it could hope for is to prove that we don't and/or can't understand God all that much, which is pretty obvious already. But I'd say all these arguments really prove is that we don't always understand what language is and what is a meaningful statement verses a meaningless statement.

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HAHAHAHAH!!! Me and my dad got to thinking about this question one day, and my dad said "What if that's the one question you have to answer to get into Heaven? I mean, what if how bad or good you were on earth didn't matter, you just had to answer this question?" (he was kidding of course) So we came up with an answer and decided that we would be the only two people in Heaven. Our answer was "If you want to, sure!"

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Laudate_Dominum

[quote name='onathing1' date='Nov 10 2005, 09:19 PM']HAHAHAHAH!!! Me and my dad got to thinking about this question one day, and my dad said "What if that's the one question you have to answer to get into Heaven? I mean, what if how bad or good you were on earth didn't matter, you just had to answer this question?" (he was kidding of course) So we came up with an answer and decided that we would be the only two people in Heaven. Our answer was "If you want to, sure!"
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That's be hilarious if you got to heaven and someone like St. Peter was giving the tour during orientation and he pointed at a big rock saying, "and here we have the rock so heavy that even God can't lift it! Appearantly God lost a little game of dice with Einstein and it was either that or the bag of chips so big that even God can't finish it."

alright, i'm a dork :pinch:

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[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Nov 10 2005, 10:26 PM']That's be hilarious if you got to heaven and someone like St. Peter was giving the tour during orientation and he pointed at a big rock saying, "and here we have the rock so heavy that even God can't lift it! Appearantly God lost a little game of dice with Einstein and it was either that or the bag of chips so big that even God can't finish it."

alright, i'm a dork  :pinch:
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:lol_pound:

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[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Nov 10 2005, 09:11 PM']Why not say something more abstract like, can God create a being that is in some respect greater than or more perfect than God?
If God can create a being more perfect in some respect, then God is not the fullness of absolute perfection. But if God cannot create a being with at least some greater perfection, than God cannot do "everything" and thus is not omnipotent in any strict sense of the word.
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Well the thing in this case would conflict with the law of conservation. If this being were more "perfect" than God, then where did it get this actuality for something can only actualize that which it has. Meaning that I must have actuality X to actualize the potentialty X in something for it to have that actuality. It cannot bring its own actuality X in existence, for beforehand it only had potentiality X. So if God could make this more perfect being, where did it get this perfection? The perfection could not just manifest itself. I suppose I am thinking in terms of God being the uncaused causer and what not.

I am not sure if that made sense at all, but I am building off of the first way of Aquinas.

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haha, I love it.

I put the answer as the last one.... but the real answer is thus:

nonsense

We do a faith survey on Campus where one of the questions is:

"Can God microwave a burrito so hot that even He can not eat it?"

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If God to make something greater than Himself, that being would have to be able to do more things than God could do--thus God wouldn't be omnipotent. To say He has the power to do that one thing, since that one thing by its definition makes God not have the power to do everything, would make God not omnipotent.

something more perfect than God would have to be able to do more things (or something better, which would be one thing God couldn't do) than God, meaning God wouldn't be omnipotent. so you're basically creating a complete logical fallacy, in its most simple terms you're saying

[b]"IF God is omnipotent, THEN does he have the power to not be omnipotent?"[/b]

obviously, no. omnipotence, the ability to do everything, does not logically include the power to not be able to do everything.

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[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Nov 11 2005, 11:31 AM']He could but He wouldn't.
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Nope. Wrong answer. See above, as to why.

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