# Could your GOD create a boulder too big for him to move? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091 "2003-05-14T00:07:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091/61 "2003-05-25T07:20:37Z")
From Dexter: > [@](#): > > The answer that Judaism offers is that God deliberately limits himself and does not interfere with human free will. People are free to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are contrary to God’s wishes. Is that, dear Dexter, an article of faith in Judaism or a conclusion of philosophy in Judaic philosophy – if there is such philosophy. In my case, as a Catholic – though a postgraduate one, that free will exists so that man is responsible for his acts, is an article of faith. (Correct me, however, anyone here who is better informed on official beliefs of the Catholic Church.) Just the same, Catholic philosophers have a hard time reconciling God’s omni everything with man’s free will, in order to acquit God on the one hand of pre-determining everything and on the other hand to maintain God’s omni everything and man’s free will. At the end of the day, Catholic theologians and philosophers seem to come to the conclusion that it’s a mystery, meaning you just have to believe as Catholics that God is omni everything and man exercises free will, however the difficulties of holding both positions. Susma Rio Sep ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091/62 "2003-05-25T07:30:49Z")
I forgot to add that for me personally, God knows everything, that’s from philosophy and theology. I don’t know nothing about the future, that’s from acquaintance with reality; but I do exercise the faculty of being careful, and shoujld I do something wrong, it can always be repented on while there is still life in me. We can picture that there is a book where everything is written down already, that’s God’s mind, His knowledge. If I do something wrong, it’s also been written down already as “is”; for in Him there is no past present and future. However, I can add another entry to that book from my part during my lifetime, namely an act of repentance, so that a later entry will neutralize the earlier entry. Sounds nutty as Bryan would tell me? That’s the mystery of free will and repentance and God’s omni everything. For my own sanity and continuity of pursuing this life, I just keep making good choices and if bad ones should be made, repent and add revisionist entries to the book. Susma Rio Sep ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091/63 "2003-05-25T22:35:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nightime \* > They are not equivalent. If God casts off the power to move the boulder, then he cannot move the boulder. He isn’t choosing not to move it, he can’t move it. But He **is** choosing not to move it. By casting off the power, He is choosing to not move the boulder. You are saying that later on, He won’t be able to choose whether or not to move the boulder, but the fact remains that **at the time that He cast off the power, He choose**. emarkp > [@](#): > > No, primes exist independent of “4”. A boulder “too heavy for God to lift” presumes that God is limited. But primes do not exist independantly of whether 4 is prime. You’re engaged in sophistry. There’s simply no reasonable way to interpret a question regarding something’s existance as an assertion of its existence. kunoichi [qyote]I think a lot of people are missing the point of this question. It’s more a matter of faith. If you have faith in God, you don’t care if it is possible or not. [/quote] So faith means believing in soething regardless of whether its possible? ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091/64 "2003-05-26T01:13:56Z")
The metaphysical God of philosophers-- traditional ones that is, or at least the ones of Western Christendom, is that God is omni everything. But the conclusion is that He can’t do anything for being omni everything already. I read somewhere that a better concept of God would be a progressive evolving being that gets better and better and can learn from past mistakes. Doesn’t the Bible mention God regretting this or that act he’d done? And the Bible can’t be contradicted. Susma Rio Sep [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-your-god-create-a-boulder-too-big-for-him-to-move/175091.md?page=3)