Have you ever heard the question, “Can God make a rock that He himself cannot pick up?” It sounds stupid at first, but then once the question sinks in, to me, a profound question. The answer to the question, either way, limits a being/force that is supposed to be unlimited.
Has anyone ever asked their minister, preacher, rabbi, iman, holy man, or any other holy employee this question? What do they say? A cop out answer would be that “God is beyond our deminsional thoughts and reasonings”, or something to that effect.
Go to church, ask the question, and tell me what the answer is.
Firstly: there’s no such thing as “human logic”. There is only logic.
Secondly: if God cannot be accurately described by human language, then the proposed paradox isn’t relevant – but neither are any of the claims made about God’s nature. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either God is beyond knowing, making any and all thought about the matter pointless and meaningless, or the properties it is asserted He has truly apply and there are necessary limits on His nature, thus contradicting many of the claims about Him.
No, TVAA, it is only the narrow-minded and limited minds who “lose”. Ever hear of “apophatic” theology? It is only tinyminds who insist that God must be bound by logic.
What does it mean for anything to “lift” something that’s “heavy?” It means to do work against a gravitational field. What is the most powerful gravitational field possible in this universe? A black hole. Could god accellerate an object so it could escape from a black hole? Physics says no, but if god is not bound by the rules of physics then sure he could. So no, God cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it.
This is a false binary decision. There are other choices. For example, some parts of God’s nature may be knowable, other parts of his nature may be unknowable.
a paradox is usually a seemingly true statement that contradicts another seemingly true statement. they are generally used to point out a flaw in one of the statements, such as how russell’s paradox shows a flaw in set theory when it contains the axiom of choice.
“The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th. century A.D. In his Proslogion, St. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being — namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists — can be conceived. But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived — i.e., God — exists.”
Seriously couldn’t a lot of these problems be mooted by abandoning the concepts of an infinitely powerful God.
There is nothing in the concept of God that requires infinite power. The ancient Greeks, Norse, etc. were fine with their gods simply being immortal and very powerful. Even in the Bible there is no infinite quality to god, at least not one that is neccessary for the Bible story to be true. In the OT god is frequently shown as having limits on perception judgement, etc.
IANA theist or theologian, so maybe I am missing something, but isn’t a God whose power and knowledge is not infinite but just very very very very…very very great all that is needed for Christianity. (Or any other monotheism.) Then all these paradoxes disappear.
Seriously, lets leave infinity to mathematics. It causes nothing but confusion in the real world.
Simple answer:
The question is asking if there is something which God can do which God cannot do. One of the heavier-hitters in the field of logic can give you the name of this. However, asking is there an X which isn’t an X is patently false.
Subnote: If one defines omnipotence as being able to do everything possible, then the problem goes away. If one doesn’t (I.e.), requires that omnipotence requires the ability to perform impossible actions), one can iterate the paradox with asking about the ability to perform actions that are neither impossible nor possible. All this proves is that theology and set theory intersect badly.
[sup]Besides it would give him an opportunity to ask where I’ve been the past couple of years.[/sup][/ul]