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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 04/09/2004 : 10:02:34 [Permalink]
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I've heard it a lot. It's like the question about what happens if you exceed the speed of light and turn your headlights on.
Sort of a zen-type riddle that's fun to talk about, but doesn't really mean anything, like the idea of god. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2004 : 12:11:27 [Permalink]
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i Ricky wrote: /i br / Doesn t it show that a belief in an all powerful being is against common logic?
Yes, probably. But then, the whole point about most beliefs is that this all powerful being defies common logic. If I remember correctly, Karen Armstrong has something on this in her book "a history of God". It is a long time since I've read it, but she wrote that Greek orthodox monks would often play such mind games as the sentence you quoted to be aware that they would never be able to understand the divine. Buddhists do the same.
I don't think these people would be bothered by this sentence. They'd probably just smile  |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2004 : 18:39:30 [Permalink]
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At least one apologist takes the question to be "representative of the type of paradoxes atheists use in attempts to prove that God cannot exist." However, the apology leaves much to be desired, in that it claims that God is "true" (without evidence), that God cannot do things counter to His "nature" (without evidence), that "big" refers only to volume, that the question itself is an assertion, and (since the apologist appears to like dictionary definitions) that 'omnipotent' means something less than "having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force."
Apologists often seem to demand that God can do anything God wants, but then turn around and claim that God is limited in His abilities when questions like in the OP get asked.
The obvious place to "attack" this very old question is in the verb: roll (or, as is more popular, 'lift'). The plain and simple answer is "yes." God can make a rock so large that, by comparison, the Earth (or any other planet you care to name) would appear to be but a speck of sand. When "lifting" or "rolling," the planet itself would shift, and the rock, not much at all. An infinitely-large rock would, by necessity, not "move" as there'd be nothing to measure the movement against. All would be rock.
But these simple answers are rejected in favor of convoluted "rules" which the apologist in question feels are okay to apply to God without God's knowledge or consent. Surely such arrogance implies that the author believes him/herself to be all-knowing. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2004 : 18:58:54 [Permalink]
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| Wow Dave W., the link you gave is really a big example of mental acrobatics. If I'd be a theist I'd stick to the "yes, it's contradictory and I don't know the answer." anytime. You got more of these? |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Dave W.
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26022 Posts |
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byhisgrace88
Formerly "creation88"
USA
166 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2004 : 20:12:06 [Permalink]
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This is one of the oldest little mind teasers in the book. It really has a fairly easy answer.
There are things in which God can not do. i.e. He can not stop loving us, he cannot sin. Just as Dave was saying, he can not do things against his nature. He can very easily create a rock he can't lift, though the next minute if he chose to lift the same rock.
Part of the reason we can come up with things that seem tobe ,at least at first glance a parodox, is because we don't really understand him.
I like to compare our view of God to trying to describe a car to a tribe of indians, in some third world country where they have never heard of such a thing. That would not be that hard if they didnt have more than 500 words or so in there language. So they don't have a word for wheel, or metal or anything. So how would you first go about it? You would try to explain movement. The only things that they know that move are legs. So you might use that as an example. And before your done there going to be imagineing a hollow tree trunk with legs.
Or something so obviously absurd to us.
But I think the simalerities between a car and a tree trunk with legs, are a great example of our mis-understandins about God.
So can he build a rock he can't lift? Does God lift things? I don't think so. But thats the only way he can explain it to our simple minds. |
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.-- C.S. Lewis |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2004 : 21:19:18 [Permalink]
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Creation88 wrote:quote:
There are things in which God can not do.
...
Part of the reason we can come up with things that seem tobe ,at least at first glance a parodox, is because we don't really understand him.
But, you do think you understand God enough to claim that there are things He cannot do. What I don't understand is how you can reconcile those two viewpoints.
And your examples:quote:
i.e. He can not stop loving us, he cannot sin.
So God loved all the sinners he wiped off the Earth in the Flood? And wasn't that Flood a mass murder (a sin), since God certainly wasn't defending Himself from harm?quote:
Just as Dave was saying, he can not do things against his nature.
Don't attribute that to me, attribute it to the anonymous apologist who wrote the thing I linked to. I am more than willing to state that if God exists, I certainly do not understand nearly enough about Him to declare that I know His "nature" anymore than I know what life is like on some planet in another galaxy.
I fault that anonymous author (and you, too, creation88) for having the hubris to think that you understand God enough to say anything definitive about His "nature," especially when you go on to state that mere mortals are incapable of such understanding. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Paladin
Skeptic Friend
USA
100 Posts |
Posted - 04/10/2004 : 19:39:30 [Permalink]
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Actually, this particular paradox has always been the perfect example of why the very notion of an omnipotent God - for better or worse - flies in the face of logic and reason. And even the explanation offered by Dave fails to resolve it, when taken as a whole. It all depends upon where one places the emphasis in the question, in the "create" portion, or the "roll" portion.
Yes, God can CREATE an immense rock, and perhaps he can can subsequently ROLL it. But the paradox doesn't ask if God can create ANY rock. It asks if God can create a rock of a particular dimension or weight - one that is so big that he cannot roll it."
By definition, if he creates a rock that he CAN roll, he has failed to fulfill that portion of the paradox, which makes him less than omnipotent.
Similarly, if he creates a rock that he CANNOT roll, he has fulfilled the creation portion of the paradox, but is faced with something he can't do - namely, roll the rock. Again, he is less than omnipotent.
Thus it is with all theological absolutes, I suppose. 
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2004 : 12:40:19 [Permalink]
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If you read the bible carefully, you will see that when God was first invented he was not omnipotent. He use to walk around and you could hide from him. Over the ages he became more and more powerful until now he is all knowing - past, present and future. This presents all sorts of logical problems. If he knows the future then we do not have free will. Before we are born he knows if we are going to heaven or hell.
So I wouldn't sweat the rock.
Here is one for you Ricky -
If there is nobody around and Helen Keller falls in the woods, does she make a sound?
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2004 : 14:40:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Ricky wrote:
Your talking about god walking in the garden of eaden calling to Adam right? I've heard an explanation of this, not very good, but a Christian said that god was just letting them repent, letting them come to him, but this goes against the Old Testament since only in the New Testament are people forgiven for their sins.
But after they repent God banishes them from the paradise with all the inconveniences which follow from that. So He doesn't exactly let them get away unpunished. In other parts of the old testament He also spares a portion of the Israelites after they repent or someone pleads for them, so they never get wiped out completely.
edited to correct spelling |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
| Edited by - tomk80 on 04/12/2004 14:46:37 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
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