»Can gods make a stone that they cannot lift?«
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 1) Can gods create a stone they cannot lift? 2) If gods can forsee the future, does it mean they cannot change it? posted by knn |
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| in-my-opinion.orgReligion and Mysteries, from worship to werewolvesReligious & Philosophical TopicsCan gods make a stone that they cannot lift? |
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 1)...Uhhh...No...I don't think so, Good question though. 2) Back to my answere in the ''Why won't God stop evil'' To god there is no future. There just is. An you allways know what will happen when you live in ''the now'' Like aay you rais your hand, you know it happened because you saw it. And there is no after that to speculate, and no before. Everything is ''Now'' But if this is wrong then maybe he can see the future from all aspects...I think aspect is the right word to use (and spell)...like, he can see many futures depending on his actions. Lets say he just has 2 actions to choose from; Burn down a city or make water. The he can see what will happen if he chooses to make the water and also what will happen if he destoys the City. posted by Pawnatron |
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 The answer to question one ought to be "If he wanted to" I suppose. But some have tried to get out of it by saying that God cannot do the logically impossible/contradictory. The answer to the second is that God is 'eternal'. I have tried to explain what 'eternal' means in the "what created God" thread (and it wasn't that good an explantion there either! Basically it means 'existing outside of time'. This is what dictionary.com has to say: eternal adj. 1. Being without beginning or end; existing outside of time. See Synonyms at infinite. 2. Continuing without interruption; perpetual. 3. Forever true or changeless: eternal truths. 4. Seemingly endless; interminable. See Synonyms at ageless. See Synonyms at continual. 5. Of or relating to spiritual communion with God, especially in the afterlife. Hope that kinda makes sense  posted by fatpie42 |
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 I mentioned the idea in question 1 in the debate-topics.com... thread, but I did not answer it. It is a pickle, no doubt about it - a paradox... 'Our logical mind may find this impossible, but life itself has no problem in being paradoxical regardless... Life is paradoxical by its very nature, and so are we.' (Freke and Gandy, 2001, p 172) We know the arguments, right? ...If God is all-powerful, then he can make anything, including a stone he cannot lift; but then, if he cannot lift it, he is not all-powerful. So, if we follow the logic (or illogic) of the question through, we must conclude that God is not omnipotent, Which is unacceptable for most monotheistic (and literalist) faiths. The only alternative conclusion (I can come up with, anyway) is that there is no God, which is also unacceptable, for many more than the above. So if we must accept that there is a God, and he is all-powerful, then perhaps the question should really be, 'what does it mean to be omnipotent?' ...a question to which I have no answer. Thoughts are welcome. 
As for the second, I agree with Fatpie42, though I would put it another way. Again I point you to the debate-topics.com... thread. I hesitate to admit it, but I am rather proud of my allegory... at least, no one has found any holes in it yet. 
posted by annaerullo |
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 This seems to the same as the old... "What happens if an irresistable force meets an immovable object" The irresistable force being God's lifting ability The Immovable object being God's Rock. posted by Marl64 |
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OK, here are the answers: 1) YES, gods can create a stone they cannot lift, by reducing their own powers regarding the stone. They then ceize to be full gods regarding their own stone. And only by undoing their own restrictions they can lift the stone again. 2) There is no future. There is only a probable future and the further you get the more uncertain it is. Thus forseeing the future is "forseeing the future as it would be without arbirtrarily changing it". So gods are always free to change the future into another one. But: What is even a greater question is this: IMO → Can god change the past?#551 posted by knn |
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 can God make a moron that they cant laugh at? posted by Agent Zero |
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 knn: 1) Can gods create a stone they cannot lift? First of all, for that question to be philosophically meaningful, you have to rephrase it to, "Can an omnipotent god create a stone that it cannot lift?" (For the sake of discussion, name said omnipotent god "God" and refer to God as masculine). If you say that it is possible God can create a stone that he cannot lift, then you acknowledge that it is possible for a stone to exist which God cannot lift. If you say that it is not possible that God can create that stone, then you must say that God is not omnipotent. The question could be rephrased in a lot of different ways (including Agent Zero's statement, ). Ultimately, though, it is logically reduced to the question, "Can God do what God cannot do?"
So we are given two sets of actions. Let A be the set of all things that God can do, and let Z be the set of all things that God cannot do. No element of A can fall in Z, no element of Z can fall in A, Z is an empty set, and the union of A and Z encompasses all actions. We are then asked, "Can God perform an action that falls in both A and Z?" It would seem, therefore, that the question is meaningless. However, it begs the next question, "Can God do the logically impossible?" If God can do the logically impossible, then God should be able to find an action such that he both can and cannot do that action. If God can't do the logically impossible, does that mean he's not omnipotent? Personally, I feel that defining omnipotent as "being able to perform any logically possible action" should be a sufficiently mighty definition of omnipotent to please any religious person. But if omnipotent is defined as such, then what is more powerful --- God or logic? And then, did logic exist before God? posted by Tiefling |
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 First of all, we gotta solve each problem individually. e.g. Is there time. We record things, we keep track of moving things over a period of time, but DOES time exist? I mean does time exist to the extent that we could travel through it or backwards. I think if god would know the future with out the existence of time, he'd have to be one hell of a mathematician adding up all the events that ever happen so that he can record and essentialy figure out what will happen in each persons life and who will interact etc. posted by hungarian kid |
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I don't see why time is relevant to the posited question. posted by Tiefling |
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Quote: I don't see why time is relevant to the posited question Me neither, maybe it was meant to be posted in the in-my-opinion.org... posted by knn |
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it seems to me that teifling can argue! nice...welcome posted by Agent Zero |
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 , thanks! posted by Tiefling |
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The time now is 10 February 2012, 19:54 php B.B. |