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iamme
Guest
create a sandwich so big not even he could finish eating it?
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Ghoti
Guest
This is a variation on the question, “Can God make a rock so big He couldn’t lift it?”
Short answer: Yes.
[Waits for the other shoe…]
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e61iuser
Guest
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Trishie
Guest
Hi, how are you 
No!
God doesn’t have a physical body and doesn’t need physical food! Second Person of the blessed Trinity has a body thanks to the Incarnation, but He can eat a sandwich no larger than we can as His physical body size is about the same as ours.
God bless!
No!
God doesn’t have a physical body and doesn’t need physical food! Second Person of the blessed Trinity has a body thanks to the Incarnation, but He can eat a sandwich no larger than we can as His physical body size is about the same as ours.
God bless!
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Ghoti
Guest
Or that too.
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fhansen
Guest
This is a great question, along the lines of,
Could God make:
a fish so big He couldn’t catch it,
a stick so huge He couldn’t fetch it
a color so deep He couldn’t reach it,
a truth so profound He couldn’t preach it,
a love so lost He couldn’t find it
a poem so dumb He’d never mind it
a dog so mean He couldn’t beat it
and…finally,
a sandwich so big…He couldn’t eat it
I’m sure you’d prefer I continue waxing eloquent in this manner but a poet eventually exhausts the creative impulse and must reluctantly lay the pen down -or let the keys rest-whatever the case may be. Sorry. Really.
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iamme
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jkiernan56
Guest
The scripture passage “For God all things are possible” is commonly misunderstood and misrepresented. St. Thomas Aquinas on the subject of God’s Omnipotence says that this scripture must fit within the context of all “possible things” - in other word, reality. Therefore, the passage is more correctly understood as “For all things that are possible, God can do.” What is possible also must not be contain inherent contradiction in terms (ie - a 4 sided triangle).
Thus, God cannot “create a sandwich so big not even he could finish eating it” because it contains a contradiction in terms (ie - what God is and a sandwich too big for God). Anything that contains a contradiction does not fit into the realm of possibilities (ie - reality).
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Ghoti
Guest
plop That’s the other shoe!
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Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
Is “yes” the official answer?
I don’t think so… I think the answer would be “no”, because such an object is not logically possible.
I don’t think so… I think the answer would be “no”, because such an object is not logically possible.
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Ghoti
Guest
I think the best-ish answer was “Mu”, above. Does God “eat”? Does He “lift”? If not, the question is irrelevant.
However – and this is only my opinion, see my disclaimer below – I believe that God can do whatever He wants to do. (Note: In this case “do” does not indicate a necessarily physical or explicable action that is restricted by our own limited understanding of divine omnipotence, nor does “want” indicate a desire that is produced by a “lack” of something.)
There is another thread where someone has decided to try and come up with a “unified theory of everything” as it pertains to religion and science: part of this comes with an assertion that God cannot be omnipotent: not only is that somehow a contradiction, but that it’s better way to explain the Universe; an omnipotent, omniscient God is somehow limited by His own omnipotence/omniscience. One example given is that if God is omniscient – knows all things – He cannot therefore have a “new thought” – therefore He does not think – therefore Man can “do” something that God cannot “do”.
I think that’s an odd line of reasoning. Does God sweat? Does He fear? Does He sleep? If not, then there’s so many more things that Man can do that God cannot. Does this contradict omniscience and omnipotence?
It seems to me that so often we try to hem God in with our own imperfect logic. NOt that God isn’t logical – just that we are being absurd when we try to employ all the rules of what constitutes logic that we have to Him.
God is perfect – we are imperfect – so our understanding of Him will always be imperfect until we are reunited with Him.
We sweat because we are imperfect. We fear because we are imperfect. We sleep because we are imperfect. We think (or we think we think
), but we do so imperfectly. If God “thinks”, then it is a fashion that is perfect, and in a way that is (probably) unfathomable to us.I believe we cannot truly comprehend God’s omni-ness (for want of a better term). So many of us – if not all of us – try to somehow “peg” God into certain behaviours, or modes, or states of being, that we can somehow grasp with our decidedly less-than-omniscient intellects. Which to me is in and of itself illogical. The “contradictions” exist only because you cannot reconcile them. And rather than admitting that it is a mystery that cannot (yet) be solved, it is dismissed as “illogical” and therefore “untrue”.
God is omnipotent and omniscient, all-loving, all-just, and all-merciful; He exists outside time and space inasmuch as He is not constrained by them, but created them, yet can interact with Man in this world and in “real time”. He is Perfect, and without limit, especially without any limits we try to impose because we are imperfect.
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pete_29
Guest
"Can God make a rock so big He couldn’t lift it ?
Yes, but He could lift it. It’s a mystery isn’t it, but then He’s God isn’t He.
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Eucharisted
Guest
Could God make a creature so beautiful that He couldn’t stop looking at it?
Answer: Yes! He created man in His Image and Likeness
Answer: Yes! He created man in His Image and Likeness
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cpayne
Guest
You must not merely eat the sandwich. You must be the sandwich.
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06convert
Guest
Nobody can completely finish a sandwich. There are always all those crumbs all over the place. .
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Ghoti
Guest
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Angel_Bradford
Guest
The answer is no because God can do all things that are possible (Matt. 19:26). He cannot do for Him what is impossible, including to sin or to create logical impossibilities (e.g. square circles,
mathematical errors, rocks to heacy for Him to lift). While God can do things that are impossible for man (Luke 18:27), He cannot do what is impossible for Himself. This does not mean God is not omnipotent; it only means that His power does not negate itself.
mathematical errors, rocks to heacy for Him to lift). While God can do things that are impossible for man (Luke 18:27), He cannot do what is impossible for Himself. This does not mean God is not omnipotent; it only means that His power does not negate itself.
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SenorSalsa
Guest
Accordin to St. Thomas Aquinas(for which I cannot find a source at the moment, other than the mouth of my metaphysics professor), the concept of a rock so heavy God could not eat it is absurd, in the philosophical sense of it couldn’t exist. And as such it is not within the realm of God. He says God is omnipotent, but we are not allowed to ascribe absurdities or contradictions to God.
He says it better than I, to be sure, but like I said, I don’t know where he covers that other than probably in the Summa somewhere.
He says it better than I, to be sure, but like I said, I don’t know where he covers that other than probably in the Summa somewhere.
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Ghoti
Guest
I didn’t know there was a correlation between a rock’s weight and its edibility.
How am I gonna get my minerals now?
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fhansen
Guest
Maybe it’d be better posed as, Could God create a sandwich so big that He couldn’t even lift it to eat it? That kinda covers the whole thing.
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