How do you answer the omnipotence paradox?

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It was divided by zero from the very first post. This is nothing more than a diversion to keep people focused on something other than what really matters about God. It reminds me of the Apostle Saul’s statement in 2 Tim 2:23: “But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they gender strifes.”
 
I don’t know how to reply to individual comments, but Rolltide’s statement, " it is simply beyond human understanding at this point" is a very logical one, because logically, if we could understand everything God has done we would have equal intelligence to God … which we haven’t.
 
BLYTHART said:
I don’t know how to reply to individual comments, but Rolltide’s statement, " it is simply beyond human understanding at this point" is a very logical one, because logically, if we could understand everything God has done we would have equal intelligence to God … which we haven’t.
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How is something that doesn’t make sense (a weight that necessarily cannot be lifted) beyond human understanding?

I answered the question that started this thread in full.

The trouble is, people don’t want an answer. They want to keep a puzzle about God, rather than a solution that has nothing to do with God.
 
We know that God does not act against His nature (Catholics say cannot and Protestants will not), or Himself. There is a difference between paradoxical (“fully God and fully man”) and asininely self-contradictory (“making a rock so big He cannot lift it”). One cannot set omnipotence against itself, reasonably.

God can make a rock so big no other being or beings can lift it. That suffices to demonstrate functional omnipotence. We accept on faith that He is truly omnipotent, in a manner beyond our mortal and finite comprehension…

This is, in my opinion, one of those, “What if this happened?” “But it wouldn’t.” “Yes, but what if it did?” “But it wouldn’t.” kinds of debates that is shown to be largely purposeless after a few moments of sober reflection. No answer is likely to satisfy the player of semantics, because he or she is too enamored with his or her own cleverness to hear beyond those criteria.
 
i really don’t understand why we as humans think that science and religion are different …
but in reality they are the two sides of the same coin …
now let me explain the omnipotence paradox solution in simple science rather than threatening you with some crazy bible passage which says that you will go to hell if you believe in this paradox …
some of the answer below are similar but don’t explain the reason ,
Simple in quantum mechanics a substance can exist and not exist at the same time
so if in our own world this happens at the sub atomic level so surely god can create a substance that exist and not exist at the same time … simple 😃 ( simply saying he can create a object that he can lift and cannot lift at the same time)
 
sidetrack said:
A common variation of the omnipotence paradox goes like this."“Can God create a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it?”.This seems to highlight a dilemma between omnipotence and the possiblity of exceeding omnipotence.Here are two ways to answer that question which I hope people dont mind me posting.I sincerely hope that this first one is not blasphemous (it suppose to have a bit of humour in it).Yes God can create a stone a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it [the trick here is that he makes this **LOOK
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like a*** TEMPORARY*** thing].See this works out by having God make a huge and heavy stone and try to lift at first and he does’nt get it up** BUT ** a minute later (after maybe “checking his watch and/or agenda”) he lifts the rock up (thereby kind of satisfying both parties people who’d answer yes or no I guess?).The more serious answer that I’d give is that this paradox is like the result of some linguistic problem like it being a matter of syntax or something to that effect since we are only human and can only percieve of God in human terms (like language) therefore this paradox is meaningless.I’m really curious though to know what the people of forum have to say about this though.Thank you very much so for your time.

Yawn Haven’t Christians answered this a million times over?

God’s cannot create a stone He cannot lift, not because He is limited in power but because the concept is meaningless (as the source of all being and power, there cannot even logically exist or potentially exist something God is powerless to move) and nobody can create something meaningless. You might as well ask God to create a square circle.

Of course, if you accept that God can do the logically impossible, and are happy to accept meaningless drivel as language, then the answer is obvious too: “Yes”. God can create a stone He cannot lift, and He can lift it too.
 
An infinite force moves an infinite weight, it’s not contradictory with Newton’s second law.
But when you try to get an infinite weight that overwhelms the “regular” infinite force, and then again an infinite force that overwhelms this weight, our mind just cant get there.
Not to say that if you imagine an infinite sphere including our universe, it is so large that the universe it’s a negligible volume, or the most of the sphere is outside the universe, and beyond.
 
rahul339 said:
…science and religion are two sides of the same coin…
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The scientific method is strictly empirical and has no technique by which it can examine metaphysical propositions. Completely different coins.
 
rahul339 said:
i really don’t understand why we as humans think that science and religion are different …
but in reality they are the two sides of the same coin …
now let me explain the omnipotence paradox solution in simple science rather than threatening you with some crazy bible passage which says that you will go to hell if you believe in this paradox …
some of the answer below are similar but don’t explain the reason ,
Simple in quantum mechanics a substance can exist and not exist at the same time
so if in our own world this happens at the sub atomic level so surely god can create a substance that exist and not exist at the same time … simple 😃 ( simply saying he can create a object that he can lift and cannot lift at the same time)
Click to expand...
Reality never violates logic. You do not have a proper understanding of physics.
 
God can’t defy logic, but that’s not a limitation; it’s just that there’s no such thing as the “illogical”. God is truly omnipotent, which means he can do anything.

However, illogical stuff simply can’t exist. God can’t create a being greater than Himself, just as He can’t create a “square circle” – because there is no such concept as a square circle. A “square circle” is a contradiction in itself, just as a “being greater than God” or a “stone so heavy that God cannot lift it”.

Thus, God is not limited by anything, because things he “can’t” make simply do not exist in any possible way.

An easy way to understand that is to ponder at the meaning of “omnipotence”. Omnipotence means the power to make anything that is logically possible. It is, indeed, commonly understood as the power to do anything, but that’s precisely because there is no such thing as the logically impossible.
 
This is unknowable mathematics.

You have a being who can lift infinitely and a being who can weigh infinitely

∞ - ∞ = undefined. Mathematics doesn’t know the answer.

Let humanity learn what infinity is before it asks questions it can neither know nor understand the answer to in the first place.
 
There is no paradox. As with delimmas so with paradox’, they do not exist. What exists is sophistry or bad logic. By definition a created stone would have a definite mass, it could not have an infinitely great mass. All created beings are limited by nature. So right here we have a contradiction. It implies no fault in God’s Omnipotence to say he cannot create a stone with infinite mass. To say that God could do so would imply a defect in His Omnipotence. So no, he could not create a stone so heavy that he could not lift it.

Such statements are not paradoxical, they are either failures in logic or pure sophistry.

Linus2nd
 
I haven’t read all the replies in this thread, so if I’m repeating something some one has already mentioned, then I apologize.

This “paradox” is actually just a question about the idea of infinity. We have two elments: God’s infinite power to create heavier rocks and God’s infinite power to lift rocks. Both abilities are infinite. Therfore, the question breaks down to “can infinity limit itself?” or “can infinity stop being infinity?”

Once we see the question worded like this, it’s easy to see how nonsensical it actually is.
 
sidetrack said:
A common variation of the omnipotence paradox goes like this."“Can God create a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it?”.This seems to highlight a dilemma between omnipotence and the possiblity of exceeding omnipotence.Here are two ways to answer that question which I hope people dont mind me posting.I sincerely hope that this first one is not blasphemous (it suppose to have a bit of humour in it).Yes God can create a stone a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it [the trick here is that he makes this **LOOK
Click to expand...
like a*** TEMPORARY*** thing].See this works out by having God make a huge and heavy stone and try to lift at first and he does’nt get it up** BUT ** a minute later (after maybe “checking his watch and/or agenda”) he lifts the rock up (thereby kind of satisfying both parties people who’d answer yes or no I guess?).The more serious answer that I’d give is that this paradox is like the result of some linguistic problem like it being a matter of syntax or something to that effect since we are only human and can only percieve of God in human terms (like language) therefore this paradox is meaningless.I’m really curious though to know what the people of forum have to say about this though.Thank you very much so for your time.

How about this question ?

Can God tell a lie ?
 
is this question keeping anyone from knowing God? I suspect anyone citing this absurdity in an honest academic discussion about the existence of God is probably not being honest with themselves.
 
This argument is meaningless without a solid definition of omnipotence. As I understand it God cannot do
a: the logically impossible, and
b. anything against His nature.
“b” ties in with “a” since it would be a logically impossibility for God to be morally perfect and at the same time, act immorally. The whole X and not X deal.
 
ccmnxc said:
This argument is meaningless without a solid definition of omnipotence. As I understand it God cannot do
a: the logically impossible, and
b. anything against His nature.
“b” ties in with “a” since it would be a logically impossibility for God to be morally perfect and at the same time, act immorally. The whole X and not X deal.
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While I agree that it’s not contrary to God’s omnipotence to say that he can’t do anything contrary to his nature, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that it would be a contradiction for God to be perfect and do something wrong. This makes it sound like omnipotence is just the power to do anything as long as there’s no sufficient reason you can’t do it. But that doesn’t seem like a very strong condition. For example, it would be logically impossible for a person who can only reach eight feet high and jump one foot to dunk a basketball - the hoop is ten feet off the ground, so there’s just no way to dunk without either reaching or jumping higher. I fit that rough description, so I can’t dunk a basketball. But that sounds like a pretty good reason for saying that I’m not omnipotent.

I think a stronger way of arguing this is to focus on what it means to have a power. When Augustine talks about free will, he says that “You could not help thinking that the only thing that is within our power is that which we do when we will it” (On Free Choice of the Will, III.3). To me this suggests the following analysis of power:

A person, P, has the power to perform an act, A, if and only if P would perform A if P were to will to A.

(Augustine may have this analysis in mind when he says “He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills” (City of God V.10).)

Now if this is right, then to say that God has the power to do anything is just to say that he would do it if he were to will it. This is consistent with saying it’s impossible for God to tell a lie - the important point is that it’s impossible because God wouldn’t will to tell a lie, rather than because, if he were to so will, he wouldn’t be able to carry out his intention.

Aquinas and Anselm make similar arguments:
"
Thomas Aquinas, ST I.25.3
[/QUOTE]
"]Nevertheless, the Philosopher says (Topic. iv, 3) that God can deliberately do what is evil. But this must be understood either on a condition, the antecedent of which is impossible—as, for instance, if we were to say that God can do evil things if He will. For there is no reason why a conditional proposition should not be true, though both the antecedent and consequent are impossible: as if one were to say: “If man is a donkey, he has four feet.”
Anselm:
Therefore, we can say of Christ, “He was able to tell a lie,” provided “if He willed to” is understood.
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So, to answer a question raised above, it is not possible that God tell a lie. But he does have the power to tell a lie insofar as he would tell a lie if he were, per impossibile, to decide to do so.
 
I think it’s important to try to get at WHY the person asking this old question is asking it now.

Is it a sassy kid who just wants to try to poke holes in something? A sincere teenager who’s learning to push the limits of their understanding? An adult who’s just being obnoxious? A pseudo-intellectual who’s just trying to corner you?

Is it a real stumbling block to the person? Have they just not come up with a better argument? Is it masking some other, deeper question they have about God?

You need to get at the motive behind it to ever answer someone’s actual question. And the spiritual work of mercy of helping the doubtful is the only reason to engage in such conversations in the first place.

I’m not saying you don’t need an answer, I’m just saying you need to be intentional about answering what the person is really asking.
 
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