- The idea that there things that God cannot do is not uniquely Muslim by any stretch of the imagination, and it is made as an affirmation, not a limitation, of God’s ‘omnipotence’. God cannot come into contradiction with Godself.
I have provided references in the original thread to Christian figures like Anselm who argues both that God cannot create a rock that God lift and that God cannot do anything that violates God’s nature (in fact there are all sorts of things that God can’t do according to Anselm; e.g., God can’t simply forgive human beings for sinning by divine fiat b/c it violates God’s Justice). Thomas Aquinas’ treatment of the topic is slightly different than Anselm’s and even explicitly disagrees with Anselm’s at times regarding God’s freedom. Nonetheless in Thomas as well God is not capable of doing that which is absolutely impossible (such as changing the past – the example being Thomas’ and not mine). Or, God can’t create round-squares (example mine, not Thomas’).
As Dzheremi commented, those two saints lived after the Great Schism, and are not recognised by Orthodox, so that does not help your case. Additionally the bit of time I’ve spent on the writtings of St. Thomas Aquinas lead me to believe that they are highly suspect.
However you misquote Anselm, he did not say God cannot make a rock he cannot lift, he asked if God can make a rock he cannot lift. You were corrected on this in the original thread.
Further the existence of paradoxes (perceived contradictions) does not prove anything. In fact science has found and proven the existence of paradoxes in nature (for example light exists in both particle and wave form simultaneously).
To say “God cannot do anything which violates his nature” as a method of arguing just what that nature is, is most certainly putting limits on just what God can, and can not do. The very fact that you list examples such as an inability to create “round squares” shows you are looking at this in human terms, with a human understanding, as though God just happens to be a very powerful human. Once again placing limits on him.
- The Incarnation is just such a contradiction.
The claim by Christians is that Jesus is God (the person of the Logos assumed a full a complete human nature (though somehow a full and complete human nature doesn’t include a human person, but that’s another issue altogether).
Now, either the Logos is eternally Jesus, in which case that which is finite, contingent and temporal (i.e., the human nature) is eternal and absolute (it is impossible to imagine what it would even mean for God to be Jesus eternally)…human nature would be uncreated. It would likewise mean that the Logos is what it is only through something finite and God would be dependent on the finite to be God. Again, the idea of God being dependent upon anything contradicts what we mean when we say God.
[n.b., the whole structure of the Christian account of the Incarnation affirms the reality of two separate and comparable natures: the divine nature and the human nature that are united in the person of the Logos]
the Logos wasn’t always Jesus, in which case the Logos realized some possibility that was not eternally actual. In this case the eternal and absolute, changed.
I’m not even sure what you’re arguing here. You seem to be making this more complicated than needed in an effort to oversimplify the doctrine (A paradox!).
Jesus as God is eternal, however his human body was created and imbued with everything a human has, and thus was not of eternal origin.
Beyond this, there is just the silliness of working out what it means to say that the Father did not become Incarnate and the Son did when both the Father and the Son are the full and complete essence of God according to Conciliar Christianity (and that’s not even bringing in the Holy Spirit). This goes to the contradictions inherent in the Christian account of divine persons.
And once again, you are providing limitations, you are saying what God can and can not do.
You wonder why I continue to bring these things up after you provide answers, this is why. You claim you don’t believe God is limited, and then you go on to argue that God could not become incarnate and stay in heaven.
Your god is limited, even if you won’t admit it. My God is omnipotent.
Congratulations and welcome to the club.
The only person ever recorded of knowing that the Virgin Mary was pregnant before marriage was Joseph, and he kept it a secret. It is therefore something unique only in the Quran, a book which came 600 years later and was recorded down by people who were nowhere near where the Virgin Mary lived or knew her personally.