Omnipotent Paradox

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this question is posed to people who know of the omnipotent paradox?
  1. how do you solve it
  2. does this prove God wrong.
  3. the catholic position?
  4. my friend posed this to me, and i was afraid to answer, because i couldn’t find an answer.
just for people who dont know, this paradox is also called the heavy rock paradox.
its hard explaining. so please help me out here. im really upset, because i know God is awesome in all, but im hurt by my inability to solve this so please help. thanks God bless.😦
 
The simple answer is that it is false because of faulty presuppositions. Starting with contradictions as premises usually results in contradictions as results.
 
For those that don’t know, the “rock paradox” goes something like this: Can God make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it? If He can make such a rock, that shows that His power is limited by the weight of the rock. If He cannot make such a rock, that shows that His power is limited in what He can make.

If you imagine a “rock so heavy no one could lift it” that is the famous immovable object. If you imagine some force (or someone so strong) that nothing is too heavy for it, that is an irresistible force. It is simply a matter of logic that the universe cannot contain both an immovable object and an irresistible force. Logic is not a limit on God’s power, it is simply a way for people to understand basic realities in the universe. So to begin with, the question although it seems to be reasonable in the words that are used contains nonsense ideas. Imagine saying “God can make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it.” It is not a statement about God, it is just nonsense. As C.S. Lewis famously said, ( I can’t get the exact words just right, but something like this): Nonsense does not cease to be nonsense just because you use the words “God can”.

But you could look at the question another way. To lift anything is to pull it away from the Earth. Lifting refers to an action by a person on Earth. God made the Earth, and continues to hold it in existence. God made all the rocks on the Earth, and continues to hold them in existence. God is outside the Earth that He makes, and all that is on the Earth, because God is so much greater than all of His creation. When God is holding the world and everything in the world in His loving hands, there can be no meaning to Him “lifting” a rock. The rock simply IS where God wants it to be. If God wants it to be stuck to the Earth (as rocks usually seem to be) there it is. If God wants the rock to cease to be, than it just ceases to be. If God wants the rock to hurtle off into outer space (not that I think that is likely) the rock does that, not because God “lifted” the rock, but just because God willed it so.

It can be very difficult for our very limited minds to grasp how un-limited God is.
 
The illogic of this paradox may be better illustrated if it is worded differently. The question then becomes, can God make A and B such that A is greater than B, and at the same time, B is greater than A. Of course one can play with differing definitions of “greater” to make such a statement true, but intrinsically it can be seen to be a nonsensical concept.
 
The omnipotence paradox is an apparent contradiction in the notion of an omnipotent (all-powerful) being (such as God, or Superman, or the government). An omnipotent being can do absolutley anything. So can an omnipotent being create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift? If he can create it, then there is one thing he can’t do: lift the stone. If he can’t create it, then there is one thing he can’t do: create such a stone. Either way, there is something he can’t do, which contradicts the assumption that he is omnipotent. This is a paradox. It has been taken by some to show that there cannot be an omnipotent being,

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“If God can do anything, then he can create a heavy stone that even he cannot lift.”
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If God can do such stone, then he is not omnipotent at all, because he cannot lift the stone.
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On the other hand, if God cannot do such thing, then he is also not omnipotent because it will contradict the statement “God, being omnipotent, can do anything”
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Omnipotence, as I understand it, means all-powerful, without limitations.

God is omnipotent in a sense that he is all powerful and he has no limitations.

God, being all powerful, can create stones of all sizes. Because he has no limitations, he can lift all stones regardless of their sizes and weight.

Furthermore, God, being omnipotent, CANNOT FAIL. Inability to lift the stone is a failure which is contradictory to the concept of omnipotence.

In conclusion, the paradox is logically flawed having suggested that omnipotent God CAN FAIL.
 
I wrote a short story about this one time. Let me see if I can find it in my pile…
 
I join the others in their responses that the paradox is itself nonsensical; there is by definition – in fact, by definition there can be – no rock so large that God can’t lift it.

But it’s also nonsensical from the other end. It uses vague terms to mean things that appear contradictory. One of those is “a rock so big He can’t pick it up” – that’d have to be a pretty big rock, right? But the other is the idea of omnipotence, which basically means all-powerfulness. But it doesn’t mean “There is nothing God can’t do.”

There are plenty of things He can’t do: He can’t lie; He can’t change; He can’t break His own promises; He can’t do evil; He can’t commit suicide; He cannot not exist; and on and on. In short, He cannot contradict His own nature.

In fine, the so-called paradox boils down to this question: If God can do anything, can He do something He can’t do?

So the question fails from its own lack of meaning.
 
Godfollower said:
In fine, the so-called paradox boils down to this question: If God can do anything, can He do something He can’t do?
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And besides the large stone, this takes on many permutations, such as:

Can God make a square circle? a five-sided square?
Can God create a being more powerful than Himself?
Can God create something uncreated?
Can God …

The list goes on and on.
 
hey! thanks for asking… yes, i think you might have. you most certainly would have answered it better than any other flawed church. Thanks for helping me, i love these forums. Even if an answer didnt come of this, i will always believe in the church, but unfortunatly others just cant catch on. i think more questions might come about this. so just stay tunned. and thanks again.
 
G-d could have actualized any possible world as we know from modalism, what then makes one think that He is restricted to the logic of this actual world?
 
The philosophical response I favor is that God can do anything that is consistent with His Divine Nature. There are some things that God does not or rather cannot do:

Examples
  1. Commit Evil
  2. Cease to be God
Saying God cannot do things in contradiction with His Divine Nature does not nullify His Omnipotence. Rather it upholds it because Omnipotence requires acting within the parameters of Divine Nature.

As others stated the Omnipotent Paradox is logically flawed.
 
Actualy, it’s much simpler than that.

The Axiom of Foundation is one of the rules that underlies virtualy all of modern math and science. A simple result of the Axiom of Foundation is that anything defined as the most or least of something must not be defined more or less than itself.

Example:
The tallest tree taller than any tree
The problem is that the tree is a tree and therefore “taller than itself” whatever that means! :eek:

But with the Axiom of foundation we can avoid the paradox by defining “tallest” correctly:
The tallest tree is taller than any ***other ***tree.

Example:
The fastest runner reaches the finish line before anyone.
(Before the fastest runner? Paradox!)

Correct: The fastest runner reaches the finish line before anyone else.

The classic example:
The barber of Seville shaves every man who doesn’t shave himself.
Does the barber shave himself?

Correct: The barber of Seville shaves every ***other ***man who doesn’t shave himself.

And finaly…
God is so omnipotent he can create and lift rocks that he can’t.

Correct: God is so omnipotent he can create and lift rocks that no one can except himself.

Interestingly, there’s no proof that the Axiom of Foundation must be obeyed, just the observation that violating it results in nonsense.*

*Like atheism! 🙂 [/kidding!]
 
Steadfast_love said:
Actualy, it’s much simpler than that.

The Axiom of Foundation is one of the rules that underlies virtualy all of modern math and science. A simple result of the Axiom of Foundation is that anything defined as the most or least of something must not be defined more or less than itself.

Example:
The tallest tree taller than any tree
The problem is that the tree is a tree and therefore “taller than itself” whatever that means! :eek:

But with the Axiom of foundation we can avoid the paradox by defining “tallest” correctly:
The tallest tree is taller than any ***other ***tree.

And finaly…
God is so omnipotent he can create and lift rocks that he can’t.

Correct: God is so omnipotent he can create and lift rocks that no one can except himself.

Interestingly, there’s no proof that the Axiom of Foundation must be obeyed, just the observation that violating it results in nonsense.*

*Like atheism! 🙂 [/kidding!]
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I remember reading somewhere that paradox does not exist in reality, only in the words that we use (or perhaps misuse). I think that this excellent explanation clarifies that point.
 
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