I would like to point out that *omnipotence *and *omniscience *aren’t excuses for foolish gibberish either. Take the silly question, “can God make a rock so heavy that even he can’t lift it?” or other illogical nonsense like, “does God know how many miles are between yellow and Christmas?” Omnipotence means being able to do anything that can be done, and Omniscience means knowledge of everything that can be known.
These definitions don’t mean we know everything there is to God though, but I guess you could see them as “limits” to keeping some nonsense out. As you say though, even in science there’s people speaking nonsense, so in religion it’s no different.
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The two questions in paragraph one are dissimilar in nature, kind, and structure. You will eventually be ashamed for writing something so incompetent, because incompetence is not your nature.
The first question is perfectly valid, for it arises from Church given statements about the nature of God. According to the Church, God, being omnipotent, can do anything. At the time the Church decided this, it had not thought out the implications.
I asked the identical question in 4th Grade Catechism class, in an excellent Catholic school. I asked it from curiosity. It was not something I’d heard of before (my father was a butcher, not a philosopher). Once weekly, a priest came to us to teach catechism, rather than our nun. This day he focused upon the properties and attributes of God, and the big rock question came to me naturally, and was asked from curiosity. Believe me, I was
NOT an atheist then, nor now!
God had been defined to me as a being who could do anything. There was no limit assigned by the Church’s beliefs to his power.
Making a thing, and changing its space-time juxtaposition are definable, and related abilities. We (who are supposedly created in God’s image) have the ability to make something and then to move it. At the small level, a child can make a lump of snow and move it atop another lump of snow to call it a snowman. Or, we can pour a cement block, and stack it atop and among other cement blocks, making it something we created but now cannot move with the same muscular force involved in its creation and placement.
We can make multi-ton rockets and aircraft which none of us can move by direct application of the muscular force required to build them, yet which, with the flip of a few switches and slight forces applied to control mechanisms, can take men to the moon, or fighter pilots to a target halfway around the earth.
(Directly applied, the force of ten men would not move the control surfaces of an A-10 in flight. One man in the cockpit, with slight motions of hands and feet, will make that machine do somersaults.)
So, big vs. move is a legitimate question, especially when applied to God. Can he move galaxies with an act of will? If so, how?
However, comparing yellow, Christmas, and miles, is a nitwit’s query. You are better than that, yes?
I’m curious to know what your “boundaries” to God are, and I imagine they’re similar to what you described in physics (knowing what cannot work). I have a question though, is everything we know about physics “bound in stone”? I thought there were still things we’re unsure of that could later change. If so, are you certain that what you found on God has no room for error or possible change?
My God boundaries are simple. He cannot affect the first and third laws of thermodynamics. He is limited by logic. He cannot declare that 2+2=5.
I prefer “cast in concrete” to “bound in stone”, because I can define the first analogy. Neither quite conveys a suitable sense of certainty to the few things which are certain in physics.
One of the wonderful aspects of physics is that it remains open to correction. (Alas! If only the Church was not in the control of inflexible brains.) Throughout my lifetime, and within its own brief history, physics has changed. Its practitioners are diverse. They include dogmatists, young and old. Some are focused exclusively on how they can revolutionize the field. Lots in between. Most physicists are technicians, but extremely competent technicians who did not get their degrees via mail order or DeVry’s.
Physics is, internally, divisive. This is not widely known. I know of one genius level individual who got out of physics because he was (as I am) certain that the mathematical development of quantum phenomena was bunk.
My ideas about God challenge conventional religious beliefs. Like the early Church, I believe that a correct philosophy will lead to a correct understanding of physics. The Church made the mistake of assuming that its philosophy was correct, and therefore the universe-view derived from that philosophy must also be correct. Galileo showed that belief to be unworkable, hence his problems with the Church.
Galileo figured that if there was any logical relationship between the universe and its Creator, the nature of its Creator would be revealed by the universe which He created. Seems logical to me, too.
Consequentially, my ideas about the nature of the Creator directly affect physics, and are not consistent with currently popular physics beliefs. Recently I posted two questions about probability calculations for the random evolution of a single human gene on the “Physics Forum.” Both threads have been deleted, and I was reprimanded for posting the questions.
Do correct where I speak wrongly or where it seems my explanations are insufficient.
