Could god create a rock so heavy he couldn't pick it up?

Question

So you believe god is perfect right? Then demonstrate using the question.
So you don't think God is perfect anymore? Then why is he your god?
This question is not about whether or not a god could take a phsyical form so please don't bother with that.

Please save me the personnal insults, oh and by the way I am certainly not a teenager. This is merely a stimulating question. "Your God" merely encompasses those who go beyond the christian concept of god. Those of you who are religious need not be so aggressive in your own defense. Just think about your answers implications.

One more thing for those taking the "physical world" beyond human capacity type argument. Christian teachins say that we were created in his image, does this not imply the sharing similar properties

Answer 1

Most people here are using the old "you cant put god in human terms", well lets say he put himself in human terms, then people are saying "why would god want to do this", maybe because he hasnt done anything in the past few hundred years to prove that he is still around. Basically this question just goes to show that the people who made up all this religion stuff years ago didnt think through the problems associated with infinite values.
So i guess the answer is no, but i can make a rock so big i cant lift it........

Answer 2

the following is the answer. interesting question with a contact of absurity. although, an all-effectual being can not fail. for this reason, God can create a rock of large length, yet, because that he's all-effectual, he will continually be able to carry it. Come on human beings, generalities are imprecise and inadequate statements. not all Christians are alike. i'm not indignant as some have revealed. deliver it on. a million Peter 3:15

Answer 3

In order for god to be god, it would have to be both perfect and not perfect, simultaneously. If it was one and not the other, it would no longer be god. It would only be "part of god."

In order for god to be what its followers claim it to be -- omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite (i.e., "without definition") -- it would have to be all things at once. On and Off, Light and Dark, Life and Death. Tea and No Tea. God with edges is not god (maybe yin or yan, but certainly not tao). :-)

Metaphorically, could god create a rock so heavy that even "he" couldn't lift it? Sure. Could he then choose to lift it 2 seconds later (or earlier)? Absolutely.

That being said, your question -- while a great philosophical tool to demonstrate the edge of human mental perception (i.e., the question's inherent paradox) -- is nonsensical at the god level.

The problem is that it makes the same mistake many well-intentioned but misguided religious people make: it anthropomorphizes the concept of god (i.e., gives it human qualities, presumably to make it more relatable). But to do that is to limit (and change!) the concept of god.

There is no rock sitting next to god. There's just god. God's not a dude. Or a chick. Or a person or animal of any kind. "He's" not sitting in a "room" or on a "cloud." He's not standing in a field somewhere, wielding magic powers. If you test him as such, you can't expect the results to be meaningful, because you're not actually testing the concept of god. You're testing the concept of a very powerful (but metaphorical) magic guy invented by humans. It's not the same thing.

It would be like making grapes into wine, and then trying to "roll" the wine downhill (not in a glass or bottle), and then -- when it poured instead of rolled -- claiming that grapes don't roll.

A rock is part of our 3 dimensional (4, if you count time) perception of god (as is everything else we perceive and experience). But the rock is not (and cannot) be separate from god. It *can* be separate from the other *parts* of god, but not from god itself (whatever god is). If it was, god would no longer be god. It would be god minus a rock, which is something different and less than god.

The tone of your question sounds as if it was meant to bait christians into this discussion so you could "prove" to them with "logic" that their god doesn't exist and that they're morons for believing in "him." But really there's no possible way to know for sure who's right (until we die and either something happens or nothing happens). Anyone who claims to know, without a doubt, the absolute truth -- christian or athiest -- is fooling themselves. Nobody knows, and to choose one extreme or the other is to limit your ability to explore the question.

Answer 4

No, your question is based on faulty logic.

Could God create a rock so heavy he couldn't pick it up? God doesn't exist in our Universe, He exists Outside of it, so He can do anything He wants INSIDE our Universe. Its just a matter of Will. Could he create a rock so large he couldn't pick it up, no, He could FILL our universe with one rock, totally destroying our Universe in the process and still be able to move it. Your question is nonsensical, making no sense. God is so much bigger than the Universe at large, Time, Space and Life are Nothing to Him, He existed before and will after, He doesn't need to guess whats coming, by standing outside He sees the end just as easily as the beginning. God is the Immovable Object AND the Irresistable Force, nothing and no one else is. Not Jesus, not the Angels, man, the universe or anything else.

Answer 5

The logical contradictions and irregularities surrounding God and religion are legion.

I myself am somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist, so for me such contradictions are not to be discounted, by I was once confronted with a response to any such challenge that as far as I can see, would allow any deist to escape it perfectly:

Since God is omnipotent, God is not bound even by the rules of basic logic, no matter how self-evidently inviolable they may seem to us mortals.

With that in mind, the answer to your question will be: yes, God can create a rock so heavy that He cannot pick it up, even though God can always pick up any rock He chooses to.

Logically mutually exclusive? Yes, but only to us humans...

Answer 6

You seem to want to limit the illusion of existance to one side of the illusion, like a picture of a woman who also could be a rabbit, but you say, "It has to be either a rabbit or a woman! Don't tell me it can both!"

Your question has trapped you in your own limitations. You are so obsessed with this one conundrum that when given an answer, as I did with the same question earlier, you refuse to discuss it, refute it, or otherwise deal with it except by limiting your question to the impossible. Yet I will answer it.

God can create a rock that is so heavy he can't lift it, but he also can. From one perspective of limited awareness, such as the reality you have, he might not. From another, he might. Both exist, not one or the other. In that way, he is still omnipotent, and still has apparent limitations.

Contradiction solved.

Answer 7

God, in most human minds, is a logical being who cannot create paradoxes, as shown through your somewhat cliched rock example. Logically an omnipotent being must not be able to create a paradox hence limiting their potence. Unfortunately that only works in a logical three dimensional system which we understand and inhabit.

For the christian god to truly be omnipotent, and to an extent perfect, he must be a lovecraftian being of the highest order, a la Asathoth. A being that is not fettered by our reality.

For example, this rock is a four dimensional construct, it exists in our three physical dimensions and has a finite lifespan of time. Now a truly omnipotent deity could create a rock so heavy that to our perception it is unable to lift. But in some other dimension with another vector to add into the equation, the deity can now lift the rock in this fifth dimension, which I shall call the cheese dimension. To our finite understanding the rock is still too heavy for god to lift, but in reality the deity in question can probably eat it for lunch and crap out daisies by the time dinner is ready.

Basically in order for a god to be truly omnipotent it would have to be so beyond the scope of mortal understanding that it would be maddening to even try to understand completely.

Basically logic and the idea of omnipotence is an idea bread of the finite human understanding, and it is our attempt to describe something of infinite proportions and as such is fundamentally flawed as it is impossible for us to do so. And to say it one more time, this means that to our knowledge some god can create a rock to heavy for it to lift, but still be able to lift it by using some means beyond the scope of our consciousness, such as in another physical dimension.

And all this combines to make for some damn fine horror stories.

Answer 8

Nothing is to big for my God! After all he did "THINK" the whole world, stars and universe and not to mention life into existence in 7 days and yesI do believe my Mighty God and King was, is and always will be perfect.

Answer 9

You are attributing God humanistic abilities. We currently lack the capability to understand the true concept of the Supreme Being.

When you evolve farther from materialism, you will begin to understand that weight and mass have nothing to do with ability, for it can be manipulated by the mind. Distances can be traveled by thought.

Answer 10

He created the Earth... the Earth floats in space and is essentrially a great rock called a planet. There is no gravity in space... so I guess the answer is yes... He can create a rock that He can pick up.