God... An Omnipotence Paradox.?

Question

God is supposedly all powerful. There is nothing he cannot do.

Can he create a rock that even he can't lift?

Remember that he is all powerful and that there is nothing he can't do....

Please answer the question, And don't try and stray from the point..

I find it interesting the people who can provide no logic behind answers... God has to be a logical being to create a world of logic, And DON'T answer if your not going to answer the QUESTION!

This is a WHAT IF question, Suppose if god wanted to test his power... Omniscience doesn't play any role in this Paradox

God also has the inability to lie... (Thus adding to a list of things and all powerful being cannot do..) Also I said can he create a rock that even HE cannot lift, he as in himself.. Unmodified, He is all powerful so no modification would be needed..

The rock doesn't have to be of infinite weight... Just a simple rock that god made so that he couldn't lift it.. What it is rested on doesn't matter because it isn't God himself lifting it.

Ok, now people are starting to bring in outside of logic. Here is a new modified version of the question.

CAN GOD CREATE A ROCK THAT EVEN HE CANNOT LIFT, WITHIN OUR UNIVERSE, WITHIN THE PHYSICAL AND LOGICAL BOUNDARIES THAT WE EXIST WITHIN... REMEMBER HE IS ALL POWERFUL.

Answer 1

Epicurus answered this question many centuries ago. This question is always of actuality !
--
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
.

Answer 2

A logical answer would say that 'if such a thing as an irresistable force (God) exists, then no object is immovable (the rock) and vice versa.'

An answer regarding semantics would say that 'if there is such a thing as an irresistible force, then the phrase immovable object is meaningless in that context, and vice versa'. An example of this is that someone asks "Can God create a triangle with four sides?".

"The paradox should be understood as an exercise in logic, not as the postulation of a possible reality. According to modern scientific understanding, there are not and indeed cannot be either irresistible forces or immovable objects. An immovable object would have to have infinite inertia and therefore infinite mass. Such an object would collapse under its own gravity and create a singularity. An irresistible force would imply an infinite energy, which by Albert Einstein's equation E = mc² is equivalent to an infinite mass. Note that, in the modern view, a cannonball which cannot be deflected and a wall which cannot be knocked down are both types of the same (impossible) object: an object with infinite inertia."

--kudos to wikipedia for all that

As a Christian, I would say that the question is flawed from its inception not due to semantics or logic, but because we as human live with certain "laws" of nature/reality (i.e., sun rises in the east, 1 + 1 = 2, triangles have three sides and one minute is 60 seconds, etc.). God created the universe, and created the parameters of time, space, gravity, continuity, etc., etc. to make our universe logical and understandable to us. I would say that God CAN create a triangle with four sides if He wanted to because God can do anything AND God is NOT limited by the "laws" to which humans are.

Answer 3

There are a number of things which God cannot do, and which are not the subject of omnipotence. I take it that God is rational and is constrained by that rationality --which BTW is not discursive in nature. So, the assertion that "...he should be able to create a rock that is so heavy, he himself cannot lift" has no logical bearing. There is no algebraic solution to the general quintic (ax^5 + bx^4 +cx^3 + dx^2 + ex + f = 0). God might happen to know what the solution is for any particular quintic but it won't stem from a general algebraic one. So, the fact that God is bound by rationality says something which constrains *any* notion of God. This places a restriction on conversations about God as well. Christians who don't get this point make as little sense as this very question does. HTH Charles [Late Edit] Your final edit doesn't help, either. It is poor reasoning style to develop a straw concept, know it down, and then assert that it is the concept used when others for it has bearing use it. You concept of omnipotence is just as defective as those hold that the powers of God are unlimited. HTH Charles

Answer 4

There only information regarding God is in His revelation which the bible documents. Unfortunately, God did not mentions whether He could create a rock that even He can't lift.

Having said that: For God who existed before He created everything that we can observe including lift (force) and rock (matter), it may be your are using measures that are meaningless. Does God lift the universe? Does God who is spirit needs to lift anything?

According to the bible, God exists in the observable and the unobservable. To answer your question would mean we could observe the unobservable. Which in science does not follow. Contradiction.

Logical Positivism, a branch of philosophy, clearly states your question is meaningless.

Answer: Your question is a pink elephant, we can conjecture it but it is not real, without meaning.

Answer 5

A mountain. Logic denotes that God could not lift a mountain, for it is rooted to the earth. Therefore he'd have to lift the earth in order to lift he mountain, that would be cheating. I'm assuming this question is omitting any crazy uber-powers, like lightning, volcanoes, and earthquakes. You said it did NOT matter what the "rock" was rested on because he would be lifting the rock but not it's base.

I think a mountain would be very logical in this strange conundrum.

Answer 6

Or create a flat mountain, or create a square circle, or create a dry ocean, a hot snow,.,..

simply putting two contradictions together doesnt immediately nullify it.

Here's an example...can you hide light in darkness? No..these are contradictions that can't exist together in the same statement.....or are they....cosmic space is dark, yet, it contains more light than I can imagine, yet, I still can't see the light.

Second flaw in the logic...I'll use Time as the example...God exists outside of time...He has created time...and there fore, that which is outside the construct is not held to the same limitations of the construct itself, which means God is in both the past and the present and the future at the same time.

Hard to grasp huh?

Well...He is also the creator of our laws of physics, and as such, the He is also outside the contruct.

Now...a lot of our understanding of this is going to make as much sense as my reading Stephen Hawkings Thesis papers to my 2 year old and expecting him to understand. Just because he can not understand, does not mean that which Hawking writes about is nullified.

Last example...the principle of quantum physics...we can measure the location of an electron during any point in time, we can measure the velocity of an electron at any point in time, however, what we can not do is the both of them at the same time, even though LOGIC SAYS WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO.

Logic...

Answer 7

If there is a God, why would he bother wasting his time wanting to create a rock he couldn't lift? But of course, leave it to the human mind to come up with such an silly "Paradox."

There answer is, *if* there is a God, there is no paradox in failing to understand something that is beyond our ability to comprehend.

For if there is a God that created the Universe, what makes you think he's bound by the same laws and/or logic the Universe holds us to?

Answer 8

If as you say God is omnipotent then he/she could do what ever it wanted to do. Since by definition that is what omnipotence is. Yet why would one want to prove their own weakness that doesn't exist.

I believe that it would be hard if not impossible to prove God's existence and omnipotence because one side of the argument always wants to prove the stupidity of believing in God verses the other side wants to prove the stupidity of non belief in God . When the truth is that there is no way to prove God's existence or non existence in a logical way. That is why belief in God is called faith.

Yet, I think that you have asked a very good question. And I see a lot more thought in your question then in some of the answers. That's why I starred it. Good work keep it up.

Answer 9

first I am with you. But think of this, I have heard this before and thought about it.

He could create a rock that even he could not lift. He made himself into a body that could die. But then he brought himself back to life. And so he would still be able to undo the whole rock weight lifting thing.

Just a thought there might be holes in it.

Answer 10

God cannot:
Lie
Do Evil
Defy laws of logic (make 1+1=3)

Answer 11

Copy + Paste =
This question is representative of the type of paradoxes atheists use in attempts to prove that God cannot exist. It works like this. God is supposed to be omnipotent. If He is omnipotent, then He can create a rock so big that He can't pick it up. If He cannot make a rock like this, then He is not omnipotent. If He can make a rock so big He can't pick it up, then He isn't omnipotent either. Either way demonstrates that God cannot do something. Therefore God is not omnipotent. Therefore God does not exist.
Is this logical? A little. However, the problem is that this bit of logic omits some crucial information, therefore, it's conclusion is inaccurate.
What the above "paradox" lacks is vital information concerning God's nature. His omnipotence is not something independent of His nature. It is part of His nature. God has a nature and His attributes operate within that nature, as does anything and everything else.
For example, I have human nature. I can run. But, I cannot outrun a lion. My nature simply does not permit it. My ability to run is connected to my nature and I cannot violate it. So too with God. His omnipotence is connected to His nature since being omnipotent is part of what He is. Omnipotence, then, must be consistent with what He is and not with what He is not since His omnipotence is not an entity to itself. Therefore, God can only do those things that are consistent with His nature. He cannot lie because it is against His nature to do so. Not being able to lie does not mean He is not God or that He is not all powerful. Also, He cannot cease to be God. Since He is in all places at all times, if He stopped existing then He wouldn't be in all places at all time. Therefore, He cannot cease to exist without violating His own nature.
The point is that God cannot do something that is a violation of His own existence and nature. Therefore, He cannot make a rock so big he can't pick up, or make something bigger than Himself, etc. But, not being able to do this does not mean He is not God nor that He is not omnipotent. Omnipotence is not the ability to do anything conceivable, but the ability to do anything consistent with His nature and consistent with His desire within the realm of His unlimited and universal power which we do not possess. This does not mean He can violate His own nature. If He did something inconsistent with His nature, then He would be self contradictory. If God were self contradictory, He would not be true. Likewise, if He did something that violated his nature, like make a rock so big He can't pick it up, He would also not be true since that would be a self contradiction. Since truth is not self contradictory, as neither is God, if He were not true, then He would not be God. But God is true and not self contradictory, therefore, God cannot do something that violates His own nature.
Another way to look at it is realize that in order for God to make something so big He couldn't pick it up, He would have to make a rock bigger than Himself. Since He is infinite in size, He would have to make something that would be bigger than Himself. Since it is His nature to be the biggest thing in existence because He created all things, He cannot violate His own nature by making a rock that is larger than He.
Also, since a rock, by definition, is not infinitely big, then it isn't logically possible to make a rock, something that is finite in size, be infinite in size (no longer a rock) since only God is infinite in size. At dictionary.com, a rock is defined as a "Relatively hard, naturally formed mineral or petrified matter; stone. a) A relatively small piece or fragment of such material. b) A relatively large body of such material, as a cliff or peak. c) A naturally formed aggregate of mineral matter constituting a significant part of the earth's crust." A rock, by definition is not infinitely large. So, to say that the rock must be so big that God cannot pick it up is to say that the rock is no longer a rock.
What the critics are asking is that God become self contradictory as a proof He doesn't exist. Their assertion is illogical from the start. So what they are doing is trying to get God to be illogical. They want to use illogic to prove God doesn't exist instead of logic. It doesn't work and the "paradox" is self-refuting and invalid.