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Omnipotent God Question


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Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift?

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In a video game, I can program a rock so heavy that no avatar can lift it, including my own. I can also reprogram the software. 

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12 minutes ago, LearningToLetGo said:

In a video game, I can program a rock so heavy that no avatar can lift it, including my own. I can also reprogram the software. 

Help me with your analogy. I can envision a world where God makes a rock that no created being in that world can lift. This seems to be different than my question. 

Can a software programmer create a software that he cannot reprogram? 

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1 hour ago, Uber Genius said:

Can a software programmer create a software that he cannot reprogram? 

Hopefully not! ;-D

I think the premise of what God can and cannot do - absent His domain of Goodness and Righteousness - is flawed due to our human limitations. Where we see paradox, God does not IMHO.

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I would say that the answer is probably no. God's power is infinite. In order to make this boulder, he would have to make a boulder that is more than infinitely heavy, which is an impossible absurdity. Not being able to add to infinity is not a sign of lacking power. That is the very nature of infinity. The fact that he would have to add to infinity to do so shows that his power is indeed infinite. He has the power to do anything, including lift the heaviest possible boulder, an infinitely heavy boulder.

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22 minutes ago, LearningToLetGo said:

Hopefully not! ;-D

I think the premise of what God can and cannot do - absent His domain of Goodness and Righteousness - is flawed due to our human limitations. Where we see paradox, God does not IMHO.

Great response.

The key to understanding the false dilemma is that God's omnipotence is not defined in the negative.

God is all-powerful therefore there is nothing ha cannot do (false construction).

The definition of all-powerful is that a being can do all things that are LOGICALLY POSSIBLE TO DO.

It is necessarily true that the laws of logic are true. That is to say God can't change those laws. 

So can God do/create [insert logically incoherent concept here]? 

Doesnt touch God's omnipotence but conflates (equivocates) the definition of omnipotence.

 

JUst as the definition or "programming" involves being able to reprogramming, it is incoherent to ask if there is a program that can not be reprogrammed. 

Thanks for your astute observations.

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3 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift?

Why not? He can create a brain too prideful to think.

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22 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift?

Question: "Could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it?"

Answer: 
This question is frequently asked by skeptics of God, the Bible, Christianity, etc. If God can create a rock that He cannot lift, then God is not omnipotent. If God cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it, then God is not omnipotent. According to this argument, omnipotence is self-contradictory. Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent. So, the question, could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it? The quick answer is "No." But the explanation is far more important to understand than the answer...
This question is based on a popular misunderstanding about the definitions of words like "almighty" or "omnipotent." These terms do not mean that God can do anything. Rather, they describe the amount of God’s power. Power is the ability to effect change - to make something happen. God (being unlimited) has unlimited power, and the Bible affirms this (Job 11:7-11, 37:23; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Revelation 4:8; etc.). Therefore, God can do whatever is possible to be done. God cannot, however, do that which is actually impossible. This is because true impossibility is not based on the amount of power one has, it is based on what is really possible. The truly impossible is not made possible by adding more power. Therefore, unless context indicates otherwise (e.g. Matthew 19:26 where man’s ability is being shown in contrast to God’s), impossibility means the same thing whether or not God is involved.

So, the first part of the question is based on a false idea - that God being almighty means that He can do anything. In fact, the Bible itself lists things God cannot do - like lie or deny Himself (Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2). The reason He cannot do these things is because of His nature and the nature of reality itself. God cannot do what is not actually possible to be done, like creating a two-sided triangle, or a married bachelor. Just because words can be strung together this way does not make the impossible possible - these things are contradictions, they are truly impossible in reality. Now, what about this rock? A rock would have to be infinitely large to defeat an infinite amount of lifting power. But an infinite rock is a contradiction since material objects cannot be infinite. Only God is infinite. There cannot be two infinites. So the question is actually asking if God can make a contradiction - which He cannot.

https://www.gotquestions.org/God-rock-heavy-lift.html

 
Edited by missmuffet
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On 2/5/2021 at 12:12 PM, Uber Genius said:

Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift?

Moot Point....God doesn't lift. He speaks and it is

This is what comes when you limit your understanding that which fits in the human paradigm

Can God walk on a surface that will not support weight (water) 

Can God feed 5000 with a boys lunch

All things are possible to God, because all things exist in the realm of His creation and and are ruled by the natural law He imposed (such as Gravity) as such he is not bound by that natural law and can suspend it anytime He likes, we call those occurrences, miracles.

Are you running out of material, because dude, that is old

Edited by Riverwalker
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On 2/5/2021 at 2:12 PM, Uber Genius said:

Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift?

God cannot lie either (Hebrews 6:18).

God's limitations began the moment he created anything to exist (other than himself).

Edited by JohnD
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