God's Paradox/ Omnipotence Paradox

[Stasis]

This paradox has been on the run for quite some time.. nd by that i mean a couple centuries. One of the most fundamental statements to question the existence of God... it goes somewhat like this.....
"Is god so almighty, that he can create a rock, that he himself cannot lift?" ... now here comes the paradox.. if god does create it and he CAN lift the rock.. that means it wasn't created according to the mentioned condition in the first place.. so he's not almighty.... then again if he does create such a rock.. nd he CAN'T lift it.. that means he's not Almighty nd allpowerfull as he lacks the strength to lift it... so basically a two way trap..
Now having said these... I am a firm believer in the acts and existence of God,... so here's my real question.. what can be the possible solutions to this extraordinarily engineered paradox... ??

[EdEarl]

I believe I know the answer to your this paradox, which is obvious to me. And, it may some day become obvious to you, but nothing I can say will help you.

[pwagen]

Here are a few. Or maybe just one, I didn't read it too closely.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox#Proposed_answers

 

But then again, as EdEarl said, there's an even simpler answer.

[Phi for All]

I am a firm believer in the acts and existence of God,...

 

Does God have to be omnipotent? If God created the physical laws of the universe but can change them at his whim, does anything have any meaning? Omnipotence seems unnecessary. I would posit that either there is no God, or that what we think of as God is just a being that can do much more than we can and simply seems all-powerful. Like you would seem to an ant.

 

Since I see no evidence of a being like that, and so far everything seems to have a very natural explanation for it, I'm going to go with there is no God. As primitives we imagined lions in the shadows and it helped us survive, so we imagined a bunch of other stuff we couldn't see and it just stuck, like gum on your shoe. It's comforting to have a magic Sky Father who will protect us with his all-powerfulness. Until you realize none of it really makes sense.

 

"No God" is not only a possibility, I think it's the highest probability.

[SamBridge]

To be fair, a god could exist, just not in the exact way depicted by any particular religion. It would make sense if there were at least some limits or that it in a way was the entire universe itself.

[MonDie]

I am a firm believer in the acts and existence of God

 

What is "God"? If you haven't assigned any meaning to the word, this statement is meaningless.

[SamBridge]

What is "God"? If you haven't assigned any meaning to the word, this statement is meaningless.

It seems in this context that god is depicted as an omnipotent being. The easy solutions are of course that it either isn't real or that it isn't omnipotent.

[Stasis]

so basically,.. God if he exist.. can't be all total of existance. on the otherhand he can be the origin but he can't be omnipotent eh!?
this seems somewhat incomplete what say you guys?

[SamBridge]

so basically,.. God if he exist.. can't be all total of existance. on the otherhand he can be the origin but he can't be omnipotent eh!?

this seems somewhat incomplete what say you guys?

If he can create something that he cannot lift that does not proves omnipotence. I can easily weld some pieces of metal together that I can't lift, doesn't mean anything.

Edited June 11, 2013 by SamBridge

[Delta1212]

If he can create something that he cannot lift that does not proves omnipotence. I can easily weld some pieces of metal together that I can't left, doesn't mean anything.

The point was that if he creates something that he can't lift, then he can't lift it and is therefore not omnipotent. If he can't create something he can't lift, then there is something that he can't make and is therefore not omnipotent.

[studiot]

Formally the statement:

 

An omnipotent being can perform the task of setting himself an impossible task.

 

leads to a paradox.

 

There is a 'smoke and mirrors' philosophical resolution of this, which I don't buy into.

 

So far as I am concerned that paradox is enough to demonstrate that an omnipotent God does not exist.

 

As regards a more powerful being than myself, I prefer the baby looking at a university professor or F1 racing champion to phi for all's ant example.

 

A cat can look at a king.

 

So the question of does God exist reduces to

 

No, an omnipotent being does not exist.

 

Any less than omnipotent being is one I (Mankind) could aspire to one day.

 

So the question becomes irrelevant.

[MonDie]

so basically,.. God if he exist.. can't be all total of existance. on the otherhand he can be the origin but he can't be omnipotent eh!?

this seems somewhat incomplete what say you guys?

 

If this god were omniscient, it would would never be so silly as to change its mind about something.

 

God earlier: "I just need to stop intervening on Earth. I always make things worse. I will put the key underneath this unliftable rock, and I will never be able to intervene again."

God later: "Holy crap! I need to kill Hitler, but I cannot lift this effing rock! Why did my earlier self do that!?"

 

In other words, a god wouldn't need both omniscience and omnipotence as long as it was omnipotent when it created the world. However, this doesn't necessarily work out if you believe in free will.

Also problematic for theism is that, when your deity's mind does not fluctuate over time, it's less anthropomorphic. You are making it more or less dead; dead in the sense that a lifeless, inanimate rock is dead. That's a step toward atheism.

 

---

 

I don't believe there necessarily is a first cause or external cause, let alone one with sufficient intellect to hold an interest in what happens.

[SamBridge]

The point was that if he creates something that he can't lift, then he can't lift it and is therefore not omnipotent. If he can't create something he can't lift, then there is something that he can't make and is therefore not omnipotent.

So we should agree he's most likely not as omnipotent as we thought.

[Stasis]

If he can create something that he cannot lift that does not proves omnipotence. I can easily weld some pieces of metal together that I can't lift, doesn't mean anything.

I agree with SamBridge ... it isnt relevant.. the statement doesnt even make sense to begin with.... before forming the paradox, it must first stand on logic which here is nil.. now i know every one has their own point of view, so this remains a dispute till the end

[john5746]

Seems like he could use his trinity superpowers and become the following:

 

1) The Powerful

2) The Ultimate Rock

3) The Weakling

[Phi for All]

I agree with SamBridge ... it isnt relevant.. the statement doesnt even make sense to begin with.... before forming the paradox, it must first stand on logic which here is nil..

 

The statement IS logical. If you're capable of doing anything, then both these things should be within your power, lifting an unliftable weight and making a weight too heavy for you to lift. SamBridge can weld anything he wants to, but nobody is calling him omnipotent, so his argument isn't applicable.

 

now i know every one has their own point of view, so this remains a dispute till the end

 

You really don't get to decide that. That's why we're discussing it.

 

It's not really questioning God, it's questioning this concept of being able to do anything you can think of, this omnipotence. If God could really do ANYTHING, then why hasn't he done some non-paradoxical things like growing a limb back for an amputee? Supposedly, he cures people of all kinds of cancers and diseases on a daily basis, but there's no documented cases of regrown limbs.

[SamBridge]

The statement IS logical. If you're capable of doing anything, then both these things should be within your power, lifting an unliftable weight and making a weight too heavy for you to lift. SamBridge can weld anything he wants to, but nobody is calling him omnipotent, so his argument isn't applicable.

But that is my argument, creating something I can't lift would definitely mean I'm not omnipotent, the problem is that creating such a thing seems to be only associated with some kind of spiritual barbel or something ridiculous like that. What if god just plainly can't lift an entire star? Well, then he's not omnipotent, he can't do every single thing possible, like lifting a star. I can spend months collecting enough iron and wood to create a house, but I can't lift a house, I don't think I'm omnipotent.

[Phi for All]

But that is my argument, creating something I can't lift would definitely mean I'm not omnipotent, the problem is that creating such a thing seems to be only associated with some kind of spiritual barbel or something ridiculous like that. What if god just plainly can't lift an entire star? Well, then he's not omnipotent, he can't do every single thing possible, like lifting a star. I can spend months collecting enough iron and wood to create a house, but I can't lift a house, I don't think I'm omnipotent.

 

I don't understand your point. Did anyone ever claim omnipotence was anything other than a property of a god? It's not a property you can use yourself as an example for. And the claim that God is omnipotent is what motivated the observation that such was a paradox, so it's a logical rebuttal, not "something ridiculous like that".

[EdEarl]

On the average 100 people are affected annually by Jerusalem Syndrome, and at least some of them probably claim to be omnipotent.

 

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_syndrome

[SamBridge]

I don't understand your point. Did anyone ever claim omnipotence was anything other than a property of a god? It's not a property you can use yourself as an example for. And the claim that God is omnipotent is what motivated the observation that such was a paradox, so it's a logical rebuttal, not "something ridiculous like that".

The point is that creating that which god cannot lift does not have anything to do with omnipotence anymore than my building a house does, that's my point. No matter what, if there is a physical obstacle he cannot overcome, he cannot be omnipotent, if there is something he cannot lift even if it's something he created, then he cannot be omnipotent. Whether he can do that or has done that is pure speculation or guessing.

Because of this, if we cannot create the weight, then because that is another physical limitation he cannot be omnipotent. There's no paradox, it's just that no matter what, there has to be something he cannot do. If he isn't omnipotent then we don't have to assume he can create a weight in the first place.

Edited June 11, 2013 by SamBridge

[MonDie]

Can God dance? An omnipotent being should be able to dance.

[SamBridge]

Can God dance? An omnipotent being should be able to dance.

I think there's a youtube video of Morgan Freeman dancing here

 

Edited June 11, 2013 by SamBridge

[Phi for All]

The point is that creating that which god cannot lift does not have anything to do with omnipotence anymore than my building a house does, that's my point. No matter what, if there is a physical obstacle he cannot overcome, he cannot be omnipotent, if there is something he cannot lift even if it's something he created, then he cannot be omnipotent. Whether he can do that or has done that is pure speculation or guessing.

Because of this, if we cannot create the weight, then because that is another physical limitation he cannot be omnipotent. There's no paradox, it's just that no matter what, there has to be something he cannot do. If he isn't omnipotent then we don't have to assume he can create a weight in the first place.

 

Perhaps it's spelling mistakes, but when you continue to use yourself as a referent for omnipotence and mix "he" and "we", it makes it seem like you're saying because we can't do it, he can't do it. The paradox, and yes it does exist, is with the definition of omnipotence, not with God's lifting ability. It can't happen because there will always be something that omnipotence can't do, making it internally inconsistent.

[MonDie]

I think there's a youtube video of Morgan Freeman dancing here

 

I guess it depends on who your god is.

 

The point was that certain verbs imply something about the subject, so they just don't make sense for certain subjects. A god probably won't be able to dance, just like a cat cannot wilt and a flower cannot purr. To make a cat wilt, you must first turn it into a flower, at which point it's no longer a cat.

 

Another set of problems, which is perhaps a superset of the above set of problems, is that an omnipotent being should be able to bring about contradictory states of affairs. For example, it should be able to make quiet noises that are loud. Of course, a "quiet noise", by definition, is not loud. The problem has nothing to do with the abilities of the being, it has to do with the structure of our language.

 

To fix these issues, I would exchange "The ability to do anything" for "The ability to bring about any linguistically reconcilable state of affairs."

Edited June 12, 2013 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[SamBridge]

Perhaps it's spelling mistakes, but when you continue to use yourself as a referent for omnipotence and mix "he" and "we", it makes it seem like you're saying because we can't do it, he can't do it.

Perhaps it's a misinterpretation, but when you comment on a spelling mistake besides the point it of the post it makes you appear as though you are strawmanning.

 

The point was that certain verbs imply something about the subject, so they just don't make sense for certain subjects. A god probably won't be able to dance, just like a cat cannot wilt and a flower cannot purr. To make a cat wilt, you must first turn it into a flower, at which point it's no longer a cat.

Well if he has physical limitations then he cannot be omnipotent. This paradox would seem to prove that. No matter what, there is at least one thing god cannot do.

 

It can't happen because there will always be something that omnipotence can't do, making it internally inconsistent.

So then we should agree that unless there's something that can overturn the paradox, true omnipotence cannot exist.

Edited June 12, 2013 by SamBridge