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Can God make a stone so heavy that even He can not lift it?
Bennmann
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Two solutions:
Premises for solution 1:
a) There is a God and
b) He can (as the very definition of God) make anything He wants
c) Miracles are logical fallacies and God can perform them.
1) God makes a rock with the intent of not being able to lift it. (premise a,b)
2) The rock cannot be lifted by God (premise b)
3) God lifts the rock (premise c)
Premises for solution 2:
a) There is a God and
b) He can (as the very definition of God) do anything
c) He intends to make a rock so heavy not even He can lift it.
1) God starts to make a rock so heavy that not even He can lift it (premises a,b,c)
2) The rock grows to such a large size that the force of it's own gravity starts to pull all the matter of the rock into an infinitely small space with an infinite mass. (premise b)
3) God can no longer lift the rock because "lift" has no meaning when referring to a black hole. (premise b,c)
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!!!!
Anyone ever seen the black hole solution before?
Premises for solution 1:
a) There is a God and
b) He can (as the very definition of God) make anything He wants
c) Miracles are logical fallacies and God can perform them.
1) God makes a rock with the intent of not being able to lift it. (premise a,b)
2) The rock cannot be lifted by God (premise b)
3) God lifts the rock (premise c)
Premises for solution 2:
a) There is a God and
b) He can (as the very definition of God) do anything
c) He intends to make a rock so heavy not even He can lift it.
1) God starts to make a rock so heavy that not even He can lift it (premises a,b,c)
2) The rock grows to such a large size that the force of it's own gravity starts to pull all the matter of the rock into an infinitely small space with an infinite mass. (premise b)
3) God can no longer lift the rock because "lift" has no meaning when referring to a black hole. (premise b,c)
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!!!!
Anyone ever seen the black hole solution before?
Bennmann on
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This discussion has been closed.
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Wouldn't that break the laws of reality?
Edit: Would God, by definition, break the laws of reality?
Only if He intended to. The question lies with His intent, not with his capability.
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lifting something beings with bodies do, anyway. He could make a body and put himself in it, and make a stone that body couldn't lift, he could then change the body so it could lift the stone.
To quote myself, has anyone ever seen the black hole solution before?
See premise c, solution 1.
No, and there's a problem with it. By saying that the rock would be so massive that it would collapse into a black hole, God would still be unable to make a rock so heavy that He could not lift it - because apparently whenever He tries it turns into a black hole.
Is this about Schwarzschild solution? Looking through the Wiki it sounds exceptionally complex and far outside my field of expertise. I am going to just guess what you mean~
You believe in a deity and you are looking for absolute proof to the existence of a god, because Schwarzschild solution has never been explained as thoroughly as ..say.. gravity, evolution or the round earth you think that this is the absolute proof that there is a deity looking over us.
I still don't get what this has to do with really heavy stones, but ok.
It also shows the contradiction of an omnipotent God.
Only in the same way Zeno's Paradox shows movement is impossible.
It's a discussion of the theory and logic behind one of the Omnipotence paradoxes. My belief, you'll note, is not explicitly stated in any of the premises. Possible beliefs are. For arguments sake, I do believe in God, but that's not the discussion.
@Burnage - the black hole really shows the major flaw in the original question (that being that "rock", "stone" are not well defined, particularly when dealing with large quantities of mass), not a flaw in the concept of God.
Edit: typos suck
Well, all your possibilities as well as your original question assumed that there was a god, so that's what made me think this was about religion.
This is one of those fields of research where we don't know everything, it is an interesting train of thought you posted there, carry on.
I disagree. The question is perfectly simple and well defined; can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it? By saying that a massively heavy rock will inevitably collapse into a black hole, you are striking yet another blow against the idea of God's omnipotence.
Either the super-heavy rock will collapse into a black hole, and God cannot even make a massively heavy rock, let alone one that he can not lift, or God can break the normal rules of physics - the rock remains a rock and the original question still stands.
Except within quantum systems? God is omnipotent, but not quantumly?
Excellent disagreement, but if you are to make it a disagreement of English, then at the very point the "rock" becomes a "black hole" the question doesn't cover it. Caterpillar is not the same word as Butterfly, even if they cover the same species.
Edit: especially if at changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly, the entire quantum structure changes absolutely (which presumably happens to such a collapsing mass?).
Okay, let's work through what's meant to be happening here.
1) God creates a super-heavy object, which at time A is a rock.
2) At time B, the object begins to collapse from a rock into a black hole - at this point the object is neither a rock nor a black hole.
3) At time C, the object has collapsed and is a black hole.
The original question only applies to time A. The object collapsing into a black hole is actually completely irrelevant to the question of whether God could not lift the super-heavy rock.
If my order of events is wrong, and God would not be able to make that rock because it would instantly collapse into a blackhole, then God's omnipotence is proven false.
Whatever you might say, a Christian has faith that God is everything, omnipotent, omniscient, perhaps omnierotic for all I know.
And so if you take the obvious conclusion that god can't be omnipotent, it just doesn't matter.
Because faith conquers all.
Well, yes. The standard monotheistic response would be to say that God could break the laws of physics, and is thus omnipotent. The real test of the concept of omnipotence is when it comes to paradoxical statements, such as the original question in this thread and questions such as "Could God make a triangle with four sides?"
It's not for lack of power that non-omnipotent beings can't do this, so the idea that sufficient power would enable it is dumb. Can you make one? Sure, but our language calls it a square. It's a question of language, not power.
It's like asking if humans are truly alive. Well, all of us that are "living" share a certain quality, and if you want to disassociate the word living from that, fine, but we still have that quality and need a name for it, and well, living worked pretty well up until now, so why not find a new word for the mysterious quality that some "living" humans apparently lack.
Indeed it seems solution two, when sticking with very, very strict English/ontology to the word "rock", and following the question with no creativity, is false completely without adding premise c from solution 1.
So my position then would be that the rock can still be considered for the question if you allow "black hole" to represent it after the transition. Although presumably the problem with the word "lift" apples to any free floating object in space. The question is flawed in so many ways.
I agree with you, actually. It's just that by some definitions of "omnipotence" God should be able to make a triangle with four sides. The more reasonable position is, obviously, for omnipotence to only enable a deity to perform logically possible acts.
Thank you, this is the correct answer. The phrase "a ____ so ____ that a being that can do anything cannot do _____ to it" is logically and linguistically gibberish. In fact, it's listed in the invalid arguments and logical fallacies portion of the rules thread for this forum. Please stop discussing this as if it were in some way a debate about physics or religion.
Unique Omnipotent paradox discussions included? I certainly hope that this "Discourse" has helped the forum more than hindered it. We've covered language more than physics or religion, particularly the presentation of objects.
These attributes are probably the biggest problem I have with the Christian God, I just can't take the idea seriously.
From a moral perspective, omniscience & omnipotence (logical inconsistencies aside) essentially mean that God is an irredeemable monster.