Rock Lifting
- Thread starter Messenger_T
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Could a human make a car so big that we couldn't lift it??? In retrospect yes, but the thing with being a humans is we are more than capable of creating a bigger crane to move that immovable car...
That is a small analogy... And it really isn't a paradox either... Think of it as a conversation if I say Hello, you will follow up with a retort of most likely Hi how are you doing, and I reply with a good how about your self. You then say not to shabby its beautiful weather don't you agree... (and so on and so forth) The last retort always holds the most weight, and to the untrained conversationalist reading this little analogy... They would have the perception that once you indulge into a conversation it is never ending. However at anytime of your will you can go back to how you are doing and negate the weather or entirely drop the conversation all together without destroying any laws or the convo itslef ... Because you created the conversation and its linearity...
(Hope this helps, P.S. Love the name)
That is a small analogy... And it really isn't a paradox either... Think of it as a conversation if I say Hello, you will follow up with a retort of most likely Hi how are you doing, and I reply with a good how about your self. You then say not to shabby its beautiful weather don't you agree... (and so on and so forth) The last retort always holds the most weight, and to the untrained conversationalist reading this little analogy... They would have the perception that once you indulge into a conversation it is never ending. However at anytime of your will you can go back to how you are doing and negate the weather or entirely drop the conversation all together without destroying any laws or the convo itslef ... Because you created the conversation and its linearity...
(Hope this helps, P.S. Love the name)
Last edited:
Who art thou? Such a foolish question.
Dost thou not know that God cannot do EVERYTHING that foolish minds conjure up.
Dost thou not know that God cannot lie. He cannot. He does not choose to lie. He just can't. Why? Because He's God, He's Holy.
He cannot deny Himself.
What say you?
Can God deny Himself?
He can only do that which is true. Your silly question turns on itself and is therefore a contradiction. It is not, in other words a question.
What say you?
Thou art sentenced to pay 500 ducats. Sentenced, also, to no less than 50 sunrises of hard labor. Ye are to lift rocks that you cannot lift by yourself. If you do not. Then you will stay there until you do. Can you do it?
Dost thou not know that God cannot do EVERYTHING that foolish minds conjure up.
Dost thou not know that God cannot lie. He cannot. He does not choose to lie. He just can't. Why? Because He's God, He's Holy.
He cannot deny Himself.
What say you?
Can God deny Himself?
He can only do that which is true. Your silly question turns on itself and is therefore a contradiction. It is not, in other words a question.
What say you?
Thou art sentenced to pay 500 ducats. Sentenced, also, to no less than 50 sunrises of hard labor. Ye are to lift rocks that you cannot lift by yourself. If you do not. Then you will stay there until you do. Can you do it?
I once heard someone answer the question this way:
I really liked that response because there is nothing impossible for God. So, if He truly wanted to create a rock so big that He, Himself, couldn't lift it (though why He'd care to do so is beyond me), then He could and would create such a rock. And then, being God, He would lift it. Why? Because we are finite and foolish and He is infinite and wise.
This is why God would never do this, however: there is no purpose to a rock so big that He couldn't lift it and God does everything for a purpose.
This is when people try to put the worldly workings of Philosophy into the spiritual realm of faith. And round and round the mulberry bush we go.
I really liked that response because there is nothing impossible for God. So, if He truly wanted to create a rock so big that He, Himself, couldn't lift it (though why He'd care to do so is beyond me), then He could and would create such a rock. And then, being God, He would lift it. Why? Because we are finite and foolish and He is infinite and wise.
This is why God would never do this, however: there is no purpose to a rock so big that He couldn't lift it and God does everything for a purpose.
This is when people try to put the worldly workings of Philosophy into the spiritual realm of faith. And round and round the mulberry bush we go.
..uh, well, apparently, even on Christian Web Sites, that's debatable........as I have seen comments that deny the "deity" of Christ........ just saying.....
Philippians 2:3) Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4 .) Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 .) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 .) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 .) But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 .) And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
just saying.....Philippians 2:3) Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4 .) Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 .) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 .) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 .) But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 .) And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Last edited:
It depends on how you interpret omnipotence and the ability of God.
/puts on philosophical history cap/
If you take the view of Descartes, then God's omnipotence could possibly mean that he could do things that are logically impossible, because logic is a construct of human existence, and not necessarily a construct of divine existence. In other words, someone like Descartes would argue that God is absolutely powerful, and therefore could create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift, and then lift it. There is a problem from our perspective, but from God's perspective there is no problem, and it is entirely feasible.
If you take the view of someone like Thomas Aquinas, it's nonsensical for God to be able to do something logically impossible, but then it is logically impossible for God to do something like make a stone he cannot lift. The reason he cannot do so is not that he lacks the ability to make said stone, but because it is simply a logically empty statement. The idea that an infinitely powerful could create something more powerful than infinite power is a meaningless and incoherent statement, and thus falls outside the bounds of possible activity, description or logic.
Under either view, the stone problem is not actually a problem.
As a side note, if you follow along with someone like Augustine, then the real basis of God's power is not so much to do with logic, but with will. In other words, what makes God all powerful is not whether he can do this thing or that thing, but rather the idea that whatever God wills, happens. The advantage of this view theologically is that it actually finds quite a lot of scriptural foundation. Thus, applying this view to the rock problem, one would have to question why God would want to make an all powerful rock in the first place, and then that would determine whether he would/could.
/removes hat
/puts on philosophical history cap/
If you take the view of Descartes, then God's omnipotence could possibly mean that he could do things that are logically impossible, because logic is a construct of human existence, and not necessarily a construct of divine existence. In other words, someone like Descartes would argue that God is absolutely powerful, and therefore could create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift, and then lift it. There is a problem from our perspective, but from God's perspective there is no problem, and it is entirely feasible.
If you take the view of someone like Thomas Aquinas, it's nonsensical for God to be able to do something logically impossible, but then it is logically impossible for God to do something like make a stone he cannot lift. The reason he cannot do so is not that he lacks the ability to make said stone, but because it is simply a logically empty statement. The idea that an infinitely powerful could create something more powerful than infinite power is a meaningless and incoherent statement, and thus falls outside the bounds of possible activity, description or logic.
Under either view, the stone problem is not actually a problem.
As a side note, if you follow along with someone like Augustine, then the real basis of God's power is not so much to do with logic, but with will. In other words, what makes God all powerful is not whether he can do this thing or that thing, but rather the idea that whatever God wills, happens. The advantage of this view theologically is that it actually finds quite a lot of scriptural foundation. Thus, applying this view to the rock problem, one would have to question why God would want to make an all powerful rock in the first place, and then that would determine whether he would/could.
/removes hat
K
THe power of God is simply this. Christ and Him crucified.
For the preaching of the cross is the power of God to us who are saved, but foolishness to those who are not.
Again, God uses the simple things to confound the wise. Such as science cannot explain how life is procreated when the seed of man meets a woman's egg. After all these years they cannot. After hundreds of years of studying lions we still can't make one. I mean take some dirt and make one. Can't be done.
For the preaching of the cross is the power of God to us who are saved, but foolishness to those who are not.
Again, God uses the simple things to confound the wise. Such as science cannot explain how life is procreated when the seed of man meets a woman's egg. After all these years they cannot. After hundreds of years of studying lions we still can't make one. I mean take some dirt and make one. Can't be done.
