i know it goes against us being christians of not to challenge God. but knowing
you people...i'm looking forward to your opinions...
merged: 07-08-2006 ~ 08:04am
well, been thinking about this..hmmm. from what i've heard..its a yes he can do
that but carrying it is not his will....
but on my P.o.V. human reasons may find it hard to believe
....ppl ppl ppl... Think about it a little. If god where to create a big fat
goddamn rock that would crush him... Everything including us will be crushed as
well. So don't be giving god any ideas now yeah? He might actually attempt to do
it :/
If god would create such thing...
what kind of purpose would it be for....?
A counterweapon against god if he was evil?
I wonder if we could become stronger than god if god cant lift that rock
himself....
Quote by shinmeiryuIf god would create
such thing...
what kind of purpose would it be for....?
A counterweapon against god if he was evil?
I wonder if we could become stronger than god if god cant lift that rock
himself....
hahahaha! A counterweapon against God.... yeah, a giant rock! Hahahaha, good
one.
Wow. I just heard a woosh sound go over the head of most of the people in this
thread. The point of the question is to challenge god's omnipotentence. If he
can create a rock so big that he CAN'T lift it then he's not omnipotent, and if
he CAN'T create the rock that big in the first place then he's not omnipotent.
Now stop trying to figure out what god would want to do with a giant rock. It's
like if he asked the "if a tree fell in the woods..." question and you
asked how big the tree is, it's irrelevant.
Homer's version...
"Can god microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cannot eat it?"
yeah... most of you are tip-toeing around the actual question. If God can do
anying then he could create such a rock. But then again, in a twist of logic he
could (if he is truely all powerful) lift and be unable to lift it at the same
time. Looking at it in a demetional manner. In one possiblity, he could lift it,
and at the parallel time in another he could be unable to. Either way, as a
hole, since he is all powerful, anything is possible.
The question really involves a logical paradox. It falls into the same category
as "an irresistible force meeting an immovable object". If a force is
truly irresistible, it can move any object. Conversely, if an object is truly
immovable, it can resist any force.
These arguments really involve word games and overly-legalistic logical games.
They do not prove that God is not omnipotent. They prove that Man has an
incomplete or inaccurate understanding of this aspect of God's nature. They
simply prove what everyone already knows - that human language is not perfect
and is not capable of fully describing God's divine nature.
Alot of people raise this question because they have not yet acknowledge that
God is omnipotent/all-powerful
Quote by Leosam096They simply prove
what everyone already knows - that human language is not perfect and is not
capable of fully describing God's divine nature.
Either that or it proves that a fictional character isn't restricted by reality
and can therefore have whatever powers it wants and its powers can simply be
redifined when logic refutes it.
Anyway here's my favorite....
"Proof that the Christian god cannot exist.
Omniscience vs. Human Free will. A
Paradox.
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past
and future events. Free will: Freedom to choose between
alternatives without external coercion. Paradox: Statements or events that have
contradictory and inconsistent properties.
Proposal:
Christianity cannot claim that God is omniscient and also claim that humans have
free will. The claims form a paradox, a falsehood.
Reasoning:
If God is omniscient then even before we are born God will have complete
knowledge of every decision we are going to make.
Any apparent choice we make regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a
savior is predetermined. This must be true to satisfy the assertion that God is
omniscient. Effectively we have no choice in the matter. What we think is free
will is an illusion. Our choices have been coerced since we exist and act
according to the will of God.
Alternatively if human free will is valid, meaning that the outcome of our
decisions is not pre-determined or coerced, then God cannot be omniscient, since
he would not know in advance our decisions.
Question:
If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding
the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set
of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal
damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.
Conclusions:
If God is omniscient then humans do not have free will (see argument above) and
the apparent arbitrary choice of God to condemn many individuals to eternal
damnation is evil. I.e. God does not possess the property of omni benevolence
and is therefore not worth our attention.
If humans have true free will then God cannot be omniscient (see argument
above). If he is not omniscient then he also cannot be omnipotent since
knowledge of the future is a prerequisite for total action. Without these
abilities God can no longer be deemed a god - i.e. God does not exist.
If humans do not have free will then the choice of whether to choose Jesus as a
savior or not makes total nonsense of Christianity since the choice is
pre-determined and we are merely puppets at the hands of an evil monster."
If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding
the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set
of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal
damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.
Alternative Conclusions:
1. If God's ultimate will is above human understanding it can be said that by
trying to understand it we fail to gain any ground. If God is all-powerful then
nothing can restrict him... not even logic.
2. If God knows all things and we have free will, it can be assumed that there
is an allowance for such a thing. One such allowance is that there are multiple
dimensions and God knows all paths into the future but restricts his abilities
to know which path we will take as to give us the gift of free will. God has
been known to restrict his power for the allowance of several things in our
world, so this is not a hard thing to imagine.
3. There is also the possibility that even though God knows everything we will
do, he is not dictating our choices. We still, then, have free will despite
God's omniscience.
Quote by PlunkiesEither that or it
proves that a fictional character isn't restricted by reality and can therefore
have whatever powers it wants and its powers can simply be redifined when logic
refutes it.
Anyway here's my favorite....
"Proof that the Christian god cannot exist.
Omniscience vs. Human Free will. A
Paradox.
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past
and future events. Free will: Freedom to choose between
alternatives without external coercion. Paradox: Statements or events that have
contradictory and inconsistent properties.
Proposal:
Christianity cannot claim that God is omniscient and also claim that humans have
free will. The claims form a paradox, a falsehood.
Reasoning:
If God is omniscient then even before we are born God will have complete
knowledge of every decision we are going to make.
Any apparent choice we make regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a
savior is predetermined. This must be true to satisfy the assertion that God is
omniscient. Effectively we have no choice in the matter. What we think is free
will is an illusion. Our choices have been coerced since we exist and act
according to the will of God.
Alternatively if human free will is valid, meaning that the outcome of our
decisions is not pre-determined or coerced, then God cannot be omniscient, since
he would not know in advance our decisions.
Question:
If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding
the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set
of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal
damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.
Conclusions:
If God is omniscient then humans do not have free will (see argument above) and
the apparent arbitrary choice of God to condemn many individuals to eternal
damnation is evil. I.e. God does not possess the property of omni benevolence
and is therefore not worth our attention.
If humans have true free will then God cannot be omniscient (see argument
above). If he is not omniscient then he also cannot be omnipotent since
knowledge of the future is a prerequisite for total action. Without these
abilities God can no longer be deemed a god - i.e. God does not exist.
If humans do not have free will then the choice of whether to choose Jesus as a
savior or not makes total nonsense of Christianity since the choice is
pre-determined and we are merely puppets at the hands of an evil
monster."
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past
and future events. Free will: Freedom to choose between
alternatives without external coercion.
Looking at these two statements alone, there is no real paradox. However since
you claim that there is I will explain to you why there isn't.
Proposal:
Knowing what will happen does not mean that we are preventing or causing that
thing to happen. The sun will rise tomorrow. I am not causing it to rise nor am
I preventing it from rising by knowing that it will happen. Likewise, if I put a
bowl of ice-cream and a bowl of cauliflower in front of my child, I know for a
fact which one is chosen, the ice cream. My knowing it ahead of time does not
restrict my child from making a free choice when the time comes. My child is
free to make a choice and knowing the choice has no effect upon her when she
makes it.
Logic:
Logically, God knowing what we are going to do
does not mean that we can't do something else. It means that God simply knows
what we have chosen to do ahead of time. Our freedom is not restricted by
God's foreknowledge; our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God. In
this, our natural ability to make another choice has not been removed anymore
than my choice of what to write inside the parenthesis (hello) was removed by
God who knew I would put the word "hello" in the parentheses before
the universe was made. Before typing the word "hello," I pondered
which word to write. My pondering was my doing and the choice was mine. How then
was I somehow restricted in freedom when choosing what to write if God knew what
I was going to do? No matter what choice we freely make can be known by God and
His knowing it doesn't mean we aren't making a free choice.
Time:
Part of the issue here is the nature of time. If the future exists for God even
as the present does, then God is consistently in all places at all times and is
not restricted by time. This would mean that time was not a part of His nature
to which God is subject, and that God is not a linear entity; that is, it would
mean that God is not restricted to operating in our time realm and is not
restricted to the present only. If God is not restricted to existence in the
present, our present, then the future is known by God because God indwells the
future as well as the present (and the past). This would mean that our future
choices, as free as they are, are simply known by God. Again, our ability to
choose is not altered or lessened by God existing in the future an knowing what
we freely choose. It just means that God can see what we will freely choose --
because that is what we freely choose -- and know what it is. Part of the
problem in Open Theism is that by restricting God to the present only, His
existence is defined in such a way as to imply that time is part of His nature
and that He is restricted to it. The question is whether or not this is logical
as well as biblical.
Scripture:
Scripturally, God inhabits eternity. Psalm 90:2 says, "Before the mountains
were born, or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." But this verses, an others, do
not declare that God lives inside or outside of time. Rather, the Bible tells us
that God is eternal. We can, however, note that the Bible teaches that God has
no beginning or end. This is not definitive, but we may be able to conclude that
since time is that non-spatial, continuous succession of events from the past,
through the present, and into the future, and that since the word
"beginning" denotes a relationship to and in time, and since God has
no beginning, that time is not applicable to God's nature. In other words, God
has no beginning and since "beginning" deals with an event in time,
God is outside of time.
Nevertheless, the scriptures are not definitive on this issue and we can only
conclude what it does say; namely, that God is eternal, without beginning,
without end, and that He can accurately and precisely predict what will
happen.
"As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would
take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you
what will take place," (Dan. 2:29).
So, in relation to our free will and God's predictive ability, there is no
biblical reason to assert that God's foreknowledge negates our freedom.
Conclusion:
There is no logical reason to claim that if God knows what choices we are going
to make that it means we are not free. It still means that the free choices we
will make are free -- they are just known ahead of time by God. If we choose
something different, then that choice will have been eternally known by God.
Furthermore, this knowledge by God does not alter our nature in that it does not
change what we are, free to make choices. God's knowledge is necessarily
complete and exhaustive because that is His nature to know all things. In fact,
since He has eternally known what all our free choices will be, He has ordained
history to come to the conclusion that He wishes including and incorporating our
choices into His divine plan: "For truly in this city there were gathered
together against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do
whatever Thy hand and Thy purpose predestined to occur," (Acts 4:27-28).
Why because God always knows all things: "..God is greater than our heart,
and knows all things," (1 John 3:20).
And to answer to teh-hippie's question: While it's a fun question to think
about, we can't command God to do anything isn't his will. It defies the meaning
of all powerful. Whether he can do it or not, I don't know though. It's fun to
speculate, but it's nothing we should crack our heads over.
people, chill out. Who cares if god can create a rock or not. Whatever god does
is his own business. Hell, if any of you created a rock, i wouldn't give a shit.
i know it goes against us being christians of not to challenge God. but knowing you people...i'm looking forward to your opinions...
merged: 07-08-2006 ~ 08:04am
well, been thinking about this..hmmm. from what i've heard..its a yes he can do that but carrying it is not his will....
but on my P.o.V. human reasons may find it hard to believe
well,he can create a rock sooooo big but he CAn carry it.
Why would he want to create such a heavy rock? o.O to crush himself with it?
if GOD exists he coud not create somthing he can not controle
Sou now
Lol. This intrigues me ! Why on earth will he like to create that ?
Possible God can carry it but God can make another thing to carry it. Now , why not ? Miracles happen.
yes... we can create things we cannot carry, why can't God do the same?
....ppl ppl ppl... Think about it a little. If god where to create a big fat goddamn rock that would crush him... Everything including us will be crushed as well. So don't be giving god any ideas now yeah? He might actually attempt to do it :/
if god made a giant rock from out of no where, , i think god would be able to carry it, what cant god control? , other than satan stuff and,, yea
If god would create such thing...
what kind of purpose would it be for....?
A counterweapon against god if he was evil?
I wonder if we could become stronger than god if god cant lift that rock himself....
hahahaha! A counterweapon against God.... yeah, a giant rock! Hahahaha, good one.
Wow. I just heard a woosh sound go over the head of most of the people in this thread. The point of the question is to challenge god's omnipotentence. If he can create a rock so big that he CAN'T lift it then he's not omnipotent, and if he CAN'T create the rock that big in the first place then he's not omnipotent. Now stop trying to figure out what god would want to do with a giant rock. It's like if he asked the "if a tree fell in the woods..." question and you asked how big the tree is, it's irrelevant.
Homer's version...
"Can god microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cannot eat it?"
If he can make humans. A giant rock can't be that hard...
that depends.....
is there gravity in heaven? ^___~ lol
god made this whole universe, lifting a big rock shouldn't be a problem ne? =O
That depends on God's properties.
yeah... most of you are tip-toeing around the actual question. If God can do anying then he could create such a rock. But then again, in a twist of logic he could (if he is truely all powerful) lift and be unable to lift it at the same time. Looking at it in a demetional manner. In one possiblity, he could lift it, and at the parallel time in another he could be unable to. Either way, as a hole, since he is all powerful, anything is possible.
I hate cliches! God can create the giant rock and carry it to boot if he so desires!
The question really involves a logical paradox. It falls into the same category as "an irresistible force meeting an immovable object". If a force is truly irresistible, it can move any object. Conversely, if an object is truly immovable, it can resist any force.
These arguments really involve word games and overly-legalistic logical games. They do not prove that God is not omnipotent. They prove that Man has an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of this aspect of God's nature. They simply prove what everyone already knows - that human language is not perfect and is not capable of fully describing God's divine nature.
Alot of people raise this question because they have not yet acknowledge that God is omnipotent/all-powerful
Either that or it proves that a fictional character isn't restricted by reality and can therefore have whatever powers it wants and its powers can simply be redifined when logic refutes it.
Anyway here's my favorite....
"Proof that the Christian god cannot exist.
Omniscience vs. Human Free will. A Paradox.
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
Free will: Freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion.
Paradox: Statements or events that have contradictory and inconsistent properties.
Proposal:
Christianity cannot claim that God is omniscient and also claim that humans have free will. The claims form a paradox, a falsehood.
Reasoning:
If God is omniscient then even before we are born God will have complete knowledge of every decision we are going to make.
Any apparent choice we make regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior is predetermined. This must be true to satisfy the assertion that God is omniscient. Effectively we have no choice in the matter. What we think is free will is an illusion. Our choices have been coerced since we exist and act according to the will of God.
Alternatively if human free will is valid, meaning that the outcome of our decisions is not pre-determined or coerced, then God cannot be omniscient, since he would not know in advance our decisions.
Question:
If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.
Conclusions:
If God is omniscient then humans do not have free will (see argument above) and the apparent arbitrary choice of God to condemn many individuals to eternal damnation is evil. I.e. God does not possess the property of omni benevolence and is therefore not worth our attention.
If humans have true free will then God cannot be omniscient (see argument above). If he is not omniscient then he also cannot be omnipotent since knowledge of the future is a prerequisite for total action. Without these abilities God can no longer be deemed a god - i.e. God does not exist.
If humans do not have free will then the choice of whether to choose Jesus as a savior or not makes total nonsense of Christianity since the choice is pre-determined and we are merely puppets at the hands of an evil monster."
Clap, Clap, Clap. Good Job Plunkies. Um on the Rock God thing assuming God is " Real" it depends on what powers you give him, his Chareteristics.
Question:
If God knows the decision of every individual, before they are born, regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a savior, then why does he create one set of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil.
Alternative Conclusions:
1. If God's ultimate will is above human understanding it can be said that by trying to understand it we fail to gain any ground. If God is all-powerful then nothing can restrict him... not even logic.
2. If God knows all things and we have free will, it can be assumed that there is an allowance for such a thing. One such allowance is that there are multiple dimensions and God knows all paths into the future but restricts his abilities to know which path we will take as to give us the gift of free will. God has been known to restrict his power for the allowance of several things in our world, so this is not a hard thing to imagine.
3. There is also the possibility that even though God knows everything we will do, he is not dictating our choices. We still, then, have free will despite God's omniscience.
Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
Free will: Freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion.
Looking at these two statements alone, there is no real paradox. However since you claim that there is I will explain to you why there isn't.
Proposal:
Knowing what will happen does not mean that we are preventing or causing that thing to happen. The sun will rise tomorrow. I am not causing it to rise nor am I preventing it from rising by knowing that it will happen. Likewise, if I put a bowl of ice-cream and a bowl of cauliflower in front of my child, I know for a fact which one is chosen, the ice cream. My knowing it ahead of time does not restrict my child from making a free choice when the time comes. My child is free to make a choice and knowing the choice has no effect upon her when she makes it.
Logic:
Logically, God knowing what we are going to do does not mean that we can't do something else. It means that God simply knows what we have chosen to do ahead of time. Our freedom is not restricted by God's foreknowledge; our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God. In this, our natural ability to make another choice has not been removed anymore than my choice of what to write inside the parenthesis (hello) was removed by God who knew I would put the word "hello" in the parentheses before the universe was made. Before typing the word "hello," I pondered which word to write. My pondering was my doing and the choice was mine. How then was I somehow restricted in freedom when choosing what to write if God knew what I was going to do? No matter what choice we freely make can be known by God and His knowing it doesn't mean we aren't making a free choice.
Time:
Part of the issue here is the nature of time. If the future exists for God even as the present does, then God is consistently in all places at all times and is not restricted by time. This would mean that time was not a part of His nature to which God is subject, and that God is not a linear entity; that is, it would mean that God is not restricted to operating in our time realm and is not restricted to the present only. If God is not restricted to existence in the present, our present, then the future is known by God because God indwells the future as well as the present (and the past). This would mean that our future choices, as free as they are, are simply known by God. Again, our ability to choose is not altered or lessened by God existing in the future an knowing what we freely choose. It just means that God can see what we will freely choose -- because that is what we freely choose -- and know what it is. Part of the problem in Open Theism is that by restricting God to the present only, His existence is defined in such a way as to imply that time is part of His nature and that He is restricted to it. The question is whether or not this is logical as well as biblical.
Scripture:
Scripturally, God inhabits eternity. Psalm 90:2 says, "Before the mountains were born, or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." But this verses, an others, do not declare that God lives inside or outside of time. Rather, the Bible tells us that God is eternal. We can, however, note that the Bible teaches that God has no beginning or end. This is not definitive, but we may be able to conclude that since time is that non-spatial, continuous succession of events from the past, through the present, and into the future, and that since the word "beginning" denotes a relationship to and in time, and since God has no beginning, that time is not applicable to God's nature. In other words, God has no beginning and since "beginning" deals with an event in time, God is outside of time.
Nevertheless, the scriptures are not definitive on this issue and we can only conclude what it does say; namely, that God is eternal, without beginning, without end, and that He can accurately and precisely predict what will happen.
"As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place," (Dan. 2:29).
So, in relation to our free will and God's predictive ability, there is no biblical reason to assert that God's foreknowledge negates our freedom.
Conclusion:
There is no logical reason to claim that if God knows what choices we are going to make that it means we are not free. It still means that the free choices we will make are free -- they are just known ahead of time by God. If we choose something different, then that choice will have been eternally known by God. Furthermore, this knowledge by God does not alter our nature in that it does not change what we are, free to make choices. God's knowledge is necessarily complete and exhaustive because that is His nature to know all things. In fact, since He has eternally known what all our free choices will be, He has ordained history to come to the conclusion that He wishes including and incorporating our choices into His divine plan: "For truly in this city there were gathered together against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever Thy hand and Thy purpose predestined to occur," (Acts 4:27-28). Why because God always knows all things: "..God is greater than our heart, and knows all things," (1 John 3:20).
And to answer to teh-hippie's question: While it's a fun question to think about, we can't command God to do anything isn't his will. It defies the meaning of all powerful. Whether he can do it or not, I don't know though. It's fun to speculate, but it's nothing we should crack our heads over.
people, chill out. Who cares if god can create a rock or not. Whatever god does is his own business. Hell, if any of you created a rock, i wouldn't give a shit.