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Forums - General Discussion - Can God create a rock so big that he can't lift it?

Khuutra on 27 October 2009

Okay I'm not going to answer this just yet (I only slept four hours and intend to get more), but the question is not so much about God and a rock as it is about whether or not God can create something greater than Himself

And the answer to that question is yes.

highwaystar101, you will take note that in Genesis 1 God moves upon the surface of the water before he actually creates anything - the universe was there before God walked on it. Neither one necessarily predates the other, but both of them predate the time when God arrived in the universe.

A strict reading of Genesis depicts God as a shaper, not a creator, in the strictest sense. He is a sculptor working with the clay of the universe.



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highwaystar101 on 27 October 2009
Khuutra said:
Okay I'm not going to answer this just yet (I only slept four hours and intend to get more), but the question is not so much about God and a rock as it is about whether or not God can create something greater than Himself

And the answer to that question is yes.

highwaystar101, you will take note that in Genesis 1 God moves upon the surface of the water before he actually creates anything - the universe was there before God walked on it. Neither one necessarily predates the other, but both of them predate the time when God arrived in the universe.

A strict reading of Genesis depicts God as a shaper, not a creator, in the strictest sense. He is a sculptor working with the clay of the universe.

You completely misunderstood my argument there. It wasn't the events of Genesis I was questioning, it was the periods of Genesis. Genesis gives finite periods of creation*, days, for a creator that logically has to exist within infinite time.

(*Or shaping as you said)



Khuutra on 27 October 2009
highwaystar101 said:

You completely misunderstood my argument there. It wasn't the events of Genesis I was questioning, it was the periods of Genesis. Genesis gives finite periods of creation*, days, for a creator that logically has to exist within infinite time.

(*Or shaping as you said)

Look, Genesis also plainly outlines that the entire universe as humanity is concerned is contained inside of a dome of earth that holds back the second ocean of the sky (which is why the sky is blue). The universe explained in Genesis has only existed in this state for a few thousand years. Before that it doesn't exactly matter, cosmology was very different back then.

And no, God doesn't have to exist for infinite time, nor did the Heavenly host: there are plenty of mythologies where the primordial gods are born out of chaos. God's origin is never delved into, but that doesn't mean that God is timeless.

Jewish cosmology was really interesting but also pretty distinctly Mesopotamian



Mise on 27 October 2009

I'm assuming this is talking about the christian god.

And yes, He can, assuming He knows the limits of His strength.



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Khuutra on 27 October 2009

Taken in a different direction, "time" could be understood to have begun when God walked upon the waters, which, yes, would mean that God originated from outside of the universe. That's pretty much what Genesis implies.

The thing about people and the "origin" of God is that it comes from an understanding of the universe which is invested in a knowledge of origin - things don't just exist out of nothing, now do they?

Except that we used to think that they did. There are two explanations for the "beginning" of the universe, which is understood to be the time that God walked on the waters:

1. God and the rest of the Host were spontaneously born out of the darkness of the waters, kind of like what happened with the primordial Norse gods being born out of hoarfrost.

2. God and the rest of the Host originated from a universe above ours, ala the Mesopotamian gods, and the origins of God and the Host simply are never addressed in our cosmology because it doesn't matter.

Does this mean that there was a time before God existed? Well, no, it doesn't have to if that offends your sensibilities. Time, after all, only began when God moved on the waters.



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Zlejedi on 27 October 2009
highwaystar101 said:
Khuutra said:
Okay I'm not going to answer this just yet (I only slept four hours and intend to get more), but the question is not so much about God and a rock as it is about whether or not God can create something greater than Himself

And the answer to that question is yes.

highwaystar101, you will take note that in Genesis 1 God moves upon the surface of the water before he actually creates anything - the universe was there before God walked on it. Neither one necessarily predates the other, but both of them predate the time when God arrived in the universe.

A strict reading of Genesis depicts God as a shaper, not a creator, in the strictest sense. He is a sculptor working with the clay of the universe.

You completely misunderstood my argument there. It wasn't the events of Genesis I was questioning, it was the periods of Genesis. Genesis gives finite periods of creation*, days, for a creator that logically has to exist within infinite time.

(*Or shaping as you said)

Sigh every not ultra fanatical catholic priest will tell you that Genesis shouldn't be taken literally and it's only allegory of world creation.



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Khuutra on 27 October 2009
Zlejedi said:

Sigh every not ultra fanatical catholic priest will tell you that Genesis shouldn't be taken literally and it's only allegory of world creation.

That's horse poop. Genesis isn't an allegory for anything. Allegory is supposed to have intrinsic meaning and teach a lesson. What's the lesson in the first two chapters of Genesis? There is none! It's meant to be a literal account.

Edit: Sleeping now



Rath on 27 October 2009
highwaystar101 said:
Rath said:
Infinite and finite realms? o.O

I'm sorry, I've lost you there.



Also why are you making the assumption that god exists within time. Time seems to be a property of our universe and there is no real reason why it should exist outside of our universe. If time doesn't exist then the 'who created the creator' argument kind of falls apart as causality may no longer be required.

I'm not making the assumption that God exists within time, that's my point. That's what I mean when I say infinite time, infinite time is not our time, it exists outside of time. If God existed here then it could. theoretically, move any rock, regardless of mass, density, dimension or whatever.

But for me this means it can not a rock within our finite realm. The rock has to be infinite.

...

Perhaps I could be a little more clear about what I mean by infinite and finite realms. Let's use our universe as an example. We know that our universe is a finite realm. However impossibly huge it seems to us we know it is finite of time and resources, there has been a point where the universe never existed and there will be a point where the Universe will no longer exist. We know that the Universe will eventually reach a maximum capacity too, showing that it has finite resources. The Universe is a finite realm.

Now if I was a being that possessed an infinite power within this Universe I would be forced to become finite to adapt to the Universe. Why? Because If I had infinite time I would be limited by the finite time of the Universe and if I had infinite power then I would be limited by bother the finite resources and time o the Universe.

...

My argument is not the who created the creator argument at the end of the day, it is a question of finity vs infinity. And you can take that which ever way you want it to.

Essentially a being from an infinite realm cannot exist within or interact with a finite realm.

Infinite time is an extremely strange term to use - it implies a concept of an infinite length of time (eternity) which requires the concept of time to begin with.

 

Also I'm still really badly failing to get your reasoning here. Yes we are talking about a being of infinite power existing outside of time and space, I don't see how this constrains it when interacting with time and space. In my view (and this really is getting down to views here for me) the being would not be constrained by time because in its view the universe just exists - from the outside it doesn't appear to be something that comes and goes (because comes and goes are meaningless terms without time) it is just something that exists.



burgerstein on 27 October 2009

I think we can avoid a lot of the cosmology problems if we just replace god with Dr. Manhattan. ;)



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JaggedSac on 27 October 2009
Rath said:
angrypoolman said:
TheRealMafoo said:

The answer is easily no, because there is no god.

But if the point of that comment was to discredit what the bible says about god, there are much better examples.

My favorite is the belief that god is omnipotent, and that god has given man free will.

These two things can't both be true. If I have free will, god can not make me do anything, and if at any time god can make me do anything, I don't have free will, I only have gods will.

i still fail to see how those two statements contradict eachother. just because god knows what you are going to do doesnt mean he controls what you are doing.

Omniscience poses more of a problem to free will. If god knows everything then he knows what you are going to do therefore you don't have free will.

Generally the only way around it is to alter the definition of omniscience slightly to make it mean 'the ability to know everything' rather than the absolute knowledge of everything - thus giving god the ability to choose not to know what you are going to do.

 

Also in my opinion the god paradox (can an omnipotent being be able to be unable to do something) is just that - a paradox. Omnipotence with the definition 'able to do anything' is an impossible term.

 

@d21lewis. Is your name Job by any chance? =P

@highwaystar. I don't see how coming to the conclusion that god is not omnipotent proves that god is not eternal. How does a limit on power lead to a limit on time?

Omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely.  There are an infinite number of paths that someone can take for each instant of their life.  An omnipotent being such as a god would be able to understand all the available paths at all times.  This still allows for free will because the person chooses which path to walk down.  The being would know your available choices and their consequence, but the choice of path can still be completely yours.