| appolose said: The last time I tried to apply logic in an argument concerning philosophy on here, I was informed it doesn't apply to real life :p But I'll try again, regarding the rock-God question: What it's asking is essentially "Can God do something he can't do"? The question is actually implying incoherent propositions, so it's meaningless in the first place. In hypothetically stating the existence of God in the beginning, the question inevitably accepts the definition of said hypothetical God as all powerful (indeed, a lifter of all rocks). Then the question introduces the term "a rock God can't lift". Well... that already contradicts the hypothetical scenario we set up. It's certainly tricky to recognize as it seems to emphasize the ability to do an action (create) rather than emphasizing the contradictory predicate (the rock God can't lift). Thus as a contradictory question it may be called false or meaningless. I think we could recognize many false questions more easily than this. E.g. "How many miles are in a square"? If you don't accept any of what I just said, the question is a trite misrepresentation of omnipotence if anything else. |
You may actually be the one with your head out of the clouds on this one. It seems to me that your addition looks at the difference between the literal possibilities that we know of versus the theoretical possibilities. Showing that while we can swirl ideas around in our heads which make perfect sense in the path we have chosen for our deduction, they may not necessarily reflect what is plausible in practice. However, I still believe that in God being all powerful in that He made all of the rules of this existence, that He would even transcend what we commonly accept as practical based on the reference point that we have to work with, our existence and our established thought patterns. If we were to expand logic closer to it's outer reaches, then I think it is actually possible for God to, in your phrasing, "do something He cannot do." But perhaps not within the literal bounds of this existence.
