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Is this really a paradox? God, at the point in time when the question is posed, is Omnipotent - so he must be able to. But in creating something that He cannot later move, does this power simply come at the cost of his own Omnipotence?

Does denying God the power to die also deny his Omnipotence?

Ilya Grushevskiy
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  • This is a duplicate. Short answer, omnipotence means "unlimited power", not "can do anything" - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/omnipotent – Skyl3r Jul 15 '16 at 17:27
  • OK, but using that terminology, don't you break the law of non contradiction? – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 15 '16 at 17:40
  • Review the answer from Flimzy on the question I linked. He states eloquently: *"The question assumes the false premise that if God is omnipotent, He can do anything. However, omnipotence is not the ability to do anything; it is the possession of infinite power."* – Skyl3r Jul 15 '16 at 17:48
  • OK, so if God has infinite power, the rock must take infinity + X power to move, so must take infinity + X to create. This is not a logical question - infinity is not a relational concept (and infinity+x=infinity), so there is no logical answer. And in granting God infinite power, don't you take it away instantly when you say he cannot become finite? – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 15 '16 at 18:03
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    The same question on Islam.SE: http://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/11966/ – infatuated Jul 16 '16 at 06:30
  • should vote to close not vote down –  Jul 17 '16 at 18:12

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No God cannot create a rock that he cannot lift. But just because he can't do this doesn't mean he's not all powerful, just that he can't do the logically impossible.

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Descartes gives us at least two different ways around this paradox. The first comes straight out of Catholic dogma.

By Christian reasoning (and Hindu, for that matter), God did become finite (in the latter case, over and over again), he just remained omnipotent at the same time in a different form. God in the form of the Creator (or Vishnu) could easily make a rock that God in the form of Jesus (or Krishna) could not lift.

By the magical logic of trinitarianism (or alternately by the non-dual interpretation of what an avatar really is), employing this notion, Descartes both multiplies and does not infringe the unity of God. That cannot make sense to humans, but by dogma, that is our problem, not God's. So there is no logic in insisting that by God, you did not mean his incarnations or avatars, because there is no distinction, even though the distinction is clear and obvious to us, the difference we insist upon is just an artifact of human limitation, not an aspect of reality.

The second way around the paradox comes from more directly considering the nature of omnipotence. An omnipotent being, by Descartes logic, could create square circles, but those would have to exist in a way humans could not comprehend them; unless he also changed humans... If God can do everything, real or unreal, conceivable or inconceivable, possible or impossible, the paradox goes away. You just end up with lots of copies of God and worlds full of absolute nonsense (at least from a human point of view) in a Meinongian, modal-realist sort of way.

Descartes' real point is that not only is God the being that creates stuff, he is also the being that creates rules, including rules about possibilities. And he is free to change them, or to create exceptions. This is the principle of miracles, and miracles are pretty much the point of having a God who intercedes.

The God who makes up both the stuff and the rules has no problem at all with your paradox. God can clearly make up a rock that occupies the whole of space. That rock, of course, cannot be moved. The inability to move it is not about power, it is implicit in the definition of space (and of the whole thereof). But Descartes' God is also free to simply add a dimension to space, so he can move the rock. And he could then expand his rock to be four-dimensional and fill that space, which he could then move in a new fifth dimension. An infinite regress, but not a paradox.

  • I'm not understanding Descartes' reasoning here. Does the rock expand instantaneously with the addition of the new dimension? If not, then for at least Planck time the rock is too heavy to move, then not heavy enough...right? If instantaneous, then the rock would have expanded without the passage of time, which is the measurement of movement. So when would the rock actually move? – Cannabijoy Jul 16 '16 at 06:39
  • The argument depends on infinity not being identical to All. Even though a definition of infinity is troublesome, All is a very reasonable assumption. Otherwise Essence would disagree with Nature. – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 16 '16 at 14:08
  • @IlyaGrushevskiy The argument does not involve infinity in any way, so whether or not it is equivalent to all is not relevant. If space happens to be infinite there is still no problem filling it with an infinite quantity of matter. But it does not matter in principle. –  Jul 16 '16 at 14:55
  • @anonymouswho Addressing an argument from the early 1600's with a reference to Planck distance is just childish. The rock could simply remain unchanged when the dimension was added, Mathematics surely makes no requirement that there not be n-1 dimensional matter in an n-dimensional space. Who says it takes time to add a dimension to space? Surely not modern physics, which contains no such concept. Also, who put the time limit on when he has to lift it? You are making up rules out of nowhere, just to avoid getting the point. –  Jul 16 '16 at 15:00
  • And into an infinity of space you can place infinity+1 quantity of matter. Because infinity is not a relational concept. Making a square triangle only takes a circle, a light and a deformed surface for the shadow to land on. – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 16 '16 at 15:14
  • @IlyaGrushevskiy 1) That makes no sense. Maybe I can place only the cube root of x quantity of matter in some quantity x of space. If there are no units, even talking about finite quantities in the manner you do lacks meaning. 2) There are multiple infinities, which cannot not necessarily be combined by addition. e.g. -inf and +inf on the real line. You are making arguments with formulas that simply do not contain logical sense. 3) infinity is still not in the problem, only *all* is. 4) the shadow of a thing is not the thing. The projection of a circle into a square is not a circle –  Jul 16 '16 at 15:29
  • Infinity + 1 infinity, infinity × 2 = infinity etc the question was make a circle into a square, not make a circular thing into a square thing. The latter is conventional, the former is conventional. Essence is not evident within conceptual construction, All, when given an essential property will contradict itself. Because no property can be created that is outside of the relative.. Chasing essence is fruitless. – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 16 '16 at 15:41
  • @IlyaGrushevskiy Vague, absolute statements are not arguments. Ordinally, in math, omega is **an** infinity and omega +1, omega + 2, etc. are distinct things. So it is not always true that infinity + 1 = infinity. The point was not to make **any one thing into another at all.** It was whether one can make a square circle. If you won't stay on topic, I will just leave. Infinity is already a red herring and you are throwing in essence as another one. –  Jul 16 '16 at 15:54
  • That's what I mean - the law of identity - All is All is essential I'm nature. – Ilya Grushevskiy Jul 16 '16 at 16:25
  • @jobermark thank you for the reply. Perhaps I should have said "absolute smallest amount of time". Surely people in the 1600's understood this concept. Maybe they believed this to be a second. Either way, movement involves time, so without time, there can be no movement. I'm not trying to avoid the point, it just seems like nonsense. I believe in YHVH, so I have no problem denying this god that is "outside" of logic, reason, and realty. Thank you. – Cannabijoy Jul 17 '16 at 07:40
  • @anonymouswho There is no minimum time in which to alter reality. If there were, then one could alter reality to remove that restriction. The absolute minimum time it takes to do something is zero seconds. Descartes was Catholic, so that is the same God, unless you are an extremist with no interest in actually understanding -- which I can deduce from your choice of spelling that you probably are. –  Jul 17 '16 at 17:28
  • @jobermark I think I better leave this alone. I had a question and you provided your answer. Thank you. – Cannabijoy Jul 17 '16 at 18:26
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Gods ability to make such a rock goes beyond a definition of infinite.

That is there isn't anything beyond infinite.

Nathan K
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  • Please expand if you want to make clearer how this would answer the question. As written, it reads like an assertion. You could for instance better explain the first sentence and why you maintain it is true (what definition of God are you using? what definition of "definition of infinite"? what does "beyond infinite " mean?) – virmaior Jul 23 '16 at 13:34