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Many religions imply that there is an all powerful being, and some call it 'God'. The being with infinite powers. Able to do anything, and everything.
So, the question emerges,


Could this all powerful being create a stone he/she cannot move?


On the one hand, an all powerful being cannot create someting more powerful than him/her self, but on the other hand, doesnt that put a restriction on the hes/hers powers, if there is something he/she cannot create, then...it isnt all powerful, is it?

Thoughts?

Wow.....thats deep....
horse

It's relatively simple.

An all-powerful being can do anything possible. Logically speaking there are only x amount of things that can be done, by any being that exists anywhere, up to and including 'God'. We can assume most beings can only do a tiny fraction of a scintilla of an iota of a smallest percent of them, whilst 'God' can do them all.

But everything that is possible is not everything one can conceive of. Big difference. You cannot, for example, create a person with both three arms and one arm- he either is one or the other (or neither).

So an all-powerful being can do everything that can be done. The 'can be done' list may well NOT include moving a stone that was deliberately created to be unable to be moved by God when made.

well for God, you can't answer yes or no, first because i am not God, and second because that's a contridictory statement. There is no right answer.

Good answer

But then again, If he deliberatley made the stone he/she cannot move, then that limits the power of the 'all powerfull', and doesnt that make him NOT all powerful?

Its aphilosophical question Force, and there are different versions of the answer, Ush gave a version of it.

If God is all powerfull, will he be able to make a stone even he cannot move? If hes all powerfull, then surely he can.

But if he can make a stone, he cannot move, then there is something he cannot do, thus he isnt all powerfull, is he?

Well, firs tof all, creating something more powerful than the most powerful thing there is may be another thing that is not on the possible list.

Secondly, you are only limited in your failings if what you are failing to do is actually possible to do.

I edited my post, because the wording was all wrong, and again, youre missing my point.

The concept of possible and impossible shouldnt be the issue to the being of infinite power, should it?

Yes it should. Power is defined by the ability to do things that are possible.

So then, this entity, many religions are refering to as a God , the all powerfull, (lets assume exists) the one who created everything we see and dont see, can only do things that are possible....right?

Then, doesnt that prove that he isnt all powerfull, and that there is no such thing as an infinite power, since it evidently has limits?

If God is truly "all powerful", then it exists in a state that humans can't conceive of... But like Ush said, I doubt anyone or anything can do truly everything. That was a good example, a person cannot have both three arms and one arm at the same time.

I heard this question somewhere else, except it was "could Jesus heat a burrito so hot that even he couldn't eat it?"

So, DR, then this being cannot be all powerfull, right?

No, because the definition of 'all-powerful' is that of a person who can do ALL the things that are on the list of being possible.

Anything that is absolutely not possible at all is irrelevant to how powerful a person is; power is only relative to what can be done.

It is a bit like saying that that something that is all-colourful isn't all colourful because it isn't square. The fact that it isn't square actually has no bearing on the amount of colours it had, becaude square isn't a colour. Likewise, anything that is actively and totally impossible for any being anywhere to do isn;t actually anything to do with power.

We are not talking about a person, we are talking about a supreme being, for the sake of argument we are assuming exists.

And if this being is all powerfull, with infinite powers, then obviously there is no limit to what he can do, being infinite.

So, thats like says, universe is only as infinite as i can imagine it being infinite, which is absolutely not so.

Assumtion is the mother of all invention. In order to state that there is an all powerful being, you must state whether you definitively belief in one or not. You can't assume there is for this question or the whole argument flies out the door. A belief must be derived at one's understanding of one or the other, you can't assume because then the argument is conceptional. I being there is an all powerful being, God. And if God willed a stone into existence he could not move, I belief it could be so. However, with a mere thought, he could undo his infinity and move the stone. God in infinte, omnipotent and benevolent. He does all, sees all and knows all.

So for everyone else to answer this question, you must believe that there is a God or not to definitively get your answer.

Nope, you are complitely missing the point, this has nothing to do with the belief of the existance of God. This is about the idea that possibly nothing and no one can be all powerfull in every way.

But if one can be all powerful then they are considered a god of sorts.

and as i said, there is no right answer to this, because we are not God

Force I have some questions for you in the "Concept of Heaven" thread. Answer them please.

-AC

LOL.

It's funny, because advocates of the Design Argument, who propose that there must be a God, because everything is designed perfectly such as humanity, animals, etc.

Someone mentioned that the human eye is a perfect example of this. This person proposed that since God is "all-powerful", he created the human eye perfectly because it fulfills a certain function....its made to see!

Then again!

If this God was "all-powerful", then why are people sometimes born with severe dementia, augmentism, short-sightedness, or even blindness in the eye. This is hardly the work of an "all-powerful" creator..

I think I agree with Omega.

If this being is 'all-powerful' (for want of a better word), then surely they can do the impossible, lift the unliftable. Regardless of mass, because mass is a limit. Even when that limit is infinite.

Ush said that the being can only do what is on the 'list' of being possible. Who decides what is on that 'list'?

Syren> Actually... My above musings means that this being CANNOT create something so heavy it can't lift it.

If the heaviest object is infinite kilograms, there is nothing heavier. (But should such a being CREATE this stone, the Universe would collapse. This stone would act as a black hole without any horizons or anything.)

Ehrm... I managed to confuse myself completely now...

Aren't the space singularities in Black Holes thought to have infinite density?

maybe

horizon as in the magazine the Lutheran churches here in Norway bugged us with during our communion/confirmation I received that crap for years

Finti> I doubt a religious magazine could protect anyone from a black hole singularity!

Maybe you could wedge it in there.

I know, but the word horizon reminded me of that horrendous mag

The age old stone question instantly creates a paradox. If God is indeed able to create a stone heavy enough that he could not lift it, it would as in the film Dogma, create a major paradox, that could prove God imperfect and fallible since it would seem even he has limitations. And if this is true, he wouldn't be all powerful and omnipotent now wouldn't he?? It's best not to ponder questions like these concocted by feeble mortal intellects and try to apply our limited knowledge to a being that is infinitely beyond anything we could ever imagine.

speak for yourself, I would say believing in a being thats suppose to be omnipotent is sign of limited knowledge

Bah I say! Trick question, but I'll put in my 2 cents anyway.

This being could infact create a boulder that he himself could not lift, what would make him omnipotent, would be that he could create a third party that WOULD be able to lift the boulder. Just like humans use a lever and pulley to lift really heavy crap.

them ush that's deep