No, I'm saying that God is able to, but because he doesn't, there isn't a stone that he cannot lift, and so he remains omnipotent.
Your mistake is in saying that if God can create the stone then there is a stone that he cannot lift. That doesn't follow. — Michael
I don't quite get the idea that an omnipotent/omniscient being is required to have logically impossible abilities, and have access to in principle unknowable knowledge. It seems we demand too much from our gods. — Inis
No, I'm saying that God is able to, but because he doesn't, there isn't a stone that he cannot lift, and so he remains omnipotent.
Your mistake is in saying that if God can create the stone then there is a stone that he cannot lift. That doesn't follow — Michael
However, in this case God doesn't create the stone because God's forced not to. After all, if God did then God wouldn't be omnipotent.
In short God is forced to not create the stone. Being forced to do/not do something implies that God isn't omnipotent. — TheMadFool
In short God is forced to not create the stone. Being forced to do/not do something implies that God isn't omnipotent. — TheMadFool
This never seemed like a real argument to me and none of those solutions seemed quite right to me. The obvious answer always seemed to me to be that the whole premise is faulty. If God is defined as omnipotent, and omnipotence is understood as the ability to do anything, we should recognize that there's an implicit assumption there: This only regards things that can be done. Why would Christians define God as a being who can do things that can't be done in principle? In this case, that impossible thing is having a being that can succeed at any possible thing failing to create a scenario where he fails to do something. That screams contradiction to me.
There might be an interesting discussion with regards to God failing to do things we are capable of but at the very least the rock thing always feels a bit silly to me. It'd be like saying "If God can't checkmate from both sides of the board in the same game he's not omnipotent." — MindForged
Either it's possible for him to create a stone that he can not lift or that's not possible. Both possibilities imply something he's not able to do (he either could not lift that rock that he could create, or he could not create such a rock). Whether he actually creates it or not is beside the logical point. — Terrapin Station
No one ever argues that god lacks omnipotence because she cannot make 2+2=5. — Inis
That doesn't have the same dilemma built into it though. The "rock heavier than he can lift" thing sets up a dichotomy where either answer implies something a god wouldn't be able to do. — Terrapin Station
It's not a nonsequitur, because then logic is "above" god so to speak. — Terrapin Station
If your conception of God is an inconsistent, incoherent, self-contradictory, unnecessary entity, then I'm not sure the point of engaging with the idea. — Inis
He's not forced to. He's free to give up his omnipotence if that's what he wants. — Michael
Since when does omnipotence require the ability to defy logic, to instantiate logical contradictions? — Inis
To not make a unicorn was a free choice but to not make the stone was a forced choice.
This is what I've been trying to tell you. — TheMadFool
It's not a forced choice. He can choose to make the stone if he wishes and forgo his omnipotence. — Michael
In one case (unicorns) there are no consequences that impinge on God's omnipotence while in the other there are serious consequences for God.
That's all I want to say. — TheMadFool
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