Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

[kakaballi]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Laws of physics (specifically gravity in this case) do not apply beyond our perception. 'Weight' is relative to the gravitational force being applied to an object at a given time and place. We cannot perceive how gravity works for Someone Who is present everywhere and at all times. Most of the western notions of God as a physical being like humans is what is causing the confusion.

When we talk about God, we have to realize that our capacity of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and thinking is too limited to fathom what lies beyond. We cannot see, hear, feel or smell microwaves that our TVs, Dishes, Phones etc use. This doesn't meat that they do not exist. Only a hundred years ago, people would think of a mobile phone or even an mp3 player as a divine miracle if they saw one ;-)

We just do not have the capacity to understand things that defy our limited knowledge of things as of now. There is a reason some things go into the realm of 'metaphysics' rather than 'physics'.

[Zapatista]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

@korn666

I really dont understand that how can ppl worship fire

i know a Irani firl who worships fire

yaani Shaitaan nay aag ko mitti kay insaan per tarjeeh di thi… hmmmmmm

You are talking about Zoroastrians. They don’t pray to the fire, but comunicate/pray to their God, Ahura Mazda through fire.

Before you make comments like this, let me remind you about Moses (PBUH) and the burning bush…also don’t forget that we don’t pray to a black square…

[Fbi786]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Since we have no atheist as far as i am aware .. I dont think a topic of this sorts on a forum which is populated majority with Muslims ..this topic is blasphemous to even discuss ..atleast thats what the Prophet SAW taught us.

its like the other thing ..what came first the chiken or the egg ..you can go in circles all your life but you wont get an answer similarly ..with this topic .. if you want to get to an answer ..you ll fall out of the folds of Islam even discussing it ..otherwise you ll be going in circles...trying to protect your Imaan which would be right thing to do .. and something which is going in circles over n over .. thats just a waste of time.

End of the day .. turn the tables on the atheist ..and ask him/her .. if he was drowning for example .. and there was no one around to save him ..wud he choose to drown or be saved .. .. am sure ..the logic way would be to make a prayer ..that if there is a exalted being out there ..save me ..wud nt he?

[Zapatista]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

^The egg came first.

[korn666]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

You are talking about Zoroastrians. They don't pray to the fire, but comunicate/pray to their God, Ahura Mazda through fire.

Before you make comments like this, let me remind you about Moses (PBUH) and the burning bush...also don't forget that we don't pray to a black square...

I just gave a very general example of my office colleague who says "I obey my lord - the fire" I never said we pray to a black square, or did i 0_o

Now its true that i don't know much about the fire thingy but in general if u hear someone say like that.... u r like, excuse me!!!!!!

[diwana]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

The question of the atheist person is illogical. He doesn't seem to understand the definition of GOD.

It's like asking a person If they can make a circle which looks like a square. LOL Illogical.

That's the Christian definition. In Islam Allah SWT can't do everything like in Christianity. Certain things such as turning into a man or have a son or show himself to humans etc. etc. If Allah SWT would do that it wouldn't fit the definition of God anymore because Allah SWT is unlike all his creation.

Good answer. :)

[PrinceMS]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

wow this still an issue in this time and world? lol. Anyway - The Statement itself is WRONG.
Read the last 2 lines (Conclusion) below - if you can’t read a simple entertaining para: (answer from Christian)

Can God Make a Rock So Big He Cannot Lift It?

This is one of my favorite questions that comes up from time to time. Indeed, many atheists and skeptics have posed this question in an attempt to stump Christians and somehow disprove the omnipotence (and existence) of God. Maybe you’ve been there. What is so ironic about a question of this type is that rather than prove any sort of deficiency in the character or nature of God, this question actually shows a lack of clear thinking and logic on the part of the skeptic! In other words, the question itself is flawed and fallacious in several ways and, unfortunately, the person raising the question has not taken the time to truly think this problem through.

Problem #1: this question commits the fallacy known as a loaded question. Imagine if I were to ask you, “Have you stopped beating your spouse yet?” If you answer yes, that means you were beating your spouse but you have since stopped. And if you answer no, that means you’re still beating them! Either way you answer the question, you automatically concede that you beat your spouse! This is a no win situation because the question itself starts with a false assumption and is therefore a “loaded” question. Likewise, the question “Can God make a rock so big He cannot life it?” also starts with a false assumption, i.e., that God is not omnipotent. If you answer “Yes” to the question, that means that God is not omnipotent since He can make the rock but isn’t powerful enough to lift it. But if you answer “No,” that also means that God is not omnipotent since He couldn’t make a rock so big He cannot lift it! In other words, the question itself is dishonest, a pseudo-question, since it begs the question by assuming God is not omnipotent.

Problem #2: this question commits a categorical fallacy. The question itself is incoherent and meaningless. Suppose I were to ask you, “What does the color blue smell like?” or “How much does the number seven weigh?” These are category mistakes because colors don’t smell and numbers don’t weigh anything. They are logical impossibilities. In the same manner, asking the question “Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?” is essentially to ask “Can God’s power defeat His own power?” This is nonsensical and a category error since the question is being incorrectly applied. Greg Koukl has stated, “The question is nonsense because it treats God as if He were two instead of one. The phrase ‘stronger than’ can only be used when two subjects are in view…Since God is only one…it makes no sense to ask if He is stronger than Himself.”

Problem #3: this question commits a straw man fallacy. The goal of the skeptic who asks this question is to somehow undermine the Christian concept of an omnipotent God. It is thought that if it can be shown there are some things God cannot do, this would prove that God could not be omnipotent and thus could not exist as Christians have traditionally portrayed Him. However, this line of reasoning is attacking a distorted concept of Biblical omnipotence and is therefore guilty of the straw man fallacy.

So what does it mean then that God is omnipotent? Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do anything. There are actually quite a few things that God cannot do. He cannot make squared circles. He cannot make a one-ended stick. He cannot sin. He cannot improve His morality. So God is limited in a sense. But not one of these “limitations” has to do with power, rather, they are logical contradictions. Also, notice that His “limitations” are not due to any defects in His character or power but rather they are the result of His perfection and rational nature! As Norman Geisler has stated, “He is only ‘limited’ by His unlimited perfection.” To say that God is omnipotent then is to say that God can do anything so long as it is logically possible and consistent with His nature. God’s omnipotence does not mean that He can do what is impossible but only that He can do whatever is actually possible.

Conclusion: So what then is the answer? Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it? My comments above put aside, I still like the way one particular 7-year-old responded: “I can’t give you a smart answer to a dumb question.”

URL: Fallacy of "can God make a rock not even he can lift?"

[TLK]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

[QUOTE]
=Zapatista;7703209
That's the Christian definition. In Islam Allah SWT can't do everything like in Christianity.
[/QUOTE]

Inallaha ala kulle shay'in qadeer is Quran's ayat,. not bibles.

[kakaballi]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

TLK, you need a course in logical fallacies :P

[TLK]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

okay sir

[psyah]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Thank you PrinceMS for the elaborate response and Diwana and Zapatista too.

I was going to provide the logical fallacy argument too ... The question is indeed a wrong one. To ask the question the questioner himself needs to understand Who or What God is. The invocation of the term "God" has to be understood fully before a question to attempt refuting the concept can be asked about God.

Rather they should first ask "Who or What is God?" to which we reply by our teachings in 'aqeedah. Tawheed - Ruboobiya, Uloohiya and Al-Asma Was-Sifat - the question needs to understand that All Names and Attributes of God need to be taken as correct together in the same instant before they ask a question about God.

We say that God is Unique and has absolute dominion, is Most Powerful, these are three definitions of the Attributes of God. However, the questioner ignores one definition in the question and asks only about the other Attribute. God is Most Powerful, but He is so whilst He is Absolute and Unique and simulataneously has other Attributes too, which means in His power at no point does it become shared with anything because He is Unique and has Absolute dominion.

The question pre-supposes that one can formulate an idea of God simply on the condition "being all-powerful", isolated from say "being unique" - whereas our belief requires that we believe in these together at the same time. So our 'definition' of God answers the question already so we don't have to.

God is Unique in His Power, if the absurd idea of God lifting things is even entertained - we say that nothing can dominate God, yet the question is asking what if something can dominate God? To which we answer "If I say I am 20 years old, then you ask me what if you are 15 years old" the question gets relegated to a hypothetical one and cannot be used to counter belief in God, since the question itself is unreal and is based on criteria outside the criteria by what the answerer knows to be the concept of 'God'.

[psyah]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Mathematically it is a question about 'limits' since we have the phrase "Most" in the question. It is like asking - what is infinity plus one? It assumes that it is possible to add 1 on to infinity pre-supposing that infinity can be handled algebraically like other numbers. The assumption itself is wrong.

Infinity plus 1 or any number would have no change to the Infinity already mentioned in the question. We are asking the responder to compare apples with pears.

[PrinceMS]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

^ I like this example better:

Ask someone: "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

If answer is yes - then they admit that they used to beat her
If answer is no - then they admit they still beat her

M gonna go ask me friends this now lol
:)

[psyah]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Peace PrinceMS

The difference in my example and the one given by you about the wife is that one shows that it is an impossible outcome, the other is possible, but very loaded.

They both make assumptions.

Another way to reduce the question is to say ...

God is All-Powerful hence God is Capable, Rock too heavy to lift, hence God is not Capable.

So the generic question being asked is:

Can God Who is Capable, do something so He becomes Incapable?

Or even more simply - Can Capable become Incapable? Then to assert if Capable can't become Incapable it must mean that Capable is not Capable because it is Incapable to become Capable.

Linguistically it is an error, but mathematically we can say Allah Cannot Become Incapable at lifting, hence we have a double negative. Capable is not capable at being incapable. Not capable Incapability is Capability.

The way to answer this is to say - God is not subdued, but is the Subduer. It is wrong to construct a question that requires something to harbour characteristics that are opposite to its nature.

Capability and Incapability are exclusive.

Beating the wife is a possible situation, but it is an assumption. To place a neagtive before it forces any answer to be rendered as a negative.

Stopped beating wife, if yes then the assuption 'stopped' is invoked as correct, if no then the assumption beating wife is invoked as correct. The example does not show why it is impossible for the man to be a wife beater so why ask that question anyway.

The actual question being asked is trying to do this wife beating thing plus attempting to force an impossible situation to be entertained.

It's like saying "God can't make a circle's diameter equal to the length of its own circumference at the same time". By doing so you would have to change the nature of the diameter and circumference relationship and hence it would make the question meaningless.

So a witty reply to the question is ...

Well by taking the characteristic of superiority as a Divine attribute then should such a situation become manifest where an item of inferiority i.e. the rock becomes superior i.e. become unliftable then in that instant it ceases to be a 'rock' and itself become divine (by definition), hence the situation remains that divine always remains superior.

Divine is Superior - Superior is Divine

The question changes the rock in to a Divine being. They might as well ask Can God make another God? In which case you will have:

God has no beginning therefore anything made is not God, or Creation is not God, hence the question is asking us to entertain the idea that God can be created, by doing so we revoke the idea of 'God has no beginning'. Simply by saying "God has no beginning" or by saying "God is never subdued" we can stop the questionner in their tracks, then we need to explain why we said that.

[COLD_FIRE]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

Hmm, coincidently i was asked the same question ... a few years ago, by none other than my Boss.

So all athiests have the same question for us to ponder upon..haha... nice try.

[Krypton]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

If he can create sucha rock, he can create a makhlook that can life it too!!

If he is most-powerful, then how can he not lift it

[korn666]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

waqai u ppl have a lot of time to write all this

[Captain1]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

God doesn't need pulley/lever/muscle mechanism to "lift", so He can build rock of ANY SIZE or ANY WEIGHT and still "lift" it.

[Ranjhaa]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

I do not see any thing illogical in this question nor do I see it as a trick question. It is a very simple thing really. Can God create a rock (or for that matter anything) that is so heavy that is even too heavy for him to lift? Men do that all the time, we create machines, blocks, buildings, and what not that even we cannot lift or even move. Even small birds or small insects construct nests or structures which after completion they themselves would not be able to lift. And we are mere mortals, God should definitely be more capable na?

Those complaining that we should not compare God to physical beings, but haven't we always heard of great men, prophets, and other superior beings of the past and some even in the present having "seen" God, listened to God, had conversations with God, experienced God. Don't all these paint a very physical picture of God or were all those people lying?

And comparing this with the wife beating question is really absurd, nobody asked a yes/no answer here. You can fill out reams of paper if you want but one only expects you to logically explain the answer, which shouldn't be very difficult if you know what you are talking about, and not go around in circles trying to catch your own tail. Isn't it so convenient that we will find out all logical reasoning in the world to explain the miracles of the Superior Being and convince ourselves of his presence but will shun logic as soon as we are faced with something we can't explain?

[SindSagar]

Re: Can God Create a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

@TLK

How would you answer an aethiest if he asks this question. The reason I am bringing athiest is because you can only use human logic and not quotes from Quran and Hadees (as he is going to reject them because of disbelief).

***The creator of gravity is not in need of gravity or its effects on Rocks!.............

this question demonstrates very clearly the limitations of the human mind...............

for us there is always an UP! and a DOWN! direction wich makes us in need of lifting...........

we are pulled down by the gravitational force!

when you go into outer space there is NO UP OR DOWN!

by asking this question we are limiting Allah Subhana wa Taala simply to our limited environment...............Earth.

Allah SWT is not bound by Earth or gravity as we all are physically!

Our creator is in a totally different PARADIGM!***