Can God create...??

Society Religion & Philosophy
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While God is considered to be all powerful and the absolute creator etc. Following interesting questions arise in order to know or to decide about the exact sphere of God’s powers of creation:

1- Can God create such a heavy stone which he himself cannot lift…???

2- Can God create a “square circle” i.e. can God make such a figure which is both “square” as well as “circle”…???

3- Can you give a single example of any of the God’s creations which cannot be imagined by human beings…??? Remember that your answer cannot be “yes” because by giving the example you are in fact “imagining” the thing which according to you is not imaginable by the human beings. If your answer cannot be “yes”, then your answer shall be “no”. If your answer is no then God is not the absolute creator.

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Re: Can God create...??

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by basic_force: *
While God is considered to be all powerful and the absolute creator etc. Following interesting questions arise in order to know or to decide about the exact sphere of God's powers of creation:

1- Can God create such a heavy stone which he himself cannot lift...???

2- Can God create a "square circle" i.e. can God make such a figure which is both "square" as well as "circle".....????

3- Can you give a single example of any of the God's creations which cannot be imagined by human beings....??? Remember that your answer cannot be "yes" because by giving the example you are in fact "imagining" the thing which according to you is not imaginable by the human beings. If your answer cannot be "yes", then your answer shall be "no". If your answer is no then God is not the absolute creator.
[/QUOTE]

why think of God in human terms ?

would there be a circle if not for God creating one ? If God willed we'd consider a circle and square the same shape.

As for a creation of God that we cannot imagine, once again, humans are very limited in their imagination, why would God not be able to create something we cannot imagine ?

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Re: Can God create...??

1- Can God create such a heavy stone which he himself cannot lift...???

2- Can God create a "square circle" i.e. can God make such a figure which is both "square" as well as "circle".....????

dont u feel stupid even asking such a question????
if u were a child in the nursery u cud be excused for such ignorant questions....
but at ur age, u shud think more reasonably....

*3- Can you give a single example of any of the God's creations which cannot be imagined by human beings....??? Remember that your answer cannot be "yes" because by giving the example you are in fact "imagining" the thing which according to you is not imaginable by the human beings. If your answer cannot be "yes", then your answer shall be "no". If your answer is no then God is not the absolute creator. *
the Heaven....
Allah says that He did create the Heaven....
and yet it is such that no eye has seen like it, no ear heard anything like it and no human brain has imagined it....

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first of all his stupidness was comparing God to a Human.how on the earth would one think of it.

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Re: Can God create...??

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by basic_force: *

1- Can God create such a heavy stone which he himself cannot lift...???

2- Can God create a "square circle" i.e. can God make such a figure which is both "square" as well as "circle".....????

3- Can you give a single example of any of the God's creations which cannot be imagined by human beings....???

[/QUOTE]

You obviously dont understand logic.

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Found this good answer on a jewsish site:

My 5 year old son asked me a similar question: "Daddy," he said with a devilish grin, "can G-d make this fork to be that it never was?"

The answer to his question, and to yours, is: No. G-d can't do something that is a contradiction.

G-d can't divide 5 evenly by 2, can't win at chess if He starts with only a king, and can't spell "table" correctly using only 4 letters.

The reason G-d "can't" do these things, is because we have not specified a thing to do; we have contradicted ourselves in the description. "A rock too heavy for the Almighty" is a self-contradiction, because the Almighty is...All Mighty! Therefore, by definition, such a rock can't exist. So your question boils down to: "Can G-d create something which cannot exist?" Of course not; that's a self contradiction. G-d's "inability" to do such a thing does not indicate a lack in G-d; rather, it indicates our failure to define what it is we are asking.

Thanks to Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb

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answer for the question i found on islamtomorrow.com very good and informative site

"Can God do anything? - For example: "Can He make a rock so big that nothing can move it?" - If He did make a rock so big that nothing could move it, would that mean that He couldn't move it too? Or would it be impossible for Him to make something so big that He couldn't move it?"

Answer:
Allah tells us that "Allah is capable of doing anything that He Wills to do." He can make a rock (or anything for that matter) that is so large or heavy that nothing in the entire universe can move it. As regards Allah "moving" it, He is not in the universe and He does not resemble His creation. Whenever He wants anything done, He merely says "Qun! Faya Qun!" (Be! And so it will be!)

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Does the word God not answer all those questions?

:smack:

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Re: Can God create...??

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by basic_force: *
While God is considered to be all powerful and the absolute creator etc. Following interesting questions arise in order to know or to decide about the exact sphere of God's powers of creation:

1- Can God create such a heavy stone which he himself cannot lift...???

2- Can God create a "square circle" i.e. can God make such a figure which is both "square" as well as "circle".....????

3- Can you give a single example of any of the God's creations which cannot be imagined by human beings....??? Remember that your answer cannot be "yes" because by giving the example you are in fact "imagining" the thing which according to you is not imaginable by the human beings. If your answer cannot be "yes", then your answer shall be "no". If your answer is no then God is not the absolute creator.
[/QUOTE]

you gotta be a dum*@$$ to ask these kinda questions! use your logic! Wonderful creations of allah is everywhere!

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by picard: *
Found this good answer on a jewsish site:

My 5 year old son asked me a similar question: "Daddy," he said with a devilish grin, "can G-d make this fork to be that it never was?"

The answer to his question, and to yours, is: No. G-d can't do something that is a contradiction.

G-d can't divide 5 evenly by 2, can't win at chess if He starts with only a king, and can't spell "table" correctly using only 4 letters.

The reason G-d "can't" do these things, is because we have not specified a thing to do; we have contradicted ourselves in the description. "A rock too heavy for the Almighty" is a self-contradiction, because the Almighty is...All Mighty! Therefore, by definition, such a rock can't exist. So your question boils down to: "Can G-d create something which cannot exist?" Of course not; that's a self contradiction. G-d's "inability" to do such a thing does not indicate a lack in G-d; rather, it indicates our failure to define what it is we are asking.

Thanks to Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb
[/QUOTE]

In fact the religious concept of God itself is self-contradictory. If God is all powerful then he cannot be the absolute creator at the same time..

You say: by definition, such a rock cannot exist.

Then is it not the limitation on the part of God's creation abilities that he cannot create the things which cannot exist..??

To make you understand the point I give my own example. I cannot make a thing which cannot exist. Same is the case with God. He also cannot make the things which cannot exist. So in this capacity, there is no difference between me and God. We both are helpless on this issue.

Your words: "G-d's "inability" to do such a thing does not indicate a lack in G-d; rather, it indicates our failure to define what it is we are asking. "

Yes in ordinary circumstances, such as in the case of Jews, who's this appropriate argument you found from some where, I accept (in the case of Jewish God) that "God's "inability" to do such things does not indicate a "lack" in God. Because Jewish God, unlike Muslim's God IS NOT ABSOLUTE CREATOR. The Jewish God need six days of tireless work for the creation of earth and heavens and then He needs seventh day as the "rest" day. So Jewish God cannot be considered to be absolute creator.

Your excuse, however, cannot be accepted in the case of muslim's God because whatever is possible to create or not, muslim's God only has to say a magical word and that thing shall be created.

I do not know if you are muslim or not because up till now you only have presented a Jewish argument. But if you are muslim then you also have to show whether such "inabilities" on the part of your God's powers of creation have been mentioned in your "absolute" holy book or not...???

If your holy book is absolutely comlete in all respects, then there must have some mentions of such God's limitation also must be included in it.

However if you still stay on this Jewish argument, then you must accept at least one thing that:

Muslim God's magical word "kun" Do Not Work in the case of self contradictory things.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by jatt_pathan: *
answer for the question i found on islamtomorrow.com very good and informative site

"Can God do anything? - For example: "Can He make a rock so big that nothing can move it?" - If He did make a rock so big that nothing could move it, would that mean that He couldn't move it too? Or would it be impossible for Him to make something so big that He couldn't move it?"

Answer:
Allah tells us that "Allah is capable of doing anything that He Wills to do." He can make a rock (or anything for that matter) that is so large or heavy that nothing in the entire universe can move it. As regards Allah "moving" it, He is not in the universe and He does not resemble His creation. Whenever He wants anything done, He merely says "Qun! Faya Qun!" (Be! And so it will be!)
[/QUOTE]

That was not my question that can God make such a heavy rock that "nothing" can move it.

My question was can God make such a heavy rock that "he himself" cannot move it...??

This question can be asked even if God has no resemblence with his creations.

So how much different the God may be from his creation, can he create such a heavy rock that he "himself" cannot lift.............???

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:)

The argument "can God make a rock so large he cannot lift it?" didn't tell me anything about God but about our logic and language.... lemme put it this way... We can approach and try to understand the concept of omnipotence (being all powerfull) through our language; BUT in final analysis our logic and language cannot encapsulate it.... Our language and logic allows us to create a contradiction about a concept (omnipotence in this case), such that this concept can never apply to a subject... The only thing that this argument does is demonstrate the limitations of logic and our inability to truly comprehend and understand the world.... Don’t get me wrong! logic, language and the scientific method have allowed us to accomplish great things, no doubt about that, but they have their limitations... Verifying and making claims about God is one of those limitations.

There is a fundamental mistake we tend to make (something ancient philosophers like Aristotle mostly avoided) and that is equating logic with ontology.

While it may be logically valid to argue that God cannot make a rock larger than he can lift (though in reality the syllogism suffers from a confusion of terms..as picard said "self contradiction"),.. whether this obtains in reality (that is to say ontologically) is a whole another matter.

Logic does use words that refer to things, and in Aristotle's "naive realism" case, logic did in part refer to reality. But logic did not make ontological claims... The logic is about semantics, and it's purpose is to clarify misunderstandings so the real science (say, metaphysics) can then get under way...

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Kamran-Khan,

First of all I thankyou for answering my questions in a rational way.

Consider your words:

*The argument "can God make a rock so large he cannot lift it?" didn't tell me anything about God but about our logic and language.... *

So the argument is the outcome of using language in a particular way and that this argument tells nothing about God.

Well! But my dear, according to linguistic philosophy, the concept of God itself is just an outcome of using the language in a particular way.

So if you insist on linguistic philosophy, surely I should lose my argument and ** you also should lose your God because according to linguistics, since word "God" do not have any verifiable real object present in real world, so the concept of God is nothing but the result of wrong usage of language. Such type of arguments have been put by Wittgenstien who is considered to be one of the most prominent linguistic philosophers.**

For me, I am not convinced of the linguistic philosophy. Linguistic philosophy is misleading and wrong, in my opinion. So I still can insist on my argument and can ask 'can God create such a heavy rock that he himself cannot lift...???'

But if you consider Linguistics to be a valid philosophy then you should consider God just as a fictitious concept, the real existence of whom is not verifiable in the real worldl.

Although I consider God just as a fictitious concept but I have reasons other than those linguistic reasons.

And my question itself is not self contradictory. Even I can manufacture or make such a heavy thing which I myself cannot lift. In this way what even I can do is out of the capabilities of God.

So the question itself is not self-contradictory. It is the concept of God which is self-contradictory.

You put all the blame on language and logic for putting such questions. Similarly I also can put blame on logic and language for the construction of such self-contradictory concepts as "God".

And I tell you that the concept of God can be said to be constructed by this logic. Just see the following logic:

1- We see ordinary objects and we know that ardinary objects are made by some personality e.g. we know that buildings are made by mesons etc.

2- Then we see the entire universe and we treat this entire universe as an object.

3- Then on the basis of 1 and 2, we draw a logical conclusion that ** the entire universe must have been constructed (or created) by some personality. Then we just name that "supposed" personality as God.**

So in my opinion concept of God is not the outcome of language or linguistic. Concept of God, in fact is our own logical conclusion.

Whether you accept or not but human mind always work logically. This logic, however can be valid, invalid, can be true or false.

Concept of God is the result of invalid logic because the concept of God is self-contradictory.

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Muslim God can make such a huge rock that jewish God and Christian God cannot lift. But muslim God can lift it. Jewish God can make such a huge rock that Muslim & christian God can not lift, only jewish God can lift it. Similarly Christian God can make such a rock that jewish God and Muslim God can not lift, only Christain God can lift.

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:) lets put all these questions aside .. The REAL question here is If God exists!! so don't play with the words and bring that question up.

so what DO you think?......does is or it does not?

1st let us know what do you think and then we will proceed scientifically ...

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^^ what makes you think GOD does not exist??

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Dimagh_HotaToNa: *
^^ what makes you think GOD does not exist??
[/QUOTE]
Gooosh!!! why on earth you think I said that I don't believe in God? ... read my replies again, with some care this time. All the questions asked are typical atheist questions..

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SOWWIE..didn’t mean to offend you… I was questioning just like you were…!! :rolleyes:

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This question on the surface seems to eliminate the omnipotence of God in either way that it may be answered. If one says yes then it would seem that God is not omnipotent because He created something greater than He, a simple contradiction. Or, if one answers no, then it would seem that God is not omnipotent because He cannot do something.

However, this question is not a paradox as it seems, but actually upon careful inspection is a true contradiction. The problem with this question in terms of logic is that it suffers from the fallacy of the false dilema. The false dilema is built upon the a false premise about the definition of God’s omnipotence.

Omnipotence does not and cannot mean that God can do everything above and beyond Himself. To define it as such makes omnipotence itself not possible. The omnipotence of God merely means that He is omnipotent above and beyond all His creation, which encompasses everything but Himself. He cannot oppose Himself. To oppose His self is meaningless. Omnipotence does not mean that God can do things against Himself. Examples, He cannot be both omnipotent and not omnipotent, He cannot be God and not God, He cannot go against His will, etc…

one thing, I opened this same topic last week :stuck_out_tongue:
did u get that Idea (paradoxes or not? ) from there? :stuck_out_tongue:

I removed the thread for no reason :smack:

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