The stone paradox reframed.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've been thinking about this a bit more. I think I've changed my position on the stone paradox.

As I think I mentioned earlier in the thread, my first instinct was to see the stone paradox as an earlier version of Hilbert's Hotel, only with a being with infinite capabilities instead of a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of guests.

If we interpret omnipotence in terms of limitlessness (which isn't how it's interpreted universally, but it's common enough, I think), then the paradox resolves itself. It only seems like a paradox because of the unstated assumption that a being that can be beaten by omnipotence can't be omnipotent itself, but now I don't think this is necessarily true.

Whichever ability wins out - whether making the rock unliftable or lifting the rock - it doesn't imply that the losing ability isn't limitless. One infinity can be less than another infinity and still be infinite: for instance, a line of tiles one tile wide stretching off into infinity is going to have fewer tiles than another line two tiles wide and stretching off to infinity, but both have an infinite number of tiles.

Short version: at least one common and accepted understanding of omnipotence resolves the paradox without any funny business. This makes me wonder whether the stone paradox, to the extent that it's a paradox at all, is just rooted in either semantics or in a misunderstanding of how infinities work.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Agreed; there is nothing here for you.

Remember when you challenged the "rock so big He can't move it" idea? That's when you involved me, because the only reason you might have to challenge that question is if you are attempting to derail others who claim the impossibility of anything being "all powerful." Your coming to the defense of an all powerful being is what prompted me to begin replying so that I might try my hand at keeping you honest.

But neither is there anything in the above quote relevant to the this thread -- a thread dealing with theology rather than religions.

I was asked a question, and I answered it. Unlike what you seem to do when posed with a difficult question. Remember? My wish never came true...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Your coming to the defense of an all powerful being is what prompted me to begin replying so that I might try my hand at keeping you honest.

Asking whether the stone paradox is cognitively meaning has absolutely nothing to do with "coming to the defense of an all powerful being." Try your hand at understanding that first.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Asking whether the stone paradox is cognitively meaning has absolutely nothing to do with "coming to the defense of an all powerful being." Try your hand at understanding that first.

Sure thing. Okay... understood, and I apologize for stretching to the assumption I made.

Your turn. Care to answer my original question yet?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Sure thing. Okay... understood, and I apologize for stretching to the assumption I made.

Your turn. Care to answer my original question yet?

Which was?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Which was?

Here it is...

What if, here on Earth, I told you the following: "The stone was so orange that no matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn't budge."?
Now, what if I told you: "The stone was so heavy that no matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn't budge."?

Would YOU respond to ME differently if I posed one or the other of the above to you in recounting a tale of my attempts to move a rock?

 

[Willamena]

The question violates the premise"? Was that supposed to make sense?

Mu, as they say. If G-d's ineffibility were understood, the question would not and could not arise.

Omnipotence is caracitured in the asking.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Here it is...

Thank you.

Of course.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Of course.

And thank you as well.

My only point in any of this in replying to either you or @Willamena is to say that there HAVE TO BE aspects of God that can be described and/or understood or related in SOME context or another. Otherwise there is no point in trying to understand in the first place, and is that what it is told that God ultimately wants? That no one be able to understand or comprehend His existence? And if there is ANYTHING that comprises God that can be considered a "trait"/"descriptor"/"ability" etc. (as there MUST be in order for Him to actually exist at all anywhere and in any capacity), then we can easily form a question that does make sense when discussing God, and that STILL negates His ability to be "all powerful", like the "stone so heavy" question does.

Lastly, if God has no traits... then "all powerful" isn't among them anyway.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

My only point in any of this is to say that there HAVE TO BE aspects of God that can be described and/or understood or related in SOME context or another.

On the contrary.

Otherwise there is no point in trying to understand in the first place, and is that what it is told that God ultimately wants?

You've never been told that by me.

FWIW, I view religion as a good faith effort to infer the nature of G-d from anthropomorphic presumptions about godliness.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

On the contrary.

You've never been told that by me.

FWIW, I view religion as a good faith effort to infer the nature of G-d from anthropomorphic presumptions about godliness.

We can drop all aspects of God that can be understood by humans, sure. Just as we can admit we don't know the true nature of gravity - what causes it? Why does mass attract mass? Perhaps there is an answer to those questions, perhaps not. In the end it won't have mattered for most of us, or any of us in our lifetimes because gravity simply is. If God simply "is" in this way, and there are no answers to those same types of questions forthcoming, and there will be no interaction with God that can be understood by we humans, then again, that He simply is won't have mattered to most of us, or any of us in our lifetimes. Is it any wonder many of us would take the existence or apparent non-existence of such a God for granted? Much as we do with gravity.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Is it any wonder many of us would take the existence or apparent non-existence of such a God for granted?

None at all. It's when this taking for granted the 'apparent non-existence' becomes transformed into a mantra in the church of secular truth that some of us become amused.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

None at all. It's when this taking for granted the 'apparent non-existence' becomes transformed into a mantra in the church of secular truth that some of us become amused.

I chant the mantra solely for your amusement. Have you not realized that by now?