A Good old friend of mine, whose critical thinking skill is what I have always been jealous of, asked about my view towards an ancient question, when I was talking about God and Logic.
"Can an omnipotent being (or, God) create a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift?"
Of course for God's (or, an omnipotent being) sake, I know so well that I am not a good candidate in joining the overwhelming discussions which have been made among thousands of respectable philosophers or theologists. But on the other hand, I disagree with some Christians who fired with a pointing finger, proudly accusing the other by quoting the Bible:
"Jesus said to him, again it is in the writings: you may not put the Lord your God to the test". Matthew 4:7
If God has created our mind for logical thinking and He does insist that He is the ultimate truth, providing our question is sincere and humble, why fear and evade? Instead of testing our God, I consider questions of this kind a training for the rational part of our belief. Afterall, religon is never purely by faith.
Lets go back to the everlasting paradox.
To me, I tend to agree what the stone problem has disproved - a completely almighty God (eg. working in logically impossible or self-contradictory way). What remains is, actually I would like to take a step back. I believe in a God who possesses the adequate power or abililty to create and run the world. He may not necessarily be truly almighty to an absolute extent, but to the fleshy me, that's more than enough. It doesn't alter our relation of a creator and a creature.
An interesting point might be, I observed that some Christians tend to feel very offended while somebody challenges their almighty God. When I tried to explain the above views to them, some reacted pretty furiously, considering my opinion as "compromising the perfectness of God"...but in fact, does it really matter if one has $100,000,000,000 or he has an infinite amount? As long as he is the richest among the universe, he-is-the-richest.
Discussing this question would easily made me emotionally withdrawn, going back to the Bible, I love how the poet described and praised his loving God.
"Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
For the Lord most high is awesome, the great King over all the earth. " Psalm 47:1-2
Yes indeed, my Lord being most-high and the greatest King is perhaps more meaningful than Him being omnipotent.
haha thanks for your kind words. You got a very logical and coherent flow here.
回覆刪除I actually very much agree with your points so there is not much that I can add. And YES we don't need a God who can create a rectangle with 5 sides and even if God cannot it doesn't mean he should be disbelieved. Also, I find it difficult to accept that perfectness means to go beyond logic. For example, I think I get a perfect score if I get 100. I do not need to get 101 points in order to show my knowledge of the subject is perfect.
And great insight on the "testing" point. Previously I just thought it is warning for people not to intentionally jump off the cliff or do similar things to test God.