God paradox
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The god paradox is a philosophical problem. It asks:
- If God can do anything, can he make a mountain so heavy that God himself cannot lift it?
If God can make such a heavy mountain, God cannot lift it. This means there is something God cannot do. But if God cannot make such a heavy mountain, then that is also something God cannot do. If God makes a mountain, and then can lift it, then He didn't make the mountain heavy enough, and perhaps God cannot make it heavier. So, is it possible that a god can do everything? Is there a limit to what gods can do, too?
This is an example of a paradox. It seems that it cannot be true but it also cannot be false. Some people think that God cannot do everything, but there are other solutions.
The God paradox is also a good example of a philosophical problem. There is not just one solution, but many. There is no single correct solution.
- One solution might be that our ideas of true and false do not apply to God. God can make something be both true and false at the same time. So there is no problem.
- Another solution might be, that God can do anything He wants to. So if He wants to give away His powers and create a mountain He actually cannot lift, then He can do so. When He does that, He chooses to limit Himself in that way. He can still do anything He wants. Creating that mountain shows that He does not want to move it.
- At least one more solution exists. There is a section of philosophy called analytical philosophy which is very popular in philosophy nowadays. In analytic philosophy, you start by breaking the problem into smaller pieces and try to solve each little piece. We first take the original problem and try to break it to smaller statements.
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- Can X create Y?
- Y is a mountain...
- ...so large, even she who can lift anything cannot lift it
- And here we may see, that the last sentence is nonsense. If someone can lift anything how couldn't they lift the mountain? In analytical philosophy, statements are either true, false or meaningless. This is an example of a meaningless sentence. So this solution says that there is not an answer, because the question is meaningless.
There is a third option, however, that God could have limited power, but then who has limited his power? Then there must be some force more powerful than God, and then who made that force then? This makes this hard to understand.
[edit] References
These references were taken from theEnglish article. They may not be simple to understand.
- Allen, Ethan. Reason: The Only Oracle of Man. J.P. Mendum, Cornill; 1854. Originally published 1784, Available online.Accessed 19 April 2006.
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- Burke, James. The Day the Universe Changed. Little, Brown; 1995 (paperback edition). ISBN 0-316-11704-8.
- Gleick, James. Genius. Pantheon, 1992. ISBN 0-679-40836-3.
- Haeckel, Ernst. The Riddle of the Universe. Harper and Brothers, 1900.
- Hoffman, Joshua, Rosenkrantz, Gary. "Omnipotence" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Available online. Accessed 19 April 2006.
- Mackie, J.L., "Evil and Omnipotence." Mind LXIV, No, 254 (April 1955).
- Wierenga, Edward. "Omnipotence" The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes. Cornell University Press, 1989. Available online. Accessed 19 April 2006.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Available online via Project Gutenberg. Accessed 19 April 2006.