Saturday, February 24, 2007

Paradox of the Stone

The classic: Can God make a stone he cannot lift? The following is copied from my same writing on this Wikipedia talkpage.

For me, much of the "stone" issue (and some related paradoxes) involves an interesting but unprovable assumption that I feel originates in our language more than anything else. The assumption is this: for every object X (such as a rock), there exists a sort of intangible "Who's Who" list of all the beings and entities able and unable to perform action Y (such as lifting) on X. This is to say, not only is it impossible for Koko the gorilla to lift Mount Augustus (sometimes considered the "world's biggest rock"), but Koko's inability is in itself a feature or aspect of Augustus, like its color, vegetation, and, of course, size.

To me, saying this is an easy trap to fall into, but still basically irrelevant (and if that's so, there is no paradox — God makes a mountain of however many tons he likes, then, being infinitely strong, lifts it — the "impossibility" having never been present "within" the mountain to begin with.) Has this confusion/objection been raised before, perhaps in different phrasing? And if so, how do those who contend that it is still a paradox respond? (Note that I still believe there are plenty of other inescapable omnipotence paradoxes — can God make a square triangle? But this one in particular strikes me for this reason). —Lenoxus 23:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

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