Can God create...

This thread requires that you are prepared to entertain the notion (NOT believe) that a single God exists and that he is at the very least omnipotent.

We have all heard the popular paradox of whether God can create a boulder so large and heavy that he himself cannot lift it. While that paradox was extremely fascinating when it first surfaced and has still produced some fascinating answers since, the fact that is still remains an extremely difficult paradox to "solve" is good because it remains relevant. More importantly, it gets people like me to think of such breathtaking paradoxes as the following:

"Can God create another God that is equal in every aspect to himself?"

You might say, well you just replaced one word of the original and therefore it is nothing special. Well before you do, consider these three critical points:

- A boulder that is too heavy to lift might be an annoyance if God realises that he cannot actually lift it after creating it, but making an entity equal in power to yourself who is already omnipotent means your existence could be in jeopardy from that moment on
- Would either God be able to act in any way once the second God is created?
- Does this specific example prove or disprove that God can or cannot create anything that is equal in power to himself, or is everything he creates automatically lesser in power (no matter how minutely) to himself?

Mind blown yet?

a reply to: Dark Ghost

These are great questions! I like this version of the rock question:

Can God have a thought so complex that even She can't understand it?

The idea of omnipotence is a really interesting idea. I think omnipotence means you are NOT limited by the laws of physics or the laws of logical consistency. So the answer to all your questions is an omnipotent God is everything all at once. So an omnipotent God is both male, female, and no-gender ALL at the same time. And yes, and omnipotent God can create new Gods with the same power of omnipotence. But like in cloud algebra where 1 + 1 = 1, you have the same thing with God omnipotence. Any omnipotent God just becomes a reflection of the same identity. Again, omnipotence is not bounded by logical consistency. Now you could argue then without having logical consistency as a limitation then what I am saying is non-sense and insane. Again, I'm not the one that is omnipotent. I am just saying the power of having omnipotence is not bounded by human language or anything we can conceive.

I do know one thing though: Nature always turns out to be much stranger than anything we could have ever imagined!

a reply to: Dark Ghost


The evidence suggests that's all he can do is 'create'.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Nice thread

I enjoy the concept of tzimtzum in Kabbalist teachings. That is to say; in His infiniteness, God withdrew His Light from within the midst of Himself to prepare an empty space. This empty space in the midst of God was used to create all of existence.

In this view, God creates within Himself, from His very own essence. Therefore, anything that is created is a progressively diminished emanation from the original Source. It follows to reason that in this existence encompassed by God, nothing equal or greater than God can be created.


Outside of God, can He create besides Himself an equal Deity or a rock too great for Him to lift? As a human being confined to relativity and subjectivity, I humbly accept that there is much I do not know. Perhaps we will know what is outside of God when science definitively proves, documents, and substantiates what is outside of our universe.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I really liked that talking point for a whole , but not sure it is quite as definitive as I thought...

My new fav is:

Bad people do bad things because they are bad people.. good people do bad things for their religion..

a reply to: Sahabi

The link was very good.

You could say God doesn't exist until he creates the finite.

"). The reason He cannot do these things is because of His nature and the nature of reality itself. God cannot do what is not actually possible to be done, like creating a two-sided triangle, or a married bachelor. Just because words can be strung together this way does not make the impossible possible - these things are contradictions, they are truly impossible in reality. Now, what about this rock? A rock would have to be infinitely large to defeat an infinite amount of lifting power. But an infinite rock is a contradiction since material objects cannot be infinite. Only God is infinite. There cannot be two infinites. So the question is actually asking if God can make a contradiction - which He cannot."


Readily found in that particular paradox venue with an online search.
This was done a while back, and comes up on occasion, but not really often.

a reply to: Plotus

In some alternate dimension a triangle is the letter V and the letter V is a triangle. Both realities exist so what is real? When an omnipotent God dreams, reality is spontaneously created as She thinks it. What is actually possible to be done then becomes reality. God's subjective reality is our objective reality.

We just live in a certain kind of Universe with certain known possibilities. An omnipotent God can create our Universe in any amount of time including all our fake memories, fossil record, and fake carbon dating evidence. It is the nature of omnipotence to be what you can imagine, and what you are incapable of imagining as true, both at the same time.

a reply to: Dark Ghost
I entertained the notion of a single omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omni(insert other words here) deity for close to half of my 38 years of life.

While the boulder paradox is not a reason as to why I jettisoned faith and belief in the religious-god concept, it certainly does aid in proving a few points about religion, just as some religious people will go to any lengths to try and disprove even the logical idea that a creator god (who, supposedly, always existed and was never created...just always has been) might just be an impossibility.

I like that you raise these questions, though, and they harken back to the days of polytheistic religions with stories of this or that god(dess) defeating and overthrowing others, and cosmic, godly battles that happened.

But, theoretically, a creator go would be able to create another god equal to it, but, being supposedly omniscient, would know better than to do so. Same with the boulder. I can hear this creator god now: "Just because I can, doesn't mean I should."

originally posted by: Dark Ghost
This thread requires that you are prepared to entertain the notion (NOT believe) that a single God exists and that he is at the very least omnipotent.

We have all heard the popular paradox of whether God can create a boulder so large and heavy that he himself cannot lift it. While that paradox was extremely fascinating when it first surfaced and has still produced some fascinating answers since, the fact that is still remains an extremely difficult paradox to "solve" is good because it remains relevant. More importantly, it gets people like me to think of such breathtaking paradoxes as the following:

"Can God create another God that is equal in every aspect to himself?"

You might say, well you just replaced one word of the original and therefore it is nothing special. Well before you do, consider these three critical points:

- A boulder that is too heavy to lift might be an annoyance if God realises that he cannot actually lift it after creating it, but making an entity equal in power to yourself who is already omnipotent means your existence could be in jeopardy from that moment on
- Would either God be able to act in any way once the second God is created?
- Does this specific example prove or disprove that God can or cannot create anything that is equal in power to himself, or is everything he creates automatically lesser in power (no matter how minutely) to himself?

Mind blown yet?

The answer to the boulder paradox is simple. God can consider that there is a rock so heavy he can't lift it and it becomes so, but the moment he considers that he can lift it, he can.

a reply to: Plotus

A teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh about 10 million tons. The gravitational field is intense; the escape velocity is about 0.4 times the speed of light. The collapsed star is so dense that electrons and protons do not exist separately, but are fused to form neutrons.

Could God if we are assuming the all powerful factor create a mere pebble of infinite weight that could not be lifted by him/her/it ?

originally posted by: SolAquarius
a reply to: Plotus

A teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh about 10 million tons. The gravitational field is intense; the escape velocity is about 0.4 times the speed of light. The collapsed star is so dense that electrons and protons do not exist separately, but are fused to form neutrons.

Could God if we are assuming the all powerful factor create a mere pebble of infinite weight that could not be lifted by him/her/it ?

I'd say yes to the infinite weight of a pebble, here's the thing infinite weight against his infinite strength would cancel each other out, that would mean he'd still be able to lift it giving he has infinite time.

Since God is absolute infinite and takes up absolut all Space there is, And Always was and always is. Then the younger twin would be finite no matter what.

God can not lift a stone when God takes up absolute all Space there is. The stone would be a finte and would be smak in the middle of God.

originally posted by: spy66


Since God is absolute infinite and takes up absolut all Space there is, And Always was and always is. Then the younger twin would be finite no matter what.

God can not lift a stone when God takes up absolute all Space there is. The stone would be a finte and would be smak in the middle of God.

You make a statement that "God" is absolute infinite, and takes up all space there is, then you postulate that he makes up a finite "God" twin.

It goes against your original statement and your conclusion. Something infinite that takes up all space creates something finite?

How exactly did the "finite"come into being when the original is absolute and takes up all space?

If something takes up all space, and is infinite; that is all there is, because nothing else can exist because it already takes up that infinite space.

a reply to: DarkvsLight29
Also is this assuming god has some sort of semi corporeal form that is humanoid in nature as opposed to being an infinite formless cociusness?

originally posted by: spy66


Since God is absolute infinite and takes up absolut all Space there is, And Always was and always is. Then the younger twin would be finite no matter what.

God can not lift a stone when God takes up absolute all Space there is. The stone would be a finte and would be smak in the middle of God.

which leads us to conclude that he is in fact not omnipotent because he cant make 0 = 1. a truly omnipotent entity could juggle paradoxes like oranges. ALL powerful means no exceptions. but of course, what would subatomic particles like ourselves understand about juggling paradoxes and operating an entire universe (or multiverse!) simultaneously and singlehandedly? its astounding how everyone has some idea of what being godly or divine is all about except for people who are actually godly/divine. i wonder where those people are hiding...?

originally posted by: SolAquarius
a reply to: DarkvsLight29
Also is this assuming god has some sort of semi corporeal form that is humanoid in nature as opposed to being an infinite formless cociusness?

Yeah assuming he's made himself a body.

originally posted by: DarkvsLight29

originally posted by: SolAquarius
a reply to: DarkvsLight29
Also is this assuming god has some sort of semi corporeal form that is humanoid in nature as opposed to being an infinite formless cociusness?

Yeah assuming he's made himself a body.

An omnipotent God can both be formed and formless at the same time. That's kind of the point of being omnipotent is you are all things all at once. An omnipotent God is aware of every possible experience in any moment. Plus an omnipotent God has memory of every possible past experience and foresight to every possible future experience for all time as single point of awareness.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: spy66


Since God is absolute infinite and takes up absolut all Space there is, And Always was and always is. Then the younger twin would be finite no matter what.

God can not lift a stone when God takes up absolute all Space there is. The stone would be a finte and would be smak in the middle of God.

which leads us to conclude that he is in fact not omnipotent because he cant make 0 = 1. a truly omnipotent entity could juggle paradoxes like oranges. ALL powerful means no exceptions. but of course, what would subatomic particles like ourselves understand about juggling paradoxes and operating an entire universe (or multiverse!) simultaneously and singlehandedly? its astounding how everyone has some idea of what being godly or divine is all about except for people who are actually godly/divine. i wonder where those people are hiding...?

zero doesn't exist in reality. But assuming nothingness is a possible state that could be counted, if an omnipotent God could create nothingness, then one nothingness exists. So zero equals one if you were an omnipotent God capable of experiencing nothingness.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: spy66


Since God is absolute infinite and takes up absolut all Space there is, And Always was and always is. Then the younger twin would be finite no matter what.

God can not lift a stone when God takes up absolute all Space there is. The stone would be a finte and would be smak in the middle of God.

which leads us to conclude that he is in fact not omnipotent because he cant make 0 = 1. a truly omnipotent entity could juggle paradoxes like oranges. ALL powerful means no exceptions. but of course, what would subatomic particles like ourselves understand about juggling paradoxes and operating an entire universe (or multiverse!) simultaneously and singlehandedly? its astounding how everyone has some idea of what being godly or divine is all about except for people who are actually godly/divine. i wonder where those people are hiding...?

zero doesn't exist in reality. But assuming nothingness is a possible state that could be counted, if an omnipotent God could create nothingness, then one nothingness exists. So zero equals one if you were an omnipotent God capable of experiencing nothingness.

...and if we dont assume, that whole thing goes right out the window. next!