You know the philosophical question "can god make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift"? This is something some people came up with to think about the property of the biblic god to be almighty or all-knowing.

And you know that scientists have said there are properties in some elemental components in our universe where they can pop up everywhere and thus cannot be predicted with 100% probability? Some say they are the cause of our free will.

What if the universe was created with this intend from god himself for this purpose, so god himself can answer this question. What if he did this all for this? It could explain some discrepancies, or do I see that wrong?

[Also, I didn't find anything if there is a rule against making a thread like this so if there is, dear mods, I'm sorry. I don't want to cause uproar here, I thought a discussion about my thoughts with bright-minded people could be engaging.]

I do not understand the question.

Who say 'they are thecause of our free will'? Some scientists, as you imply?

Cause, fyi, there is a strong movement against free will even existing among some scientists.

If nothing else this thread has highlighted the importance of getting a good night's sleep.

The thought occurs that if God created the universe to answer a kind of puzzle, then the chances of some really quite minor parts of the universe also finding the answer are nil.

As far as people who claim to have no free will go, can we not just shoot them? If they're right it ain't our fault, and if they're wrong we've just removed some dangerous spreaders of damaging philosophy from humanity :).

Doesn't the question seem to presume that gravity is a constant? Take a pebble for instance. How much does it weight on the Moon vs. how much does it weigh in the event horizon of a black hole? Then how much does it weight when remove entirely from a galaxy?

The act of making a rock whatever the size, has little to do with its weight. Its weight is a factor of its proximity to another object. That's only as far as I understand such things. Which is admittedly very little. I am sure their are some physicists who will come along and explain (in terms I probably won't understand either) how wrong I am.

But to my middle / high school understanding of things my answer is "I am sure that God understands that weight isn't a constant"

A counter question as to relationships might be. If God is all powerful, what effect could my ability to string together words in a sentence possibly have on His attributes? Sure I can come up with paradoxes, but I'd would be using this reality to describe a being how could create alternate ones.

@ Crazy Anglican...OK, so try this on. It God is omnipresent, they he himself would theoretically have infinite mass, and therefore an infitinely large gravitational attraction, and thus any rock would be infinitely heavy in his presence.

But, also being all-powerful, he would have infinte strength to lift said rock that is gravitationally stuck to His body.

Good lord! God must be trapped inside the earth, surrounded by rocks that has glommed on to Him!!

@kakarroto, is that TV series HBO's Westworld by any chance?

@ krellin

Remember the trinity? God the Father created any number of rocks that God the Son couldn't lift? ;-)

Being of one substance with the father, God has already created many rocks that He couldn't lift and is still omnipotent.

I'm not sure about physically omnipresent rather than spiritually omnipresent though. Sounds a bit like pantheism.

Which God? Old Testament Angry dude, or Redeemer of Mankind New Testament dude. Or perhaps Anubis?

well first of all: "God" isn't "matter" exactly so its not like he goes around lifting things.

@KAngel - I wasn't being serious about my scenario. I think the idea of mortal, finite (brained) man trying to "trap" logic with logic traps is ridiculous, because it denies the infinte, unexplorable qualities of God that man is simply incapable of understanding. I was actually kind of mocking the whole premise of the discussion.

Ya but which Deity? Theres so many. Erythnul, Nerull, Obad Hai, Yondalla

@krellin

Which was sort of what I was doing too. Playing with the idea a bit more than I should have though in my response to you.

@brainbomb

The OP narrowed it down quite a bit by referencing the Biblical God and describing Him as almighty and all knowing. I made an assumption based on those bit of information.

@brainbomb - I'm confident you're trolling, but for what it's worth Christians teach that the same God works in and through old and new testaments. If you're interested in the history of the ways Christians (or others) have clarified the teaching of the Holy Trinity, I'm sure I could find resources so we can speak (agreeing or disagreeing) about the ideas intelligently and respectfully.


@kakarroto -

The rock-creating-lifting question itself, which IME is generally delivered by unkind atheists attempting to prove God illogical, really just demonstrates the finitude of our subjective perception of God's attributes (a finitude most rationalists tend to reject a priori). Though if you believe in the Incarnation as I do, you could say that God (Trinity, infinite, incorporeal) created a rock so big that God the Son (Jesus, self-limiting in the Incarnation) chose to not-be-able-to-lift.

Anyway, the rock-lifting question wasn't actually your question. You wanted to know if randomly-appearing elemental properties cause free will, so that God could run an experiment of sorts? Interesting! I'd say:
a) Just because WE can't tell where elemental properties will show up next... that doesn't mean that God doesn't know where they'll show up, or have power over when/where that is. Omniscience is omniscience. Omnipotence is omnipotence. If we're going to think about God as having those attributes, we can't limit His abilities to our finite level of scientific understanding).
b) The question of free will vs. determinism is far from settled, so it may be a bit narrow minded for anyone to suggest that scientists or theologians have the matter settled.
c) If you're wondering if "free will" is the rock God made that's too big to lift, and randomly appearing elemental properties are the material cause of free will, then you have to determine to what extent He has limited his infinite power to let the experiment run. If He's determining the "random" appearance of elemental properties, then our materially-determined free-will really free at all. If He set the universe in order and then limited His participation for the sake of us beings living with independent wills within it, then the ordered pattern of elemental "randomess" isn't (yet?) apparent to us, but it might be some day. If that's the case though, He limited Himself for a purpose, rather than one attribute being overtaken by another. Ask me sometime how God can be infinitely just and merciful at the same time, because that's a better question.

Ultimately, the logical problem comes from proposing that infinite properties are or can be contradictory to one another. We've already had a thread about infinities this month, so yes, this thread is redundant.

There are many things that God cannot do as they are against his very nature. For example God cannot hate you; that would violate his nature as a loving God. I am not God so I can hate you; i just choose not to. That is my FREE will.

^^thats not strictly true. "Hate" is a lack of "love" so "hate isn't really and action you do, as it is an action you DON'T do, if you follow me.

Also it isn't God's "nature" to love as it is WHAT he is. God IS the act of love.

hate is not a lack of love. indifference is a lack of love. and God is not an 'action' God is existence itself.

But to exist is an action.

And yes, philosophy suggests that God is an action.

no existence is being. BTW are you a human being or a human do-ing?

Being is an action.

philosophy is an attempt at understanding; what it suggests depends on the type of philosophy.

St Thomas Aquinas "Unmoved Mover" argument was what I was referring to BTW.

Philosophy is logic. Logic can't be wrong(unless it stems from ignorance)

St. Thomas mixed in philosophy to try to understand. he eventually gave up at the end calling his work 'straw'.

In other words false premises

Your point?