the strength of Allah

With the greatest of respect I would like to ask a question about the strength of Allah.

There is a philosophical paradox that poses the question:
If Allah is so powerful and can do ANYTHING, can he create a rock that is so heavy that he himself cannot lift it?

As a student of religion I would be very interested in the Islamic answer to this question.

I could not find an answer in the Quran or any non quranic scripture by any of the prophets so I thought I would ask you.

May your God bless and keep you,
Sincerely, Lawson

Naba:

means we humans can't think how Allah does...

Sure, than please stop speculating that God is "as described by the Quran", he may as well be a nutter !

Airmano

Edited by airmano - 02 February 2015 at 1:09pm

When an irresistible force hits an immoveable object the rest of the universe is moved, or at least whatever the force is anchored to does.

Compared to relativity doing these old riddles is very easy.

God can lift an infinitely heavy object because the world can be moved down rather than the object being lifted.

airmano wrote: Emettman That is a mere linguistic anomaly, not any sort of philosophical paradox. I would not necessarily agree. The problem Lawson is addressing is "infinity" here disguised in the form of almighty (= infinite power).

Yes, I should have avoided the "mere", though this and related situations are those where ordinary language does not serve very well as the extremes of very small, very large and very detailed are approached.

Sure, what characterizes infinity is just that you can never get there in the first place... Therefore I rather see it as a mathematical problem but I agree that the borderline is thin... Interestingly enough there are different levels of infinity

Yes, this hurts the brain (and language) trained for and experienced in more "reasonable" numbers (a separate comforting illusion, there being an infinity of numbers between one and two.)
Mathematics does indeed do better, and getting a room in Hilbert's hotel is fun, even if you are going to annoy an infinite number of people.

But as technical jargon (no negative sense implied) mathematics of significant depth requires extra knowledge for its proper comprehension. Without that it becomes a "foreign language" and yet one from which terms and concepts can be borrowed, or stolen from their legitimate contexts without proper understanding of their meaning. And waved around in triumph, on occasion.

])In my eyes it is already the construction of an almighty God itself that leads to contradictions. I tried to lay that out in this:� Almighty God but with little resonance.Airmano

Yes, I can follow your argument there, and see how others have not fully responded to it.

The free will/predestination debate has rattled down the centuries with no adequate resolution in a universe held to involve an omnipotent deity.
In a wonderful(?) phrase I found in a commentary "the two are to be held in a constructive tension".
(which I tend to read as "they don't fit together, but if you use enough baling wire that doesn't show up too badly.")

Chris