I heard a man say that if we take the evil and suffering of the world to mean God cannot exist, then we must also take the good and joy of the world to mean that God must exist. Since both exist, then they cannot be valid premises about the existence of God.
In a more visual way this is what he's saying:
Premise 1: God is all Good, Omniscient, Omnipotent
Premise 2: Evil cannot exist under first premise.
Premise 3: Good will exist under the first premise.
Premise 4: Evil exists.
Premise 5: Good exists.
Conclusion: Premises 2 and 3 are contradictions, and therefore are invalid conditionals for Premise 1.
I personally agree with this conclusion. It is not uncommon to hear Christians point to the good and beautiful or the miraculous as evidence that their God exists, just like it is not uncommon for Atheists to point at the evil and suffering of the world as proof that God doesn't exist. As a result, pointing at the current state of the world is not a good tool to measure the existence of God.
What do you guys think?
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The problem is with "Premise 3: Good will exist under the first premise."
The problem this is not an if-and-only-if, which seems how you have taken it.
If premise 1 is true, then premise 3 must be true, however just because premise 3 is true, does not mean premise 1 is true! In other words there are ways premise 3 could be true, while premise 1 is false.
Notice that premise 2 is very different:
If evil exist, then premise 1 CAN'T be true.
Here is a silly example:
1. Unicorns rip the bark off trees where they live and they will not live near horses.
2. I keep a horse in my yard.
3. My tree is missing some bark.
Just because my tree is missing bark, does not mean a unicorn lives nearby; there are lots of ways a tree can be missing bark, but it does leave open the possibility that a unicorn lives nearby (until we get to premise 3). However, because I have a horse, I can be sure no unicorns live nearby.
Your response is good, and it is one I wanted to better elaborate in my post, but felt it would go too much off topic to keep it simple. Keep in mind that the main conclusion I want arrive at is that evil does not invalidate God, because good does not validate him. Even though I feel this conclusion is logical, building the premises is a bit harder. So I'll try to address your points in a different format:
Antecedent 1: "If God is good.."
Consequent 1: Evil cannot exist.
Antecedent 2: "If God is good.."
Consequent 2: Good must exist.
In this format, Antecedent 1 is false because evil does exist, and Antecedent 2 is true, because good does exist. Put together we have a collision, God cannot both exist and not exist. I believe this point is clear and we can both agree on.
However you brought up a slightly different approach. One in which we flip the antecedent and consequent around. This is what we get:
Antecedent 1: If Good exists.
Consequent 1: Then God exists.
Antecedent 2: If evil exist.
Consequent 2: Then God does not.
If we take these premises to be true, we have the same outcome. Good does exist, therefore God does too; Evil does exist therefore God does not. Therefore the only thing we can conclude is that our conditionals are not true.
I don't know if I've addressed your point better, or just gone in circles. However I do feel that we can all agree that there is a problem with the premises. The main objection being that anyone with just a small understanding of the Bible is aware that it teaches that the world is evil, that God is good, and that God is going to fix the world. So evidently the Bible makes it possible for a good God and an evil world to exist at the same time.
Does it make sense what I'm getting at?
john6b:
'Antecedent 2: "If God is good.."
Consequent 2: Good must exist.
In this format, Antecedent 1 is false because evil does exist, and Antecedent 2 is true, because good does exist. Put together we have a collision, God cannot both exist and not exist. I believe this point is clear and we can both agree on'
Sorry no I can't agree with that. You are still playing fast and loose with 'if'. When we speak English on the street, the word "if" is ambiguous: can be interpreted two different ways. When making a logical statement, to distinguish between them we use "IF" and "IFF" (if and only if).
IF A, then B; implies that if A is true, then B is true. However it does not imply that if B is true, then A is true.
IFF A, then B; implies that if A is true, then B is true, and it implies that if B is true, A is true.
So to fix your argument (to get the conclusion you want: a contradiction) the quoted part needs to be changed to something along the lines of:
1)IFF God exists, then good exists.
2) Good exists.
3) Therefore God exists.
Now this piece of the argument works (creates the contradiction with the other one, like you wanted). However when you reach a contradiction, the next step is to start throwing out premises until the contraction is resolved. Most people here will object to 1) as it is ridiculous.
I see what you are saying, and I wasn't aware of the idea of the IFF.
All of these premises are based on the back of assumptions that I have been purposefully ignoring until now, for the purpose of the discussion. But since you brought up the point of throwing out premises, maybe you can help me understand what atheists base these assumptions on, so we can begin throwing away the invalid assumptions. I'll give my response first, and you can reply with yours.
Let's for the sake of the conversation specify that the God we are talking about is the Christian God (or JudeoChristian/Abrahamic God). I say this because Benevolence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, are typically used to describe the Christian God, and not Poseidon or Hades for example. Let's also establish that good and evil both exist.
Assumption 1: Based on what assumption can good exist if and only if God exists?
Answer: Good can exist within other worldviews too, so it is not an exclusive attribute of the Christian God.
Conclusion: Invalid premise.
Assumption 2: Based on what assumption can good exist if God exists?
Answer: The Bible describes God as love, and His creation as good.
Conclusion: Valid premise.
Question 3: Based on what assumption can evil exist if and only if God does not exist?
Answer: The Bible describes the existence of evil and the existence of God as simultaneously possible.
Conclusion: Invalid premise.
Question 4: Based on what assumption can evil exist if God does not exist?
Answer: Evil and suffering can exist in completely naturalistic worldview, as well as other religions, not exclusive to Christianity.
Conclusion: Valid premise.
Question 5: Based on what assumption can God exist, if and only if evil does not exist?
Answer: The Bible describes the existence of evil and the existence of God as simultaneously possible.
Conclusion: Invalid premise.
Question 6: Based on what assumption can God exist, if evil does not exist?
Answer: I cannot think of a reason why God wouldn't be able to exist if evil does not exist.
Conclusion: Valid premise.
Question 7: Based on what assumption can God exist, if and only if good exists.
Answer: Bible describes God as Good.
Conclusion: Valid premise.
Question 8: Based on what assumption can God exist, if good does not exist?
Answer: Since the Bible describes God as Good, to remove good is to remove God.
Conclusion: Invalid premise
Summary: The only valid premises are:
1. If God exists, then good exists.
2. If God does not exist, then evil exists.
3 If evil does not exist, then God exists.
4. If good does not exist, then God does not exist.
Well you held up well for a while, but I see you have descended into madness:
You have 8 blocks of 'statements'. Each of them has a conclusion that a premise is either valid or invalid. You can not validate or invalidate a premise without another premise. Furthermore your 8 blocks don't even contain explicit premises. I would start over and be more explicit.
It's a lot harder than you think listing every single possible combination. I originally though it was only four, 2 for evil and 2 for good, but it just kept multiplying, and it can easily be turned into 16 potential premise combinations dealing just with the existence of God. Not including premises based on combinations of God being all good, or all powerful, and so forth.
I stopped and just sent the message anyway to see if you had anything more to say, but I personally find it futile to be that objective.
it is really easy:
Step 1) Write down a set of premises, you should only need no more than 6, and most of them should be really simple.
Step 2) Come to a logical conclusion from them.
The hard part is creating a set of premises so uncontroversial that no one will reject them; that you can still use to draw a non-trivial logical conclusion.
Here's what I've come up with. In this first section I've taken the three common descriptions of God (all-good, knowing, powerful) and analyzed each one in isolation. These are the results:
Benevolent
Premise 1: God is all-good.
Premise 2: An all-good God would not approve of evil, if it exists.
Premise 3: Evil exists.
Premise 4: Therefore ”You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.”-Psalm 5:4
Conclusion: God is good.
Omnipotent
Premise 1: God is all-powerful.
Premise 2: An all-powerful God will always be able to overcome evil, if evil exists.
Premise 3: Evil exists
Premise 4: Therefore God can “Rescue us from the present Evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” Galatians 1:4.
Conclusion: God is all-powerful.
Omniscient
Premise 1: God is all knowing.
Premise 2: An all knowing God would know about an upcoming evil, ahead of time.
Premise 3: Evil exists.
Premise 4: Jesus "knew from the beginning...who it was that would betray him." John 6:64.
Conclusion: God is all knowing.
***There are verses which state God had a plan set up from the beginning for the rise of sin. But if I were to quote them verbatim they wouldn't fit the flow of the premises. So I'm using the verse about Jesus knowing from the beginning who would betray them, as a parallel to God knowing from the Beginning of the rise of evil.
So far so good. But the Problem of Evil as it is commonly used, doesn't take God's attributes in isolation. Instead it attempts to create an inconsistency between them. This is where you have the classical statement: "Either God is good but unable, or able but not good.."
Of course most Christians disagree with this dichotomy, because it removes many variables. So below I simply want to put the Christian version of the Problem of Evil:
Premise 1: God is All-Good, All-Knowing, All-Powerful.
Premise 2: An All-Good/Loving God, will create sentient beings that are capable of being good and loving, if he chooses to create anything.
Premise 3: A sentient being that is capable of good and love, must be capable of hate and evil.
Premise 4: A God that is All-Knowing, would know if this being would one day choose hate and evil.
Premise 5: An Omnibenevolent God that knows evil will rise, would have a plan set in place for such an event.
Premise 6: An Omnipotent God that has a plan set up for salvation, would be able to execute it
Premise 7: God did have a plan for salvation, and claims to have execute it.
Conclusion: God is all good, powerful, and knowing.
All 4 of your latest arguments are fundamentally misguided from the start. Lets review a little:
You don't generally don't prove premises. You state them as true, and assume everyone will accept them. This is why you want the premises to be as uncontroversial as possible. You then use these premises to logically come to a conclusion. Let me give you an example:
Premise 1: All eggs have fur.
Premise 2: If you have something with fur inside your house, you will be able to find fur on the couch.
Premise 3: John keeps eggs in his house.
Conclusion 1: We can find fur on John's couch.
I believe this is a totally logical argument, in that: if you accept the premises, the conclusion follows. The problem is going to be to convince anyone to accept the premises (most notably premise 1: "all eggs have fur"). So while this argument is logical, it isn't going to convince anyone.
What you basically did in all 4 arguments is:
Premise 1: All eggs have fur.
...
Conclusion 1: All eggs have fur.
This isn't going to convince anyone either! It is called "begging the question".
Start with a set of premises you think you can get anyone to accept as true (without an argument!), then try to work out a conclusion from them.
That's true, so would it fix the problem if I remove the original first premise so it doesn't repeat:
Premise 1: If evil exists, an good God would not approve of it.
Premise 2: Evil exists.
Premise 3: God doesn't approve of it. -Psalm 5:4
Conclusion: Therefore God is good.
Much better! But how about this:
Premise 1: If you do not approve of evil, you are good.
Premise 2: God exists.
Premise 3: God does not approve of evil. -Psalm 5:4
Conclusion: God is good.
That works nicely because it makes good an attribute of anything that fits it's description. Now the next step is turning "good" into "all-good" and figuring out what that means. Since not only is that the description usually given to God, but it is the "all" part of that word which the Problem of Evil tries to find an exception for.
Another problem is getting people to accept those 3 premises, without the conclusion has not teeth. But I wanted to address the form of the argument (which looks pretty good now, imo), and leave the complaining about the premises to others.
Agreed. The only good thing is that the POE argument presupposes that those premises are true as well as the conclusion, and then attempts to collide the conclusion with other conclusions. ex: That God can't be all good and knowing at the same time.
So if someone complains about the original premises and conclusions, that's fine. But then it's no longer a Problem of Evil argument, it becomes a "Problem of 'is God really Good?'" or what have you.
if you draw a logical conclusion from a set of premises, then 1 or more of the premises is wrong (a proof by contraction).
Premise 1: God exists.
Premise 2: God is omni-benevolent, omnipotent, & omniscient.
Premise 3: An omni-benevolent being would not knowing allow evil to exist, if they had the power to stop it.
Premise 4: Evil exists.
Conclusion 1: Evil does not exist (using premise 1, 2, 3).
Which of course created a contradiction with premise 4. So at the very least one of the 4 premises must be wrong, and needs to be discarded. However #3 and #4 seems pretty uncontroversial, which only leaves us with the choice of discarding #1 or# 2. It would be pointless to discard #1 without discarding #2, so at a minimum we must discard #2.
Right, but this argument doesn't simply have premises, it also contains a conditional. So I find the problem with Premise 3 and the conclusion, and not with 1 and 2. This how I would fix the conclusion:
Premise 1...
Premise 2...
Premise 3: An omni-benevolent being would not knowing allow evil to exist, if they had the power to stop it.
Premise 4: Evil exists.
Conclusion: Therefore the being didn't have the power to stop it.
John6b - "but this argument doesn't simply have premises, it also contains a conditional"
No, the condition is premise, and I clearly labeled it such: stop the madness.
John6b - "So I find the problem with Premise 3 and the conclusion"
Stop the presses! You have a problem with the conclusion?!? Please explain EXACTLY how my conclusion does not follow from premise 1, 2 and 3...
Haha relax, we're basically saying the same thing. The premise is a conditional, that's all I'm saying. But this is why the problem is Premise 3.
Premise 1: My cat exists.
Premise 2. My cat is purple
Premise 3 If my cat is purple, then he can't be gold.
Premise 4. My cat is gold.
Conclusion? There is no conclusion. Either we accept the cat is purple and reject he is white, or we accept he is white and reject he is purple, or we conclude that Premise 3 set up a wrong conditional. Whatever we do, it is true that if we want to validate the argument, we can throw out either 2, 3 or 4 and be done with the problem. However if we want to know which is the right Premise to throw out, then each assumption must be tested by other means. However Premise 3 is what is creating the dilemma, and when it comes to God, it is what Christians we believe to be incorrect because it is missing information.
So for example (and this is very disorganized):
Premise: If He had the power to stop it, then an omnibenevolent being would not knowing allow evil to exist, unless He was also wise and knew whether or not stopping it was the right thing to do.
This is important because it gives God a brain and good judgment, not leaving him to be a computer with infinite knowledge. Although I do believe the idea of wisdom is inherent in Omniscience, the premise automatically assumes that the right thing to do is not allow evil to exist.
I could say more but I'll wait on you.
"I heard a man say that if we take the evil and suffering of the world to mean God cannot exist, then we must also take the good and joy of the world to mean that God must exist. Since both exist, then they cannot be valid premises about the existence of God."
You should have told him that he was an idiot, good and joy would exist in a godless universe, but evil could not possibly exist in a universe with a benevolent omnimax deity. Seems to me that he missed the whole point of the problem of evil and simply stuck with an "I'm rubber, you're glue!" tactic. The whole reason the argument works is that this reality is exactly what one would expect to see if such a deity did not exist, and completely antithetical to a reality in which one did exist. Goodness and joy is in no way dependent on such a deity, but the existence of evil and suffering is absolutely dependent on the nonexistence of such an entity.
That's the issue, there are a lot of assumptions made in the Problem of Evil, that when mirrored tend to invalidate it. However let's for the sake of the conversation suppose that the Problem of Evil is correct. A Good Omnipotent God cannot exist if Evil exist. Let me ask you the following.
Under the Problem of Evil argument: If God is to exist, is evil allowed to exist as well under the condition that every time it does come up, a Good Omnipotent God will always do something about it? Or is evil something that cannot exist at all?
A similar scenario to help explain what I'm asking is this: If a Good Firefighter exists, does he put out fires every time a fire starts, or are fires not allowed to exist at all?
"That's the issue, there are a lot of assumptions made in the Problem of Evil, that when mirrored tend to invalidate it."
Only if you further assume that goodness and joy is contingent upon a benevolent omnimax deity, once that assumption is removed, the problem all but disappears.
"However let's for the sake of the conversation suppose that the Problem of Evil is correct. A Good Omnipotent God cannot exist if Evil exist. Let me ask you the following.
Under the Problem of Evil argument: If God is to exist, is evil allowed to exist as well under the condition that every time it does come up, a Good Omnipotent God will always do something about it?"
That is rather easy, we are dealing with an all-knowing and all powerful being, after all. This means that he could effectively head off evil before it ever came to fruition, which a benevolent god would, and it would never occur.
"Or is evil something that cannot exist at all?"
If we are to believe that god is benevolent, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then it wouldn't ever occur. Remove any of those attributes, any one of them, and the problem of evil is no longer a problem. So either god isn't benevolent and omnimax, or it doesn't exist, those really are the only two options.
"A similar scenario to help explain what I'm asking is this: If a Good Firefighter exists, does he put out fires every time a fire starts, or are fires not allowed to exist at all?"
That is a terrible analogy, it would only be appropriate if this firefighter was also described as benevolent and omnimax, so I really don't need to even address this at all.
Your answers are good so far. Now, there is a problem in evil not being allowed to exist at all. This is that as a result, good or benevolent become redundant adjectives in the description of God.
Similar to a world in which it's inhabitants claim to be dry, yet the idea of being wet doesn't exist. How do you define dry in such a universe?
So to claim that we have a good and benevolent God, is only possible if he has done good and benevolent things. In other words evil exists in some sense.
So my conclusion is that if we are going to describe God as benevolent being we must allow a universe where evil is a possibility. And if we have a world in which evil is possible, then in order for God to be good and powerful, he must stop evil whenever it arises.
Do you agree?
"Your answers are good so far. Now, there is a problem in evil not being allowed to exist at all. This is that as a result, good or benevolent become redundant adjectives in the description of God."
No more than "light" or "heat" would cease to exist if the utter absence of it ceased to exist. Sure, the words "dark" and "cold" might not exist, because the state of affairs they describe would no longer be in our experience, so it would no longer be necessary to define them. That, however, would do nothing to damage or destroy the actual existence of light or heat.
"Similar to a world in which it's inhabitants claim to be dry, yet the idea of being wet doesn't exist. How do you define dry in such a universe?"
Would there be a need to define a state of affairs that doesn't exist? No, well, not outside of religion anyway. Religion does tend to describe and define many states that don't actually exist, but I digress. Now, so what? So the words "evil" and "suffering" would lose all meaning, how is that a bad thing? If god finds it necessary to allow such things to shine an even brighter light upon himself, that isn't benevolent, that is narcissistic.
"So to claim that we have a good and benevolent God, is only possible if he has done good and benevolent things. In other words evil exists in some sense."
I would probably drop this line of reasoning before someone points out that you are simply proving that the concept of evil had to exist prior the concept of a benevolent god. Other than that, you are arguing semantics. Sure, we might not have a reason to describe god as "good" when there is no evil, but unless that would somehow nullify his inherent "goodness" that would be irrelevant. You are literally saying that evil was necessary for god because it allowed us to define good, which allowed us to define god as good, and that means that god can actually be good. If his goodness is somehow dependent on our observation and recognition of it, then we create god, and he can't exist without us.
"So my conclusion is that if we are going to describe God as benevolent being we must allow a universe where evil is a possibility. And if we have a world in which evil is possible, then in order for God to be good and powerful, he must stop evil whenever it arises."
Above, and no. Not only does he not stop evil, but if he did, it would only be damage control after the fact considering he could have prevented it entirely. There are times in OUR lives, when without all the advantages god has we can see something bad about to happen and prevent it, could we continue to simply consider ourselves good or benevolent if we just stand by and refuse to act until after the fact? There is a flaw in reasoning here, and I don't think it is mine, perhaps we should both investigate further.
"Do you agree?"
Unless you are agreeing that we create gods by inventing them, and define them into existence, I fail to see why evil would be necessary for a benevolent or good deity to exist. Unless our failure to recognize attributes of god could undo them, then this argument is rather moot.
I think Travis replied well to your post however I think there is a Premise that you missed which is the most vital to collapse the entire argument.
"Premise 1: God is all Good, Omniscient, Omnipotent"
AND
CAN DO EVERYTHING(that is the christian doctrine, they say it in every mass of every day)
NOW, for a god that can do everything, even make you human and a dog at the same point in time, that can break the laws of logic, for that type of god;
Evil can only exist if god wills it.
To say otherwise is to say that god can't do everything.
Everything = Everything(no exceptions)
See the real problem?
Even if it arises some logical contradictions, it does not matter, since god can break logic.
To say otherwise is to say that GOD can't do everything but is restricted by logic too.
"Premise 2: Evil cannot exist under first premise."
So when the first premise is properly defined, no evil cannot exist if god does not want it to exist even if it breaks logic.
"Premise 3: Good will exist under the first premise."
Good is relative, define good first?
If we assume that god wants only good, then yes the premise would be somewhat correct.
"Premise 4: Evil exists."
It is a fact that evil exists relative to better moral things.
"Premise 5: Good exists."
It is a fact that good exists relative to worse moral things.
Conclusion:
Premise 1 must be false because evil cannot exist under that premise and we know for a fact that evil does exist.
The definition of omnipotence is already the ability to do everything. So in that sense I don't believe that point was missed in my premise.
However you do bring up a good point about omnipotence, in that it is inherently contradictory. That being said, I haven't met a Christian which believes that by saying God is Omnipotent, that He is able to make contradictions. God cannot make a rock so big that he cannot move it, or maybe he can; but he cannot both be able to move the rock and not move it at the same time. I personally don't see the problem in restraining the descriptions we have of God to what is logical, not to do so is by default illogical. So the problem is with what we want omnipotence to include, and not with what God claims he is and isn't able to do.
That being said, notice that you are not treating Premises 2 and 3 the same. If you say Good is relative and must be defined, then likewise Evil is relative and must be defined. If you say that we know for a fact that evil does exist, then I can say that we know for a fact that good does exist.
BAH :( Omnipotent does not mean that he can do everything.
Before making such a claim, at least use Google.
Omnipotent deals with just power, I should have realized that you didn't even know what omnipotent means.
Omnipotent = having unlimited power
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/omnipotent
If you haven't heard Christians say that god can do everything then you haven't gone to mass, because they say it in every mass.
Did you ever hear a christian say that god can't do everything but has to conform to logic?
NO, so that proves my point.
If you claim that god can do everything then, yes, he can move a rock and not move it at the same point in time.
About premise 2 and 3 I'm treating them the same for definition, I just asked the question about only good assuming you understood that once you define good you automatically defined what is evil.
But i bet I overestimated you a bit there.
In premise 2 I focus on a complete exclusion of something.
Meaning that there is no way for it to exist
If god WANTS ONLY GOOD then evil cannot possibly exist.
In premise 3 I am focusing on a possible inclusion.
They cannot be considered in the same basket.
It is possible for good to exist if premise 1 is true regardless if it is defined if we assume god wants good.
My definition of good/evil:
Though if it is defined then we do not need that assumption but we would have a proper definition of what they are.
They are relative to each other, good and evil are 2 ends of a string and any subject can be placed on the string. Like north and south pole.
Then according to our own subjectiveness we decide on which side of the string to we place the object.
We base this decision from our ongoing understanding of reality.
Back to my main point :
You either choose that god cannot do everything or that god does not want good always.
In either case, premise 1 is false.
Apart from that , from logic, one can build a case that the christian god favors evil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BzP1wr234
It is not a coincidence that I said that the christian god must break logic, if he doesn't logic proves he does not exist.
But i have to admit that it is cool that you accept the fact that god can't break logic.
Gues what, the bible disagrees with you and so do all christians that go to mass.
Mathew 19:26
Job 42:2
Ephesians 3:20-21
All say god can do everything.
Remember EVERYTHING = EVERYTHING(no exceptions)
Are they lying? or exaggerating(lying)?
It is not a coincidence all Christians drill this phrase in their head every mass by sheer repetition.
It is hard to swallow, so repetition is needed.
I forgot to mention something very important. The word omnipotence is a description we gave him. You don't need to look for crazy contradictions in the description of the word omnipotence to try and prove God is not all powerful by those standards.
The Bible itself says very plainly: "It is impossible for God to lie."-Hebrews 6:18.
You don't need to conjure up a God that can make 1+1=2 and 1+1=3 at the same time. The Bible itself claims there are things which God cannot do.
The bible both claims that god can do everything and also that he can't do everything.(contradictory nature)
I never said otherwise.
I said that it is christian doctrine (or at least catholic christian doctrine) to consider god as omnipotent and that he can do everything.
But they pay special attention to make sure that everybody knows that god can do everything by repeating it in every mass.
Just like they do with the phrase GOD IS LOVE.
When in reality there is nothing of love in the christian god character, but through sheer repetition an unsupported claim becomes a fact.
Brainwashing works that way after all.
1. Ironically when you Google omnipotence, you get this definition: "having unlimited power; able to do anything." However if you have an affinity for the Oxford dictionary, look up the definition of power: "The ability to do something..." So explain to me how you can have unlimited power, and not be able to do anything? So there, I'm right, you're wrong. End of story. Moving on.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/power
2. Christians do say God can do everything, but within a very logical context: changing a person, curing a disease, creating something, or whatever. You're forcing me to take a position that I simply do not hold, nor do any of the Christian friends. So if you find yourself a Christian that believes God can create a rock so big, that he can both move it and not move, then by all means go debate him instead. But I sincerely doubt you'll find one, and if you do he'll have a hard time defending that assumption.
3. The verses you brought up all have a context, and all have an assumption that the reader will understand them to mean something specific, and not take them into irrational ground. So I'll break it down for you.
Matt 19:26
Context: Who can be saved, if no one is worthy?
Response: With God all things are possible.
I have no problem with taking this verse to mean God is all powerful but within context; and I have no problem with a being that can do things which are impossible for us to do, and I doubt you would disagree. Birds can fly, fish can live underwater, and koalas can eat raw eucalyptus leaves, and we can't. There's nothing illogical about this statement.
Job 42:2
Context: God being able to create everything by his understand and power, and letting Job know he's ignorant of God's ways.
Response: "I know you can do all things.... Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know"
Read Job 40 and onwards, it is basically a long list of everything God has done, and can do. Nowhere does it even remotely hint at Him being able to create a rock so big he can both move it and not move it at the same time.
Ephesians 3:20:
I'm not even gonna give you a context. There's nothing illogical about a being that can immeasurably more than we can ask or think. A parent holding a small child in his arms can easily say the same, and most parents do.
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