Often opponents of the faith ask the following sophisticated question: IS IT YOURS GOD Almighty? IF IT IS ALMIGHTY THAT HE CAN MAKE A STONE THAT HE CANNOT RAISE?

I know two answers to that question, one answer I gave when, while I was a toddler at a military academy, I was asked by another toddler (cadet) of the Muslim faith, and another very wise answer to the same question I heard from the blessed patriarch Paul while I once took a bus with him from Belgrade to Kraljevo in 1997.

1) My answer is:

a friend asked me a question:

IS YOUR GOD ALMIGHTY AND IF YOU CAN, HE CAN MAKE A STONE THAT HE CANNOT RAISE?

Such a question is a classic philosophical snap, that is, a sophism aimed at deceiving the listener. I changed my mind, and since I was also learning logic at school, I told him that the question was pointless from the point of view of Aristotle’s logic and that such a question was not answered because it was ILLOGICAL.

He asked me to explain why the question was illogical?

I told him that, as a rule, at least two premises (two statements, two assertions) are set in logic and a closure (conclusion) based on them are derived. So, to show the illogicality of the issue and to clarify it, I wanted to put the question in two simplified premises:

1. God can do anything
2. Can God do what He cannot? (as it was said whether He can create a stone He cannot raise, I shortened it to the question “can what He cannot”)

And since in the first sentence we claim that everything can, and in the second as we ask the question whether what cannot, then the second premise or statement alone makes that question meaningless, illogical, and based on two premises, on the basis of two statements that are mutually exclusive no logical conclusion can be drawn, so such a question is pointless and it is just plain sophism.

2) Patriarch Paul’s response:

In 1997, if memory serves me well, while I was serving in Kraljevo as an officer, I had the honor of encountering our dear Patriarch on a bus traveling to Novi Pazar. But my surprise was even greater when I saw that my seat reservation was right next to the Patriarch’s. And a conversation began that I will remember all my life. The saint also told me this anecdote: “The other day a man in front of all the people asked me: YOUR HOLY, IS YOUR GOD ALLMIGHTY? And I look at him and say, YES, and he will go on: And when he is ALMIGHTY THAT HE CAN MAKE A STONE THAT HE CANNOT RAISE? I look at him and tell him: FRIEND, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU SOMETHING, BUT YOU WON’T GET MAD? And he’ll: I WON’T. And I tell him again: FRIEND, JUST IN CASE I’LL ASK YOU AGAIN, YOU WON’T GET MAD? And he will say to me: I WILL NOT. And for the third time I ask him: I STILL ASK JUST IN CASE YOU WILL NOT GET MAD? And he will say to me: NO, I WILL NOT GET MAD. And than I say to him: FINE, IF YOU WON’T GET MAD, TELL US ALL CAN YOU BE SMART?   

And he is silent and silent and thinking: If he says I CAN, then he is not smart; if he says NO,I CAN’T then again he is not smart. And he is still silent and at the end he says: NEITHER! I AM ALREADY SMART!!!

And I tell him: THERE YOU GO, MY FRIEND, SO DID IT MY GOD WHO CREATED A STONE THAT HE CANNOT RAISE!

And he asked me in astonishment: WHAT IS THAT STONE?     

And I tell him: YOU ARE THIS STONE, NEITHER CAN GOD SAVES YOU IF YOU WON’T BE SAVED ‘.    

And our wise patriarch is under that stone which God has made, and which he cannot lift, has called our FREEDOM of WILL, for God will not force anyone to be saved. The wise patriarch knew how to say: GOD WILL HELP IF THERE IS ANYONE TO HELP