When an irresistible force meets an immovable object

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/27/01 12:33:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

<< IRRESISTIBLE FORCE/IMMOVABLE OBJECT (continued)

    "Something's got to give."  Johnny Mercer.
    However, I _thought_ it was Grantland Rice, who used it in football with
the "seven blocks of granite."  Did Johnny Mercer really coin it? >>

Would you believe St. Thomas Aquinas?

I am under the impression that the immovable object/irresistible force is an
old conundrum from philosophy, one that sportswriters cannot resist using as
a metaphor but still originally posed as a paradox for philosophers to
explain.

I have not been able to find out who originally posed this paradoix in the
"immovable object" format.  It may have been a variant of the question "Can
God create a stone so heavy that He cannot move it?"

A quick Web search appears to show that Thomas Aquinas discusses this
paradox.  One Web site gives the citation as _Summa Theologica_, Volume I,
chapter 6, questions 22-26.  Another gives the following, which may have been
Aquinas's answer to the question:
<quote>
 On p. 163-164 of _Summa Theologica, Volume I, ques. 15 ans. 3, (Mcgraw Hill,
New York, 1963, Aquinas says:

"Whatever implies being and nonbeing simultaneously is incompatible with the
absolute possibility which falls under divine omnipotence. Such a
contradiction is not subject to it, not from any impotence in God, but
because it simply does not have the nature of being feasible or possible.
</quote>


      - Jim Landau