God and Rocks

Post By: Travis

Mark called me this morning with the age old question of "Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?" Although we had both heard this question many times, it is one in which it's hard to put an answer into words. It seems to be a valid question at first glance, and seems to be one of those questions that disproves the possibility of an all powerful creator because in either answer to the question you define a limit to a presumably limitless God.

Below is an article I found on the topic:

Gregory Koukl

This is known as a pseudo-question. It’s like asking, “Can God win an arm wrestling match against Himself?” or, “If God beat Himself up, who would win?” or, “Can God’s power defeat His own power?”

The question is nonsense because it treats God as if He were two instead of one. The phrase “stronger than” can only be used when two subjects are in view, for example, Bill is stronger than Bob, my left arm is stronger than my right arm, etc. Since God is only one, and since He has no parts, it makes no sense to ask if He is stronger than Himself. That’s why this is a pseudo-question. It proves nothing about any deficiency in God because the question itself is incoherent.

This pits one aspect of God’s ability against another--in this case, His creative ability against His ability to lift. The goal is to show that there are some things God can’t do, thus undermining the Christian concept of an omnipotent Creator. This illustration, however, miscasts the biblical notion of omnipotence, and is therefore guilty of the straw man fallacy.

Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do anything. The concept of omnipotence has to do with power, not ability per se. In fact, there are many things God can’t do. He can’t make square circles. He can’t create a morally free creature who couldn’t choose evil. He can’t instantly create a sixty-year-old man (not one that looks sixty, but one that is sixty). None of these, though, have to do with power. Instead, they are logically contradictory, and therefore contrary to God’s rational nature. The “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?” challenge is no threat to Christian theism

I liked this answer, because it helps me wrap my mind around what I have always known to be a flawed question. The fact is that God does have limits, but those are defined by the very nature of reason and logic.

God, in the end, is not limitless, nor should he be. We all know that God cannot sin, so why doesn't that disprove his existence? Because sinning is defined as going against the nature of God, and therefore impossible to do by God himself.