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Can
God create a rock that is so big that He wouldn't
be able to lift it?
My
7 year old daughter provided me with one of the best
answers to this question; "I can't give you a
smart answer to a dumb question!"
The
question is constructed in such a way that no matter
how one answers it, God's omnipotence is
compromised. If one answers 'no', then God cannot
create such a rock, thus God is not powerful enough
to do something, therefore He is not 'all
powerful'. If one answers 'yes', God creates a
rock that He cannot lift, but because He cannot then
lift it, God is not powerful enough to do
something, therefore He is not 'all powerful'.
However,
when we examine the question by analogy, its
unfairness is made known. Compare the 'rock' question with
the following:
A genius is so smart that he should be able to
successfully pass any test, including a test that
would qualify him as an idiot.
It is obvious that the 'rock' question itself contains a
contradiction. In other words, the
question itself does not make logical sense. It's
the same type of contradiction that is made when we
say that someone has accomplished the impossible. If
they have, then it wasn't impossible to begin with.
We see language at its logical limits; we understand
what is being said (someone has accomplished what
was previously thought to have been impossible to
accomplish) but the language that is used to convey
the idea makes it logically incomprehensible.
Rephrased,
the 'rock' question is actually asking, "Is God
so powerful that he can successfully do anything,
including things that he couldn't do?"
It
would seem, then, that the most correct answer would
be 'no'. God cannot do those things that God
cannot do. (And, yes, the Bible does say that there
are things that God cannot do.) No matter how big a
rock is created, God will always be able to move it.
God is not powerful enough to compromise His own
power.
However,
if we get beyond the deficiency of language in order
to understand the concept behind the question, the
answer in the affirmative can suffice just as well.
When we say that God is all powerful, the definition
need not be carried to hyper-literalism that renders
it incomprehensible. 'All powerful' can be taken as hyperbole and
be more accurately defined as 'the most powerful thing that can
possibly exist'. Can the most powerful thing that
can possibly exist create a rock so large that it
could not lift it? Yes, it certainly could. Although we
may ask why, and if, it would choose to do such a
thing, it would still remain the most powerful thing
that exists.
Despite
the above argumentation, I still prefer the answer,
"I can't give a smart answer to a dumb
question"!
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