I've always loved this one: Can God create a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it?

Question

You see, no matter how you answer the question it means that He is not omnipotent (all-powerful). People are always using logic to attempt to disprove God. Fun. What do you guys think?

Answer 1

I have also loved answering this question.

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God and Omnipotence
The paradox of the stone, as presented by Wade Savage:
1. Either God can create a stone that God cannot lift, or God cannot create a stone that God cannot lift – there are no other possibilities.
2. If God can create a stone that God cannot lift, then there is at least one thing that God cannot do (i.e., lift that stone).
3. If God cannot create a stone that God cannot lift, then there is at least one thing that God cannot do (i.e., create that stone).
4. From the combination of 1, 2 and 3, it follows that there is at least one thing that God cannot do.
5. If God is omnipotent, then God can do anything.
6. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.

What this argument apparently shows is that omnipotence is impossible (or, that the notion of omnipotence is incoherent). Thus, God cannot be omnipotent (as nothing can be).

Suggested solutions to the paradox St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274):
Aquinas defines as “absolutely impossible” any thing where the “predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject” (his example: “man is an ***” (in the non-metaphorical sense)). With this in mind:
Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is more appropriate to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.

That is, to be omnipotent involves being able to do all things that are possible. For example, it is not considered a limit to my powers that I cannot draw a square circle. That’s impossible, so it’s no failing that I can’t do it – it cannot be done.

BUT: surely I can make a thing that is too heavy for me to lift, so that task is not impossible, so if God can’t do it, that really is a limit to his power.

George Mavrodes (1926-):
Mavrodes responds that although “a stone too heavy for Simon Cushing to lift” is not a contradictory notion, “a stone too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift” is a contradictory notion.
Mavrodes’s argument in full:
1. Either God is omnipotent or he is not.
2. If God is not omnipotent, then the fact that he cannot do something (either make or lift the stone) is unsurprising.
3. If God is omnipotent, then, by definition, there necessarily cannot be a stone that is too heavy for him to lift (otherwise he would not be omnipotent).
4. If there necessarily cannot be such a stone, then it is an impossibility.
5. By Aquinas’s reasoning, even an omnipotent being cannot perform impossibilities.
6. Therefore, by definition, inability to create a stone too heavy for one to lift is no barrier to being omnipotent. (In fact, only non-omnipotent beings can create objects too heavy for themselves to lift.)

BUT: both Aquinas and Mavrodes assume that God cannot do impossible things. Is this right? Descartes, for one, thought not. Descartes believed God could make 2+2=5. Why? Because otherwise you are suggesting that God is bound by the laws of logic. But if God created the laws of logic, why should he be bound by them? Couldn’t he have made them differently?

Harry Frankfurt:
However, if we assume that God can do impossible things, then God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift (which is supposedly impossible). Furthermore, if he can do that, then he can go one stage further and lift that stone (also impossible – but what’s the difference between doing one impossible thing and doing two?)
BUT: doesn’t that mean that the stone he created was not a stone too heavy for him to lift, and that we’re back to the situation of him being unable to create such a stone? Not according to Frankfurt:
If an omnipotent being can do what is logically impossible, then he can not only create situations which he cannot handle but also, since he is not bound by the limits of consistency, he can handle situations which he cannot handle. [256]
That doesn’t seem to make sense – but that’s because “sense” is limited to logical possibility.

To recap:
There are two options for an omnipotent being:
1. Omnipotence means the ability to everything that is logically possible but nothing that is logically impossible. In this case, by definition, an omnipotent being can lift any rock, and therefore “a rock too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift” is an impossibility. In that case, however, inability to create such a rock is no barrier to omnipotence, because no omnipotent being can do the impossible.
HOWEVER: why limit omnipotence to logical possibility?
2. Omnipotence includes the ability to logically impossible things.
In this case (says Frankfurt) an omnipotent being could create and lift a stone too heavy for him to lift, both of which are impossible, but that’s no problem for somebody omnipotent!
HOWEVER: taking this option removes the discussion from one that makes sense to humans, because it allows God both to exist and not exist at the same time, or to sin and be good at the same time.

Can God sin?
Similar problem: if God can sin, then he is not wholly good. But if he can’t sin, then he is not omnipotent.

Suggested solutions
Aquinas: Two options
Either: it’s true to say “If God wants he could sin”, which allows that he can sin. But he won’t ever because (by his nature) he will never want to.
Or: God can do absolutely anything, rape, murder, whatever, but by definition, because he defines what is good, if he did it it would be good. (This is essentially the Divine Command Theory – or perhaps, the Divine Action Theory.)

William of Ockham:
Again, assume that an omnipotent being can only do what is possible. Also assume that the definition of “sin” is “whatever is opposed to God’s will”. To sin, God would have to will what is opposed to his will, which is impossible. Thus, the fact that he cannot sin doesn’t prove he’s not omnipotent.

Answer 2

No, he can not, just like he can not be evil.

"If God created the universe, who created God? He just always existed you say? Then why can you not equally accept that the universe simple has always existed (or at least the energy released in the big bang, will collapse and repeat itself endlessly)".

There are a dozen and one of such things, and religious people will always find an answer to them, .. for one thing, they can just always say, whenever it can't be explained or make any sense "God works in mysterious ways.. ".

Discussions on this level will not prove or disprove anything. It will reassure non-believers, and won't make a difference to believers.. the 'proof' should be on a more fundamental level..

Answer 3

Of course God can't create an infinitely heavy boulder. He can't even alter the outcome of a coin toss. Don't believe me? You can be a total sadist and try this experiment to prove it.

1: Flip a coin 1,000 times.

2. Flip a coin 1,000 times. Before each flip, pray for it to lead heads. After each flip that lands tails, punch your best friend in the face (or kill a random stranger, etc. basically, just pick any activity that you are sure God will want to stop).

Will the results 1 or 2 be significantly different? No. For both, the result will be roughly 500 heads and 500 tails.

God's powers are so minute that they are statistically insignificant. It's either that, or God doesn't care about anything enough to interfere.

Answer 4

I guess I have always failed to see what people see in these types of questions....

The answer, of course, is that God can create a boulder of whatever mass he wants to...and he could lift it. Omnipotence does not have limitations.

Answer 5

It's like laws of nature. If God made 1+1=2, could he make the sum of two things equal something other than that? If so, why would he? There are interesting Coptic and Gnostic philosophy that is similar to this question as well. Interesting to ponder. Worthy of consideration.

Answer 6

God is omnipotent; therefore he could not or would not create a boulder that he couldn't lift. God's number one feature is that He doesn't lie; that his word would not return to Him void; without first completing what He set it out to accomplish. He is the Alpha and Omega; therefore He would always exist; without limitations of man's mental logic.

Answer 7

Posted here many times.

But anyway, the answer is "yes", and he can also lift it. What we call "impossible" are events that cannot happen given the physical laws of the universe as constituted at present.

If "God" really is omnipotent, he can simply change the universe so that this event would not be impossible. The question improperly imposes limits on a limitless being.

Answer 8

Being all powerful doesn't make you be able to do the impossible. That's like saying God is so powerful he can make 2+2=5. It just doesn't make sense to make a claim like that.

Answer 9

As a Muslim I believe that God as a concept is way beyond any human understanding. We have only very little knowledge of the nature of God.
The limitations that God set to everything he created are the very thing that we all have in common. I am going to die and so is even the sun itself. There r limits to what I can do (or understand) and there's a beginning and an end to my existence.
Through these limitations we perceived relative extents to our abilities. This is how man invented measures to, say, how far he could walk and how much he could carry, ....etc.
God is nothing like anything known to man. God's intellect, knowledge, and capability cannot be measured in terms of conventions that man uses, like numbers or any units of measure.
As Muslims we are warned against assigning any human attributtes to God (like having Jesus Christ as his son) or defining God's characteristics through our human concepts.
Do u think that God, like everything in this creation, was born and is supposed to die??
It would be wrong to have our minds so trapped within the rules or the logic of this life that we can't give in and admit that we r not supposed to understand the nature of God, which is what God told us Muslims; to think of what we were let to know about God without trying to 'figure God out'.
Amongst other unknowns, God also told us that we will never come to know what a soul is or foresee the future. We may predict with some degree of certainty but we never actually KNOW what is going to happen in the future.
Do u think that any rules apply to God given that, of course, He created them?? rules like the gravity law or even the logic driving your question??
Is it actually convincing in any way that the nature of God should be defined or interpreted through human concepts?? What does God look like?? What does he sound like?? Do u think u might find God funny or sexy?? ...... u get the point??
Bottom line:
Our beliefs command us not to have any thoughts about God that r similar to your question because it is not proper to do so. We were told to admit to the limitations of our understanding. This is part of our faith. Limitation is the core of humanity and it would be pointlessly arrogant to deny that.
We are bound to the rules of this life; God certainly is not.
The beautiful poignant Arabic word 'Islam' loses 99% of its charm when I translate it to u as similar in meaning to 'giving in' or 'surrender'. The answer I wrote to u actually constitutes an important part of what Islam is about.

Answer 10

Your head comes close ;P. Naw, J/K. My husband talks about my head being big so much that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to let that one out. Sorry, LOL.

God Bless. I'll be able to crack that boulder question eventually. Just wait and see.