No doubt you’ve heard the old riddle: Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?
The idea is, if you answer yes, then you concede that God is not all-powerful, being unable to lift said rock. If you answer no, then you also concede God is not all-powerful, being unable to create said rock. If you don’t think about it the riddle sounds like quite the stumper.
Let’s think about it.
First of all, the question is wholly illogical. God is all-powerful, therefore it’s not a matter of whether or not He can create a rock, it’s the fact that no such rock can exist in the first place. God being all-powerful precludes the possibility of there being a rock He can’t lift.
Second, the question is wholly nonsensical. God is a spirit. He doesn’t have physical hands. I know the Bible talks about His arms, His eyes, His mouth, and yes, even His hands, but these are poetic expressions. They are anthropomorphized ideas to help our human minds grasp, in a small way, the notions of the spiritual God. God is bigger than the entire physical universe (which is in the span of His metaphorical hand, according to Isaiah ch40). A rock so big He can’t lift it would be a rock bigger than the universe, which means it couldn’t exist in the first place, any more than a “four-sided triangle” or a “married bachelor” could exist.
Finally, the question is wholly paradoxical. It is absurd in its self-contradictions. Let’s suppose God wasn’t all-powerful: That would mean God couldn’t create a rock too big for Him to lift, which means He could lift every rock He can create…which means (from our perspective) He is all-powerful. You see how the question leads you to go in circles, never coming to an answer? It’s because there is no answer. It’s a closed box with a hole in the bottom: It has the semblance of substance, but actually holds nothing.
There’s an old riddle: “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?” Also known as…
The riddle itself is unanswerable because if there is a truly irresistible force (one which can draw literally anything to it) then there cannot be an immovable object, and if there is an immovable object (one which will not budge no matter what) then there cannot be an irresistible force.
Does God exist or doesn’t He? If He does, then every rock there is…is a rock He can “lift” and there is no rock He cannot lift because there are no other rocks unaccounted for: He can lift them all because He made them all.
Is there a rock He can make that He can’t lift? The question itself is illogical, nonsensical, and pointlessly paradoxical.
I might pose a different question: Is there a rock you can make that you can’t lift? It’s actually a trick question: You can’t make a rock at all, of any size or weight. Go ahead and try. Oh, you might try to carve one out of a mountainside, but you can’t do that. You didn’t make that mountainside. Make your own mountain and then carve a rock from it. Can you make a rock (from nothing) that you can’t lift? No. Can you even make a rock (from nothing) that you can lift? No again. We can’t make rocks at all. None of us can.
So where’d all these rocks come from?
~ Matthew