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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

30-second apologetics: If God is omnipotent (all powerful) can He make a rock so big he can't lift it?

Question: If God is omnipotent (all powerful) can He make a rock so big he can't lift it? 

I respectfully like to call this query the "I gotcha question!" often posed by grade school and high school students starting to understand basic philosophical concepts.  Good for them for posing this question!  It shows they are thinking. 

Clearly, there is a dilemma here:  if we say Yes, God can do this, then God is not omnipotent, for now there is an object God can't lift.  That is, God is therefore not all powerful.

And, naturally, if we say No, God can't do this, then there's something God can't do.  That is, God is therefore not all powerful.

What's our response to these thinking teens?  The answer:  It's a mystery


Nah, I'm just kidding.  There is an answer.  Our response as Catholics is:  God cannot make sense out of nonsense, and the above question is a nonsensical question.  God can do miracles, but not nonsense.

God's omnipotence lies only in an ability to do things that are intrinsically, logically possible.

That is, God cannot make a triangle with 4 sides.  That's nonsense.  God cannot make a married bachelor.  That's nonsense. 
As CS Lewis said "Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can.'

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