The question above and others like it are very troubling to me for two reasons, not because it is difficult to answer but because fewer and fewer people seem capable of answering and secondly that this question exists at all as a serious question. This question ought to be in elementary logic courses not in the council chambers and debating halls of universities. The fact that this question exists at all speaks of a deeper intellectual problem festering in the heart and mind of our present culture. In this essay I hope to do two things. First I will answer the question above. Second I shall try to explain the heart issue which has led to this question being asked.
To address the first issue. How to answer above question? The question itself has no answer, at least not as far as a yes/no answer is concerned. The question can not be answered with a yes or no simply because the question itself is nonsensical. Consider yourself as a parents with a sweet innocent six year old girl and she comes up to you and asks if it is possible for Jasmine to have married Jafar? Or Belle to have married Gaston? Or any other of the Disney princesses to have married the villains in their various stories? In one sense you could say yes because the princesses do have a will and so technically it is possible to imagine such movies in which princesses are never rescued and fall in love with their tormentors.
However, this answer would entirely ruin your child's innocence because such a movie would destroy what a Disney movie is. It would destroy the reality which makes Disney movies so popular. Our imaginations are very powerful and so they can conceive of such a hypothetical situation but the moment we think it actually possible we have lost the Disney movie and find ourselves in a movie where nothing is certain and the ideas of good and bad, happy ending and sad ending are entirely out of proportion without any foundation to rest on.
In the same way we could imagine a world in which God would create a stone he can not lift but to believe so would go beyond the realm of the thinkable into the realm of imaginary. "What!" you say, "can't God do anything?" The answer is “no”. God is God and so by definition he can not be not God. He can not do anything. He is limited to Himself who is infinite but He is also real. He can only act within the infiniteness of reality. He can not make 2+2=7 because he can not go beyond the laws of reality which He is. He is not governed by them but is them himself and these laws encompass and exceed the real things of our world.
The problem is actually not a problem with God it is a problem with language. The primary question takes advantage of a non perfect language and uses it to create a nonsensical scenario in which God is subject to the word “all powerful”. We think all-powerful and think it means capable of doing all things when in reality all powerful means having power of all real things. Just because God is all powerful does not mean he can do anythin. God is limited to the realms of truth, reality and goodness. So He is all powerful over anything existent, anything that is real. He can not be boxed into a hypothetical situation which uses finite words trying to describe an infinite God and be expected to perform within a fake situation according to real rules.
So the original question is a bad question because to answer it one must go beyond the realm of reality in which God does not exist where only darkness and vain imagining are. The question assumes a false premise. It assumes all powerful means capable of doing anything our fallen mind can conceive of doing rather then what, “all powerful” really means, “which is to have supreme authority over all reality.” It is like trying to ask the worlds most renowned surgeon if he could perform a complicated brain surgery on a person who has a brain in his foot. Such a question is absurd. Does the doctor have the skill to do such a surgery? Yes, in theory but to take him outside of the realm of reality and still force him to follow the real rules of surgery is inconceivable. Since God is truth and reality itself you can not try to have God act in accordance to Himself in a situation where reality doesn’t apply. God can not create something greater then himself because then he would cease to be God. This does not mean God is not “all powerful” it simply means that God functions inside the realms of truth, reality and goodness.
Since this is already way too long I'll save the other half of the essay for some time later. Hope this helped clear up something. Comments are much appreciated.
I am not sure I agree. I do not believe God is limited by the world He has created because if that were true then miracles would not exist, nor would the verse about the floating axehead in 2 Kings 6 would not be able to exist either.
ReplyDeleteThe answer that I have found works best, at least for me, is that because God is a logical God, He would not create a stone He could not pick up. It is not that He cannot do it, but it is not logical for Him to do it. As well as we should not need to prove ourselves to Him. Creating a stone that He cannot pick up would prove that He is weak, not that He is strong and all-powerful.
I can build a rock you can't lift.
ReplyDeleteNicole, I didn't say God is subject to our world. I said He is subject to Himself. This is not subjugation in that he is powerless to do something that He wants to do but it limits what he wants to do.
ReplyDeleteVery good, Caleb. I have struggled with this question and this provoked a lot of thinking on my part. I'm still processing everything you said about God limiting Himself. ;) in the past, I dismissed this question as not important but your answer was very helpful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteyeah, Nicole he didn't say God was subjected to this world.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts...over all I think it's a completely stupid question and I think people who are 'so smart' and ask it should go read the Bible and get some real knowledge.
I think the example of the doctor doing a brain thingy on a foot was really good ;)
I see your point. I guess I am just not sure that God really limits himself to our world. I mean yes, to a point He does, but I think that He defies the laws He has set in place more than we think. Jesus walked on water, God made an axehead float in 2 Kings 6, and how many times have we seen something that usually takes an hour, take much less time than it should. Yes, He does in a sense limit Himself, to say that He makes the sun rise at a certain time every morning, but He has full power to make the sun rise at noon instead of 6 in the morning, or for that matter stop the Earth from spinning or even not make the sun rise on us at all!
ReplyDeleteI guess my point is that God leaves much more room for miracles than we often believe. I may be wrong, though I do not think I am, that God has much more of an effect on our lives than we believe. I guess what I mean is that I do not think He limits Himself. He could very easily do everything Himself if He choose, but He wants us to be a part of this big plan He has.
I guess I do not look at it as limiting, but letting your little kids help you make cookies. Obviously you could do it yourself but letting little kids help you is so much more fun and much cuter than sitting contently mixing quietly by yourself with your own thoughts. Though both are enjoyable in their own way, having little children help seems a whole lot more enjoyable to me. :)
Well said Caleb, well said.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't it be said that God can't create a stone that He can't lift? In other words, couldn't you say with certainty and clarity that the answer to the above question is 'no'? That answer would require an explanation("omnipotence doesn't mean 'able to do anything'"), but nonetheless it's still a definite 'no'.
ReplyDeleteWell, for whatever it's worth, that's what I would say :P And not to say that that detracts anything from the point of your post. I've just found that responding to the above question in such a way makes things a whole lot easier and clearer. And who aint fo easy and clear?
Nicole, again I'm not saying God is limited to our world or the physical laws that He put in place. God breaks the physical laws all the time what He doesn't break are rational laws. God does not break the laws of logic or truth. Now humans of course generally don't understand truth and so we misunderstand but when we actually know something is true we can be 100% confident that God will not go in contradiction to that truth. Now some people would be upset that God is "limited" to truth. Personally I prefer an honest God who CAN NOT contradict Himself much more then a God who can do ANYTHING but makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteSam I suppose I could have said it like that but then I wouldn't have had to write that whole essay and I could have saved time and been more productive and who wants to do that.