Can An All Powerful God Create A Stone He Can Not Lift?

I wrote this essay today about this question and why I find it so frustrating.

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.

Some Thoughts on Lamentations

Last week I read Lamentations a few times. I found it extraordinary how much one can learn from reading the same thing over and over and over again. I found some things particularly applicable to myself and somethings I thought worth sharing with you all.

I. It is best to pursue God when we are young, Lamentations 3:27.The longer one waits, the further entrenched sin will be in that life and the harder it will be to break old habits. Worst of all, the longer one waits the less time they will have to please God.

II. God is always in the right in any situation He brings about because He is the only one who hasn’t sinned. Lamentations 1:18 and 3:37-39

III.. It is actually possible to so insult the righteousness of God so that He will refuse to hear our prayers and not just allow but take part in afflicting us. Lamentations 3:1-17

IV. The love of the Lord is eternal and those who have the Lord as their portion will be able to endure until God shows his love again. Lamentations 3:24, 40-42 We often pass through trials which are not directly our fault, we suffer for the sins of others. Those who's hope is in the Lord will suffer gladly knowing they lose nothing by suffering and gain an opportunity to please God.

V. There is yet hope. Lamentations 3:22-24 Despite all the evil and darkness which tends to so dominate our perspective of the world. There is still love to be had.

Rooftop Meditations

The title is a result of the weather. Since spring has come and its starting to turn warm, I've migrated from my room to the rooftop, to do my thinking, where its not stuffy and one can hear the birds or crickets.

Here are some thoughts I had while dwelling our present culture and American society.

There is a misconception which exists today which allows people to believe that their life does not impact the world. People today tend to view life like they watch a movie. This is clearly shown when we look a bit deeper into common habits of people.

Example 1.
How many people comment with pleasure when the news reports about a drug cartel being arrested.
But how many of those same people willingly take their own "medications" to escape the horror of what life would be without them.

Example 2.
How many people are pleased with a prostitution ring is broken up and brought to justice.
But how many of those same people watch porn on a regular basis.

Example 3.
How many people are happy to know that a big business has started a major recycling progrman.
But how many of those same people refuse to make the extra effort and actually recycle their own garbage.

Example 4.
How many people sing praise songs about Christ "finishing" sin on the cross
But how many of those same people don't care a wit about their own sin?

Much of American society have fallen into this mentality of passivity and apathy. People sit through life like we watch a movie, people cheers when good things happen and cry when bad things happen and never think about individual, personal decisions. People deny the possibility that what happens in the movie could impact them or that their standing by and simply watching might impact what happens in the movie. Having neither personal honor nor shame people have attempted to divorce themselves from the reality of this life. They claim every right to life, liberty, laziness and the pursuit of happiness but have entirely forgotten their duty to God, humanity and themselves.

This then is our great misconception, "that the rights we claim do not come with a duty to be fulfilled"