I’ve been told that God is capable of “anything”. If this is true, can God make a rock, heavier than he can lift? If so, that means he can’t lift it, therefore he’s not capable of “anything”. If not… you get the picture.
This may be a silly question for some of you, but it’s just a hypothetical question. One to get your brain thinking.
So, is God really capable of “anything”?
Yes. I once saw a bumper sticker that sums it up pretty well for me: “If God were small enough for your mind, he wouldn’t be big enough for your needs.” Amen.
You know your post is boring when you need two sigs to keep it alive.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)
An old theological chestnut.
Without getting into heavy-duty mathematical-logic-speak:
The problem with the proposition is not with God, it’s with the fact that the proposition is paradoxical. It is possible using language (and it’s underlying logic), to construct sentences and ideas that are self-contradictory.
For instance, you could say:
Everything I say is false. What I just said is true. Can both sentences be true at the same time?
The paradox in that formulation has to do with ideas of what true and false mean.
You can then use that sentence in the following way:
If God were omnipotent, he would be able to say both sentences truthfully at once. He can’t ergo he is limited.
This proves nothing about god, it’s just a way of messing with our ideas about language and logic.
FWIW, Kurt Godel proved, using pure math, that any system of logic is inherently “flawed” because you can always take it’s axioms and turn them against themselves to produce this kind of puzzle. This is about as close to a lay explanation as I can provide.
Also several theologians have dealt with this one. Thomas Aquinas or somebody…can’t remember which one. If you really want, I can dig through my library and try to find the reference…I know I have it somewhere…
Well, if God can’t lift it, I’m sure he could grab all the angels he needed off the head of a nearby pin.