# What is the answer to the old "Can God make a rock too big for him to lift" question? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 5, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197 "2005-01-05T14:41:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/41 "2005-01-06T04:29:25Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > True, but I specifically allowed for this in my response. Since the OP did not specify what definition of “God” he was using, the only reasonable assumption in a forum with this much philosophical variety is that his referent was the common concept of God brought up in other threads here, and the one held (whether as a referent for a specific existent deity or not) as a concept by most Americans – viz, the (Islamo-)Judaeo-Christian deity, differently attributed but with a common set of characteristics, among them omnipotence or something very like it. > > Generally, if somebody starts a GD thread talking about what God thinks of abortion or homosexuality, they don’t mean Huitzlipochtli or Offler. Note the OP did mention “Sunday School warhorse”. Thus implying he wanted an answer from the (Islamo-)Judaeo-Christian deity. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/42 "2005-01-06T04:37:26Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Note the OP did mention “Sunday School warhorse”. Thus implying he wanted an answer from the (Islamo-)Judaeo-Christian deity. Should read “from the perspective of those familiar with the (Islamo-)Judaeo-Christian deity.” ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/43 "2005-01-06T04:43:15Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > This would be a variation of what happens if an immovable object encounters an irresistable force? Logically, both couldn’t exist in the same universe. high school physiscs … f=ma (force = mass x acceleration) unless you can come up with a way to make either force or mass infinite, there’s just no such thing as an immovable object or an irresistable force. So the logical fallacy is in postulating the interaction between two impossible entities. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/44 "2005-01-06T08:53:51Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > To the contrary, the answer is “mu.” 🙂 When you choose to deliberately discard logic, the answer can be anything you like. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/45 "2005-01-06T13:52:34Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > The answer to that question is no. Based on a verse in Malachi, the Jewish position is that God does not change. As such, He does not suddenly decide to corpify Himself, copy Himself or kill Himself. If God is contrained by simple words in a book that is supposedly inspired by Himself, I’d say that’s pretty logically close to creating a rock too big for He Himself to lift. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/46 "2005-01-06T14:18:54Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > If God is contrained by simple words in a book that is supposedly inspired by Himself, I’d say that’s pretty logically close to creating a rock too big for He Himself to lift. Sigh. God is not constrained by the words in a book for heaven’s sake. (pun intended) God, as the Creator of time, exists outside of it. He does not move in time as we do. For Him, all moments happen at once. The past, the present and the future are all as one to Him. Change requires time. In order to change, one must be in one state before the change and in another state after the change. Since God is not bound by time, He therefore does not change. He’s not constrained by the words of Malachi, Malachi’s simply expressing God’s nature. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/47 "2005-01-06T14:33:35Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I know this is an old Sunday School warhorse, but what is the specific logical fallacy of this question? It assumes the existance of an omnipotent deity. That assumption renders the entire question meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/48 "2005-01-06T14:51:27Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > Change requires time. In order to change, one must be in one state before the change and in another state after the change. Since God is not bound by time, He therefore does not change. I don’t understand how this makes sense. If God was a completely static entity that did not change he could not effect our reality. Once he makes an action, (passing down the ten commandments, killing someone, etc.), he has participated in our concept of time, and changed. God state A - Gives mana God state B - Does not give mana How is this not change? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/49 "2005-01-06T14:52:00Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Doesn’t this sound a little too convenient and almost comic-booky? It makes me think of “Well, a guy that _actually_ eats planets would be so large as to be meaningless, so we’ll just make Galactus about 25 feet tall so we can drop him in midtown Manhattan.” > > I don’t agree with you here at all, but if you’re really sticking to your guns on this one, let me ask you this: Why? Why would God go through all the trouble of creating the universe, then the Earth, then the human race, and then limiting his own power so we can disobey him and he can punish us? Is he playing some sort of game? > > I’m not attacking your beliefs, but rather I’m genuinely curious. You make a bold statement here and I want to know if you stand by it with everything that it entails, and if so, how you explain and/or justify those things. Well, although this is subject to ridicule from atheists, what Jews and Christians try to do is arrive at a metaphysic that describes the world as it **is** , including the existence of God. (Do, y’all, feel free to trot out the rolleyes at that statement.) That is, presuming that the evidence has convinced you of the existence and benevolence of a deity Who created it and is involved in its ongoing operation, what characteristics can be understood of Him that allow for observed phenomena like man’s inhumanity to man, man’s ability to make choices with consequences, etc.? This is why modern theology tends to speak of God not as _omnipotent_ but as _self-limiting_ – that is, there is nothing outside Him that imposes limits on Him, but His interior nature is such that He imposes limits on _Himself_ to enable free will and turning to Him out of _love_ rather than compulsion. If, of course, your assessment of the world as it is does not include such a God, the questions above become moot. But if it does, then what **Dex, zev** and I have had to say become important to the question – which, as **clothahump** suggests, _assumes_ such a God. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/50 "2005-01-06T15:04:30Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > Sigh. > > God is not constrained by the words in a book for heaven’s sake. (pun intended) > > God, as the Creator of time, exists outside of it. He does not move in time as we do. For Him, all moments happen at once. The past, the present and the future are all as one to Him. > > Change requires time. In order to change, one must be in one state before the change and in another state after the change. Since God is not bound by time, He therefore does not change. He’s not constrained by the words of Malachi, Malachi’s simply expressing God’s nature. > > Zev Steinhardt Not to hijack my own OP, but I’m really having difficulty with the notion of God being in all moments at once. I suppose it’s a nice ontological superset paradigm for an temporally omniscient diety that wraps everything up into a tidy ball, but to an extent it means that God is sort of faking it with man when he expresses anger or surprise at behavioral choices and outcomes. He knows all these things. He knows the drug users going to be weak, and that he’ll kill the shopkeeper for money, and yet he’s still glad or angry at the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![tulula2la](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7cd45c/32.png) [@tulula2la](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tulula2la)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/51 "2005-01-06T15:06:47Z")
This is such a pointless argument. People with faith should never question God or his capabilities as he is beyond human understanding. No matter how much we try to fathom whether it is indeed possible logically or otherwise. And God defies logic. It’s like the whole concept of good=reward, bad=punishment: it is very clear from the Bible that this is not the case. Those without faith don’t believe in the very existence of God, so therefore he is not capable of anything. How can we question what God can do when he does not even exist. It is questioning fiction and thus his only limits are the limits of your imagination. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/52 "2005-01-06T15:22:01Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Not to hijack my own OP, but I’m really having difficulty with the notion of God being in all moments at once. I suppose it’s a nice ontological superset paradigm for an temporally omniscient diety that wraps everything up into a tidy ball, but to an extent it means that God is sort of faking it with man when he expresses anger or surprise at behavioral choices and outcomes. He knows all these things. He knows the drug users going to be weak, and that he’ll kill the shopkeeper for money, and yet he’s still glad or angry at the outcome. There are times when I _know_ what my kids will do and still be angry at them or happy for them when they do it. In any event, this now boils down to the onmiscience vs. free will paradox. There are a number of solutions presented, including the one that **CK** presented and the one I did (above). Truth be told, I’m not terribly happy with either of those solutions to that paradox. I don’t have a “neat” answer for that paradox. But, as the Yiddish expression goes, _Fun ah kasha shtarbt men nisht_ (You won’t die from a[n unanswered] question). Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/53 "2005-01-06T15:29:00Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I don’t understand how this makes sense. If God was a completely static entity that did not change he could not effect our reality. Once he makes an action, (passing down the ten commandments, killing someone, etc.), he has participated in our concept of time, and changed. > > God state A - Gives mana > > God state B - Does not give mana > > How is this not change? Because He is, “at this present moment” (so to speak), doing both. Because He exists outside of time, He can interact with all moments at once. As such He is “right now” creating the world, He is “right now” speaking with Abraham, he is “right now” giving the Torah on Mt. Sinai and he is “right now” creating my children. So, he may _seem to us, from our linear standpoint_ to change (i.e. after the Exodus, he “became” the God who took us out of Egypt, a status He didn’t have before), in reality, He doesn’t change because He is doing all things at “once.” Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/54 "2005-01-06T17:00:39Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > Sigh. > > God is not constrained by the words in a book for heaven’s sake. (pun intended) > > God, as the Creator of time, exists outside of it. He does not move in time as we do. For Him, all moments happen at once. The past, the present and the future are all as one to Him. > > Change requires time. In order to change, one must be in one state before the change and in another state after the change. Since God is not bound by time, He therefore does not change. He’s not constrained by the words of Malachi, Malachi’s simply expressing God’s nature. > > Zev Steinhardt I fail to see how this is different from being contrained from change. Either he has the ability to change, or he does not. If he does not, even if it is because it’s “His nature” to exist outside of time, then he lacks an ability and is by definition not omnipotent. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/55 "2005-01-06T17:26:13Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I fail to see how this is different from being contrained from change. Either he has the ability to change, or he does not. If he does not, even if it is because it’s “His nature” to exist outside of time, then he lacks an ability and is by definition not omnipotent. But if you’re outside of time then “change” does not _exist_ and it’s meaningless to say the entity is wanting of it. And BTW the ideation that God somehow must be just like us, only a lot more so, is not even necessarily a Christian artifact. When in the Torah it is mentioned that Moses was allowed a limited vision of the glory of God, I’ll bet many Jews have all along taken the metaphoric language to mean that Moe did in fact catch a peripheral-vision glimpse of YHWH’s’s actual backside. These are the pitfalls of allegorical language, in which the preachers and writers have made God in **our** image and unto **our** likeness. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/56 "2005-01-06T17:34:24Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > But if you’re outside of time then “change” does not _exist_ and it’s meaningless to say the entity is wanting of it. > > And BTW the ideation that God somehow must be just like us, only a lot more so, is not even necessarily a Christian artifact. When in the Torah it is mentioned that Moses was allowed a limited vision of the glory of God, I’ll bet many Jews have all along taken the metaphoric language to mean that Moe did in fact catch a peripheral-vision glimpse of YHWH’s’s actual backside. > > These are the pitfalls of allegorical language, in which the preachers and writers have made God in **our** image and unto **our** likeness. Allegory? I thought (possibly incorrectly) it was a fairly explicit theological premise of Judeo-Christianity that man was fashioned “in his own image”. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/57 "2005-01-06T17:54:29Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And BTW the ideation that God somehow must be just like us, only a lot more so, is not even necessarily a Christian artifact. When in the Torah it is mentioned that Moses was allowed a limited vision of the glory of God, I’ll bet many Jews have all along taken the metaphoric language to mean that Moe did in fact catch a peripheral-vision glimpse of YHWH’s’s actual backside. On the contrary. It is understood by all Jews to be allegorical. As I mentioned in a recent thread, the Torah is written in human terms. For example, Exodus 15 talks of the “right hand of God.” Dueteronomy 11 talks about the “eyes of God.” We often use such metaphorical language ourselves (“From your lips to God’s ears”). But it’s understood that as a non-coporeal Being, God doesn’t have a right hand, eyes or ears. The Torah is written using allegorical language that people can better understand. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/58 "2005-01-06T17:59:49Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I fail to see how this is different from being contrained from change. Either he has the ability to change, or he does not. If he does not, even if it is because it’s “His nature” to exist outside of time, then he lacks an ability and is by definition not omnipotent. Again - it depends how you define “omnipotence.” If you define it as “not being able to do any thing” then, God is not omnipotent: God cannot breathe God cannot sleep God cannot die God cannot create another “Creator of All Things” God cannot make a four-sided triangle God cannot point to a more powerful being than Himself. If the ability to do the impossible is included in your definition, then yes, I have to concede the point. However, that’s not how Jews have understood God’s omnipotence. We’ve always understood it to mean that God can do anything that is logically possible AND that He has not chosen to constrain Himself from doing. For example, God _could_ bring another flood to destroy the entire world, but He promised that He would not do so, so in that sense, He is constrained, because He keeps His word. But that’s not a lack of potency, that’s a voluntary refrain from the use of it. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Anduril](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Anduril](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anduril)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/59 "2005-01-06T18:07:01Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > Again - it depends how you define “omnipotence.” If you define it as “not being able to do any thing” then, God is not omnipotent: > > God cannot breathe > God cannot sleep > God cannot die > God cannot create another “Creator of All Things” > God cannot make a four-sided triangle > God cannot point to a more powerful being than Himself. > > If the ability to do the impossible is included in your definition, then yes, I have to concede the point. > > However, that’s not how Jews have understood God’s omnipotence. We’ve always understood it to mean that God can do anything that is logically possible AND that He has not chosen to constrain Himself from doing. For example, God _could_ bring another flood to destroy the entire world, but He promised that He would not do so, so in that sense, He is constrained, because He keeps His word. But that’s not a lack of potency, that’s a voluntary refrain from the use of it. > > Zev Steinhardt What’s logically impossible about creating a rock that one can’t lift? Nothing. What’s problematic is the definition of omnipotence. I agree with what Meatros stated: “True omnipotence can not exist”. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197/60 "2005-01-06T18:10:42Z")
> [@Anduril](#): > > What’s problematic is the definition of omnipotence. I agree with what Meatros stated: “True omnipotence can not exist”. And hence that was my statement, as well. It all depends on how you define the term. Zev Steinhardt [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-answer-to-the-old-can-god-make-a-rock-too-big-for-him-to-lift-question/283197.md?page=4)