Not-so-paradoxical: A Rock too Heavy for Himself to Lift...

This rock is from a hiking trip in the US, not Taiwan. But I like it because it looks like a turtle.
Looking at a rock, it's pretty clear that this version of the omnipotence paradox is silly on the face of it.
(The turtle boulder seems to find it amusing as well)

I was recently watching a show that, in a philosophical moment, brought up the so-called Omnipotence paradox, frequently expressed in the "If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock too heavy for Himself to lift?" question, and used to suggest that the concept of omnipotence is logically invalid in some inherent way. Thus, the God of Scripture would be a logical impossibility, as we see from scripture that God is able to do all things, and nothing is too difficult for Him. In that episode I saw, the paradox was treated with all due seriousness, and there was much chin stroking and pondering over possible resolutions, though the actual existence of God as God was not the focus of their inquiry (that would have been more interesting).

If you want to read all about the Omnipotence paradox, its wikipedia page does mention the objection that I'm going to raise in today's entry, along with lots more information. Several pages of it, actually. I found it a bit dry, however. This blog should be more fun.

Most people have heard of unanswerable questions like "have you stopped beating your wife yet," where a yes or no answer both imply you have been habitually beating your wife, and you are only able to say whether you still do or not.

The question about God and rocks is a similar but different sort of unanswerable question.
We will look at why it's a meaningless question that should never be used seriously again below.

First, if the question really is presented to you, you have to decide which way to answer it.

When presented with questions like this, which I'll restate:

"If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock too heavy for Himself to lift?"

I believe the best reply is, in the tradition of Jesus, to answer the question with a question:

"Can the greatest chef in the world make the square root of 3 crunchier?"

If they answer "that doesn't make any sense," or "huh?" they are absolutely correct. But it makes just as much sense as the previous question. You can't just string words together and then demand I give them paradoxical meaning to serve your purposes.

Note: Also, it's a scientifically illiterate question...
A rock has mass, and weight is actually a question of contextual gravitational forces; you have not succeeded in questioning God here, only gravity. Bazinga.

(This may be sufficient to end the conversation entirely. Unless they actually said "too big" or "too large" for himself to lift, then that is a mass question and you will look stupid, though that's actually an easier example to disqualify because as long as there is any space in the universe other than that rock it can be lifted/moved if the issue is size. If they say "fine, then it's exactly the same size as the universe" then you ask "then where is God?" and if they say "oh," then you're probably in good shape, and if they look smug and say "exactly," then they are only interested in scoring rhetorical points, and the proper answer is to say "sorry, I don't support the legalization of marijuana." They will probably not know what you mean, then you say "didn't you just say the whole universe was stoned?" and even though this means the conversation has at this point devolved to childish humor, bystanders will almost certainly laugh, they might too, and you have gotten your rhetorical points back and demonstrated that you are someone with a clever sense of humor, which is not a bad start if you're attempting to talk about truth and reality with that kind of person. But I digress...)

The Linguistic Problem

Somewhat more seriously, a question isn't valid just because it doesn't violate laws of grammar. One could think of endless examples. ("What is the difference between a duck?... one leg's the same." was my favorite response to the God-rock question for a long time. Ask a meaningless question, I can too.)

I studied linguistics as part of my master's degree, and it was fascinating to realize how much we focus on what is communicated and take for granted the means of communication. If you were watching a video online and your internet was very slow, would you say "man, this director is terrible, all these random pauses and slow parts"? No, you would clearly realize the problem was not with the content but with how it was being sent to you. The paradox with the God-rock question is not found in what the question is communicating, as alleged, it's actually in the question itself.


Imagine if in reply to that question, instead of the crunchy square root of three you asked this question instead:

"Could the President of the United States murder someone, be removed from office, and then use his Presidential powers to pardon himself?"

"Of course not," the other person would hopefully say, "because once he's been removed from office he's not president anymore, so he doesn't have those powers." You can then point out: "Right, and if [Presidential pardon of an ex-President] is a self-contradictory idea, then [rock omnipotence can create but not lift] is also a self-contradictory idea.

Granted, they might then reply "if God is omnipotent, He could make contradictory ideas to be non-contradictory," then you might ask if the President could be the President and not the President at the same time. If they say "no, but the President isn't God," then you are in the perfect situation to share the story of God who became both fully divine and fully human at the same time to save us from our sins. They've just expressed that they have no problem with that concept, so they can hardly protest that this isn't possible.

My personal favorite rock. I suppose it's a hill, but it looks like one giant rock to me...
(Orchid Island, Taiwan, a ridiculously beautiful place)

In Summary

The question implicitly presupposes that omnipotence is impossible by establishing a condition [rock that omnipotence cannot lift = possible] which is logically impossible if omnipotence exists.

So if you instead presuppose that omnipotence is possible, then [rock that omnipotence cannot lift] is itself a logical impossibility and you wouldn't ever bother sticking it into a question any more than a crunchy square root of three.

There are lots of ways to demonstrate the logical impossibility of that question, and I've only outlined a few above. More are in the wikipedia article I linked to above. Essentially, I hope this question can be something you welcome as an opportunity if it ever comes up, because you're prepared to deal with it.

Note: I personally avoid going the route of talking about how God is spirit not body, and doesn't do things like lift rocks, or arguing about what "lift" means in this context, because that's tacitly accepting the impossible premise, arguing out the details of a logically indefensible hypothetical, as if one could demonstrate the wife beating question is nonsensical by explaining you are in the process of moving so your house doesn't have anything in it you could hit her with. It's probably not going to get you anywhere because you're not actually addressing the fundamental problem with the question.

Of course, explaining that God is transcendent and not like a supernaturally-strong-but-limited Greek god reigning on the cloudy, harp-filled version of Olympus somewhere is always important if you find that fundamental concept is not being understood. Pre-evangelism is becoming increasingly necessary where it didn't used to be, and you never know where people have gotten their ideas of God from.


There are lots of other supposedly other unanswerable paradoxes out there that explain God away. But like the joke equations that prove 1 = 2, they're always hiding an invalid step somewhere. What are others you've seen that you have questions about? Let me know!