All my readers know that I have more patience for Agnosticism than for Atheism, since it’s easier to prove that you don’t or can’t understand something than to call someone a fool for believing something that has neither been dis-proven nor can be.
But enough about that. Today I’m going to answer two questions: “Can God dig a pit so deep that he can’t climb out,” and “Can God make a rock so big that He can’t throw it.”
Before we can answer the questions we have to lay some groundwork. The reason these questions appear so confusing at first is because of the duplicity of the word “can” in the English language. This duplicity is shown in the definition of the word in the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary:
“1 a : know how to
The word “can” can be used in the sense of a, b, and f; or, alternately, in the sense of c, d, e, or g. In other words, when we hear the story of how George Washington supposedly said, “I cannot tell a lie,” we understand implicitly that he was not saying he lacked the mental, emotional, physical or other capacity to tell a lie. He was saying that he was so determined never to lie that such a thing would never – and indeed could never – happen.
Hence when the non-Agnostic Deist says “God can do anything”, he isn’t claiming that God is *capable* of anything. He’s claiming that there are no limits on God’s abilities or on God’s powers – in other words, he’s over-simplifying the definition of “omnipotence.”
In fact, the Bible itself uses the same grammatical structure as the George Washington story when it states that “God cannot lie.” Obviously we are not to meant to understand that if God wished to lie, He would be unable to do so. All this means is that God has never lied and will never lie. There are no limits on God’s power that would actually prevent Him from lying if He should choose to do so, but since He will never choose to do so, since He is not a liar, since lying is inconsistent with His nature, He cannot lie. In other words, it *can’t* be correct that God lied; the event known as “God lied” can never occur; and, by that definition, God cannot lie.
So we’ve debunked the idea that Christians believe “God can do anything.” Let’s continue our discussion by giving simple answers to these two questions before moving on to the address underlying misunderstanding of God’s nature.
Question 1: Can God make a rock so big that He can’t throw it?
This one is easy. Most see a paradox here, but I don’t. This question is actually a composite of two questions:
A) Is there a size limit for rocks that God could make?
B) Could there exist a rock so large that God couldn’t throw it?
Since we’ve already discussed the misuse of the word “can” in “God can do anything,” let’s take it as an assumption. If God is “omnipotent,” then there are no limits placed on the size of rock He is permitted to create. So the answer to the first question is no.
Again, if God is omnipotent, then there could not possibly exist a rock so large that God be “unable” to throw it, if He chose to (this stipulation is consistent with our definition of “can” as something that describes likelihood of occurrence rather than as something that describes capacity). So the answer to the second question, if we assume that God is omnipotent (which we must, as I will explain momentarily), is also no.
Why must we assume that God is omnipotent? Because if we didn’t, the question would be meaningless. If I were to ask you if you could create a rock so big that you couldn’t throw it, what would you say? That’s easy. “Of course I could.”
The real question is, “If God can do anything, doesn’t that mean He can create a rock so big that He can’t throw it?” But it should be, “If God is omnipotent, does that mean He can create a rock too big to throw,” or, in other words, “Does God’s omnipotence entail the ability to create a rock so big that He can’t throw it?” But I’m getting ahead of myself.
But enough of that, and back to the question. The trouble with splitting the question into two questions and answering them separately is that seem to rely on each other. In particular, the first part relies on the second part. It means, “assuming there could exist a rock so big that God couldn’t throw it, could God have created the rock?” In other words, the first part of the question falsely assumes that the answer to the second part of the question is, “Yes.” Since there is no limit to the size of rock that God can throw, there could not possibly exist a rock so large that God can’t throw it. And since such a rock can’t exist, God “can’t” create one.
“But wait!,” you say. “There’s something God can’t do!” How right you are! We have proven that the statement, “God can do anything,” is false (and that no one really believes it anyway), but we have not disproved God’s omnipotence, or His infinite power. It is precisely because God’s power is infinite that He can’t create such a rock. In other words, no matter how much power is required to throw a rock, that amount of power can’t be greater than the power that God possesses, because God’s power is unlimited. Therefore, even though there is no limit to the size of rock that God can create, the rock (even if the rock had an infinite size), could never become so large as to require a greater amount of power to throw than was at God’s disposal.
To clarify this further, let’s reword the question without changing it’s meaning: “If there existed a rock so large that God couldn’t throw it, could God have created the rock?” Again, let’s assume that “God can do anything,” since, if I were to ask, “If there existed a rock too large for Abraham to throw, could Abraham have created it” is a pointless question and the answer is obviously “yes.”
Now since “God can do anything,” it is unreasonable to believe that such a rock could exist. In other words, the question becomes, “If there existed a rock which could never exist, could God have created it?” Well no. Since the rock doesn’t exist, neither God nor anyone else could have created it.
So much for question 1. The answer is “No. Since God can[possesses the capacity to] do anything, He can’t[definitely has never and will certainly not ever] make a rock so big that He can’t throw it.”
Question 2: Can God dig a pit so deep that He can’t climb out?
We’ve already pretty much debunked this question, so we don’t really need to say anything more. Again, the answer is “no, because there is not, nor could there ever be, a pit so deep that God couldn’t climb out if He chose to, although there is also no limit to the depth of a pit that God could dig.” However, I’d also like to point out that this question overlooks something else about the nature of God, namely, His omnipresence.
Again, let’s break the question down into
A) Is there a limit to how deep a pit God can dig?
If God can do anything, the answer is “no.” In fact, the Bible even states that God is digging or has dug a “bottomless pit” into which He will eventually throw Satan.
B) Could there exist a pit so deep that God could not climb out?
Setting aside omnipresence for a moment, omnipotence alone says “no.” Again, only if the answer to one of these questions were “yes” could the combination of the two become a paradox. And the assumption that God is omnipotent precludes a “yes” answer to either question.
But back to omnipresence. The problem is that God is everywhere. If you jumped into a bottomless pit, you could never fall so far that God would not be present at that depth. Similarly, if you returned to the surface, God would still be there, outside the pit. In other words, God is simultaneously present both inside the pit and outside it. He would have no reason to “climb” out of the pit, and therefore, the question is meaningless. Whenever Christians talk about God “being” or “going” somewhere, it’s a metaphor that refers to His eternal presence at that location.
“Aha!,” you say. “But some Christians teach that hell is the place of separation from God.” Yes, but that separation is alienation. It doesn’t mean that God isn’t there. Even David said in the Psalms, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, You [, God,] are there.”
The real question is, “could God create a hole so deep that He would be trapped inside in the sense that we humans would be? Could such a hole become so deep that He would be unable to travel to or be present at other locations?” For this reason also, the answer is “no.”
You say you’ve found a contradiction? Because the Bible talks about God having a “mouth”, “eyes,” “ears,” “hands,” about God “going” there or “coming” here? To that I say, what is a mouth but speaking? What are ears but hearing? What are eyes (and incidentally, the Bible says that God’s “eyes” are in “every place”) but seeing? When God says, “I will visit my people,” He often means it in very much the same sort of ironic way a gangster means it when he says he’s going to “pay someone a little visit.” These passages are meant to communicate that God sees, hears, knows about, and can manipulate materials and circumstances that are relevant to us in time and space. He does not exist as an unapproachable foreign entity in some other dimension; instead, His ongoing work is evident in our own material world. Likewise, when a human being goes to another place, he must go there from the place where he is. Since God can be in both places at once, He has no such limitation, and can “go” anywhere without departing from where He is.
The Real Issue: Can God Get Himself into a situation He can’t get out of?
A better way to put this is, if God is vested with all power and authority, if there are no limits to what He may (although there are limits to what He can) do, then, can God put an irrevocable limit on His own power?
Let me give an example. While I own my car, I have the authority to drive it. I can smash it with a baseball bat if I want to. I can do anything I want (within the confines of the law, the realm of physical possibility etc.), but as soon as I sell my car, I move into an irreversible position. I no longer have power over the car, and there’s no way for me to get that power back. Since I have the authority to sell or give away my car, I have the power to give up my power.
Back to God. The question I’m asking is, is it possible for God to somehow undo His omnipotence? To remove that attribute of Himself? This is what both questions are really getting at. Can God (by whatever definition of the word “can”), put a cap on His own power?
I think God can and does restrain Himself. However, omnipotence is a characteristic of God – it isn’t a behavior. And if the Bible is to be believed, God’s character never changes. Yesterday, today, and forever, He remains the same. Therefore, in the sense of something that ever will or could possibly occur, God cannot cease to be omnipotent, because He cannot change. Whether He possesses the capacity to make changes to His own character is another question.
You have to remember that God didn’t create Himself. In addition to being omnipresent and omnipotent, He is eternal. Therefore in the sense that George Washington couldn’t lie (according to the story), God cannot change. Because if God could cease to be omnipotent, then by definition He would also cease to be God. (If God is defined as, “that omnipotent being who is eternal, unchanging, and omnipresent).
So the real question, when you boil it down is, “Can God stop being God.” Can a caterpillar become a butterfly is one question, can God (who, by definition, never changes), become anything other than God, is another question altogether. And the answer is no.
The only remaining question is, does omnipotence mean that the omnipotent one would succeed if He attempted to give up his omnipotence? I think that’s an important stipulation because we’ve established that such an attempt will never be made. But if such an attempt were made, would it be successful? I think the definition of omnipotence means that it would. So an omnipotent person could theoretically stop being omnipotent, but God in particular – who, in addition to being omnipotent, never changes – never will; even though He must indeed possess whatever power would be required for Him to do so.
So can God make a rock so big that He can’t throw it, can He dig a pit so deep that He can’t climb out? In short, can God be anything other than God? No. Does that mean God is anything less than omnipotent? No. None of these questions say anything about who God is or what He is like, and they certainly fail to demonstrate that we have no hope of ever understanding Him.