Can God do Anything? Can he create a stone so big that he cannot move it?
Part 1
In a response to one of our readers, I said that God cannot do anything. The reader responded?
“Then what about Miracles.”
In another post an atheist reader said:
“… God can suspend the law of gravity. God can make 2+2=5 if it suits his purpose …..”
But this seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the Christian God.
So let me see if I can clarify the Christian concept of God. I won’t try to speak for the god of any other religion or myth or a god of anyone’s personal creation. Why? Because that is only limited by your imagination.
In addition do understand that what I am about to present to you is Theology. That is, I maybe able to prove some of these concepts to you, but I can’t prove them all. However I do think that they are all rational, logical and self consistent. So take them as information to understand how Christian philosophers and how most of us on this site view God.
- God cannot do “anything.”
From the writings of the great Christian theologians, thinkers, scientists and philosophers, and from the Bible, we can derive the following of characteristics of the First Cause, uncaused Creator:
God cannot do anything which is not actually possible, for example contrary to the statement above, He cannot make 2+2=5,
He cannot stop being God,
He cannot make a round square in 2 dimensional space,
He cannot make black actually be white,
He cannot paint a door black with red paint bought from Home Depot and no added chemicals and no added activity on his part,
He cannot give someone freedom of choice in an area and then not let them choose in that area.
After all it would seem fallacious and irrational to try to argue that the source of all rationality could be irrational itself.
Here are some more:
He cannot sin,
He cannot cease to exist.
He cannot “not” be God.
He cannot make another God.
He cannot allow anything else to become God.
He cannot be irrational.
He cannot be evil.
He cannot be lonely.
He cannot be unhappy.
He cannot have unmet needs.
He cannot begin to exist.
He cannot forget.
He cannot learn anything new (at least as far as we understand).
The last few imply that He cannot change his mind (because that would mean he’d learned some new information or remembered something He’d forgotten, He can however have always planned to do something different at a certain point in time, or plan to respond to a certain event in a specific way).
And he certainly cannot create a stone so big that he cannot move it. But we’ll cover that in a second blog.
So if someone asks you if God can do anything. Say “No.”
- The Miracles in the Bible are not “actually” impossible
As indicated in my blog of April 28th, Biblical Miracles do not fall into this category because they are not actually “impossible.” They are not irrational. Why do we say that? Well because any miracle or supernatural event recorded in the Bible could have been made to take place if enough technology, equipment or knowledge was available or if an extra-dimensional being was able to manipulate molecules, electrons, quarks or leptons. Look carefully, there are no truly impossible or irrational miracles in the Bible including the creation of the Universe and if an atheist were to suggest that creating matter from nothing is impossible, we’d say “Really, then why do you think it happened accidentally”.
By the way the feasibility of most of the Biblical miracles (short of creation) through technology is quite an interesting observation when you think about it. I doubt I can claim credit for it though, because, as with most things I think I have discovered, I always end up finding out that some other philosopher or theologian had already written about it 1000-2000 years ago.
An entry on my personal webpage titled “Is the Supernatural Impossible? Goes in to more detail about miracles (click for the link).
Let’s look briefly at the the water into wine miracle. The water was changed into wine most probably at the molecular level. It wasn’t water that was also wine (and while it could have been hypnotism, the passage indicates it wasn’t and anyway hypnotism isn’t “impossible”). He changed the water molecules into actual wine molecules (and very good wine at that). Was it synthetic wine? It probably was. (I say probably because of course he could have also swapped the water for pre-made wine – OK OK using the equivalent of a transporter beam…I’m a geek at heart).
What about dead men walking as in the case of those who came to life, again healing of tissue and reanimation of life (God created life to begin with – a merging of some multi-dimensional elements back to their original 4D ones) are all “possible” rational things. They are just not natural or common.
So we see none of these miracles are actually impossible.
Now it’s worth nothing that impossibility is usually seen best in philosophical or conceptual issues. E.g. making the square root of (-1) = 1. Or making the cube of 5, 124. All of which are rationally impossible.
You see making 1+1 = 3 or 2+2= 5 is not a matter of manipulating molecules. It is dealing with things at a much basic and in a sense a higher level. It’s dealing with things at the point of rationality. Mess with that and everything stops being cohesive, the universe starts to unravel, and you start to violate the very nature of God.
What about changing the laws of Gravity in the example. I would argue that God cannot change or suspend the laws of Gravity without having to then simultaneously attend to all the other effects of there being no Gravity. That’s not to say that he couldn’t also stop every individual thing from flinging out in to space using some other power, but the point is He would have to attend to it.
It’s of value to note that the original comment about Gravity by the atheist at the opening of this blog was said in the context of God being unable to be studied by science because he could change the laws of Gravity and we would not know about it. However, the nature of God being what it is and from the examples in the Biblical miracles, I tend to think that if God did do a miracle he would allow the side effects of the miracle to be apparent such that we could indeed measure it and see that an external agent had acted upon things. I also think that while God could indeed do things that cannot be studied by science, He could just as well do certain things that COULD be studied by science and point to him. So we cannot apriori assume that God did not do so. Maybe God has chosen to be able to be detected by Science. In which case would not science be the best way to detect him?
You cannot merely say that Science cannot prove God. If God wanted to, Science could indeed prove God. And contrary to what some believe, most Christians Theologians and Philosophers think that God HAS indeed chosen to leave his Fingerprint for us to detect. The question we are asking ourselves is “Why is he not more obvious about it?”, for that discussion you’ll have to wait for a future post titled “Why doesn’t God just show himself?” So for now know that the miracles in the Bible at not rationally or logically impossible.
- But I thought God was Omnipotent
(this section was updated with the definition of Pantocrator on 5/11/08 – I would like t
o express my appreciation to “db0” who allowed me to bounce these arguments off him and prompted this further expansion, I’m adding this back into the blog to allow people to see most of the argument in one place. )
God IS omnipotent (all powerful) but he is not omni-able (i.e. able to do “any”thing at least not anything irrational). The definition of power should not be confused with capability when it comes to the Christian God. There’s a clear distinction between the two. Christian theologians have long taught that God is all-powerful, not all capable when it comes to irrationality. And if you think about this, we see this as being tied into His character, His personality, His being. If God were to become irrational, it would violate his nature and he would cease to be God. God is a slave to his character (but then so are you).
But you say doesn’t the Bible say that God can do anything? Actually no, it does not. The word used in the Bible for Omni-Potent comes from the Greek word Pantocrator (Pantokrator). Pantocrator means all ruling. Almighty not all-capable. Let me explain.
When the Vulgate Manuscript was created as a translation from the Greek Septuagint (the Old Testament) into Latin, the Greek word Pantocrator was translated into the Latin “omnipotens”, which means having all the power (again note this is still technically correct as it means having power and strength not capability). The word is tied to rulers and ruling not to being all “capable.”
Over the recent years many Christians just started assuming that Omnipotence meant all capable and modern language uses it that way. But the original Greek and Hebrew do not support this. (BTW that’s what we think is infallible, the original Greek and Hebrew autographs written by the apostles and prophets. We don’t think the translations are or the copies are infallible.)
The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon explains Pantocrator as:
Strong’s Number: 3841
pantokravtwr from (3956) and (2904)?
Transliterated Word TDNT Entry:?Pantokrator
Noun: Masculine?
Definition: he who holds sway over all things, the ruler of all, almighty: God
As you can see Pantocrator does not mean all capable even of irrational things. It just means powerful, mighty and ruler of all.
Hope this helps clarify where we stand.
Neil Mammen
By the way: Any errors in examples or theology are my errors and not those of the owners of this site.
Coming soon:
Part II. The correct response to: Can God create a stone so big that he cannot move it?
[...] ALERT: The above blog entry is now posted at: http://crossexamined.thehuntercreative.com/?p=57? [...]
“God never”, “God must”, “God must”, “God must”, “God cannot”, “God is”, “God cannot”, “God is unable”
Wow, Neil. You sure know a lot about god. Dozens of little factoids and insights. I’m willing to bet, given comfortable settings, food, and water, that you could spend years describing god in infinite detail, using your most rational arguments and leaving no stone unturned in your wildest imagination.
But lots of people can do this, Neil. They can do it for conspiracies, or for their own particular deities, or for UFOs. They write books filled with all their rational arguments and their highly descriptive and sometimes convincing imaginations.
And that’s fine and all, good for you, to each their own, etc. But come on, do I have to lay out logical arguments against everyone who ever makes any claim? “Today, I argue with the one god folks. Tomorrow, I argue with scientologists.”
I’d be surprised if any atheist wants to sit down and wade through your infinite imagination on this topic. This post alone could take days or weeks. That would be quite a committed atheists, IMHO.
Listen, you provide even a slight meager shred of evidence that Neil’s interpretation (which is unique from most other peoples interpretation) of the creator of everything is more accurate than everyone elses – or, even, that the creator of everything exists outside of his imaginative rationalizations – and I will sit down and learn about all these fancy details of yours.
Until then… how can I distinguish between the rationalizing ramblings of a scientologist, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, and you? This sounds offensive, but I am serious – How can I distinguish?? Give me a criteria.
Anthony, either provide an argument or a refutation or we will have to assume that you have no argument and just want to vent.
~~~~I tend to think that if God did do a miracle he would allow the side effects of the miracle to be apparent such that we could indeed measure it and see that an external agent had acted upon things.~~~~
You mean like a global flood?
~~~~If God wanted to, he could allow Science to indeed prove He existed. And contrary to what some believe, most Christians Theologians and Philosophers think that God HAS indeed chosen to leave his Fingerprint for us to detect.~~~~
Romans 1:19-20
~~~~Is the removal of Freewill worse that the non-prevention of evil? I don’t think so.~~~~
I believe this is a bad question, Neil. It’s not a matter of being worse. There are no degrees of evil. Either a thing is evil or it is not (Law of Excluded Middle). Is the removal of freewill evil? Yes. Is the non-prevention of evil, in and of itself, evil? No.
I thought it important to clarify, though I know what you were getting at.
I love Orson Scott Card’s “Ender” series and the Homecoming Saga. The Ender series was one of the few series that has made me cry. I will definitely be picking up The Worthing Saga.
Great points on the blame game and an excellent article over all, Neil. I appreciate the post.
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
Thanks Ernie, your point makes sense. I stand corrected. That was a bad choice of words.
Thanks too for some excellent posts.
Neil, if you accept that god is not omnipotent as you write, then the PoE goes away. I have nothing else to contribute to this argument as you have agreed with me.
God is not omnibenevolent and omniscient and omnipotent. Indeed he cannot be as long as the PoE exists.
@Anthony: I see what you are trying to say but it, as well, a red herring.
This blogpost wants to deal with the question of if god is all-powerful. It appears he is not regardless of what the bible says (which further leads us to believe that the bible is not infallible).
If you do not care to discuss this unless solid evidence for his existence appears then you should not be commenting here.
@Enrnie
Ernie, where have you been? We have had this discussion on the other thread but you did not answer my last point.
Or do you accept as well that god is impotent?
db0 if we are agreeing that God cannot do EVERYTHING then I think we see eye to eye.
But if we are arguing that God can do anything that is logically possible but not actually possible. E.g. By giving someone freewill but at the same time being able to make sure they don’t do anything wrong, then I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.
While I’m not an expert on the ancient theologians, I have done much research on them and I think even in Augustine’s writings he implies as much that God cannot do anything that is not actually possible. I could be wrong on this of course and I’ll watch to see if anyone can provide alternate facts on Augustine.
Now I don’t believe the Bible ever presents us with a God who claims to be able to do that which is actually impossible and in truth if this is someone’s claim I think they are standing on weak ground. That’s like saying to Christians: I don’t care what you think the word Omnipotence means, this is what it means to me (the atheist) and until you accept my atheistic definition of your definition of your God I think you are wrong.
At the most you can say: Jews and Christians have been using the word Omnipotence incorrectly for the last 1600 years. It’s not in the Bible and is a Latin Translation of the Greek word “pantocrator”, which means ruler of all things. When the Vulgate was created, as a translation from the Greek Septuagint into Latin, the Greek word pantocrator became “omnipotens”, which means having all the power (again note this is still technically correct as it means having power and strength not capability). The word is tied to rulers and ruling. If the English definition of the word has mutated in modern culture to mean “All Capable” then it’s time we coined a new word: I like PantoCrator.
And in general this is a point of confusion with even most blind faith Christians. But it has never been traditional Christianity and it has never been taught in the Bible that I know of. I have added these comments into the above blog.
I could be wrong naturally.
Neil: “provide an argument or a refutation”
I’m not an enabler, so I will retire. Enjoy the debate, all!
if by “EVERYTHING” you mean everything logically possible then yes.
This would mean that God is impotent and the problem of Evil goes away.
I get the feeling that most other christians would dissagree with you on that characteristic however.
What is logically possible IS actually possible for a being with unlimited power over everything logical. Dave went into more detail on this so you may want to argue with him.
Once again, taken from Dave:
If you’re going to use as an excuse what was lost in translation then we’re going to have a long discussion ahead of us. Keep in mind that in older untranslated versions of the bible some stuff like speaking in tongues, handling snakes, slain by the spirit etc are missing. If I’m not mistaken these are part of the Evangelical belief no?
In any case, I’d like you to explain what Pantocrator means if not Omnipotent.
Clarification: I mean in the sense of what it means practically. I know the literal meaning of the word (I’m Greek)
What does it mean in modern day Greek?
The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon explains Pantocrator as:
Strong’s Number: 3841
Original Word Word Origin
pantokravtwr from (3956) and (2904)
Transliterated Word TDNT Entry
Pantokrator 3:914,466
Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech
pan-tok-rat’-ore Noun Masculine
Definition
he who holds sway over all things
the ruler of all
almighty: God
So practically I would say it means ruler of all, having power. It seems to me that insisting that it has always meant the ability to do that which is actually impossible is a strawman.
Pantocrator literally translates as “The one who holds everything” however your KJV translation captures the meaning in the testament I suppose. However it seems to me by judging from the definition and the bible quotes (see above), one can easily assume they meant omnipotent (as most people have)
It is of no consequence to me if it always meant that or not. I have only defended the PoE.
If you accept that your God is impotent then we are in agreement. Suffering is very much possible in a world where God is not powerful enough to stop it.
However one could then ask why
1. The “infallible” bible describes him as omnipotent (see above)
2. How exactly do we know what the limits of his power are? The bible is wonderfully ambiguous on that so one could assume a lot of scenarios.
Nevertheless, these two points are beyond the scope of this post so no need to answer. As long as your defense against the PoE is God’s impotence, I have nothing else to argue on it.
db0,
You’ve created a strawman fallacy.
You would be very hard pressed to prove that a God who could not do that which is actually impossible in impotent. Even simple logic would show you that.
The opposite of unable to do ALL things is not unable to do ANYTHING. Surely you can see that. This is quite easy to prove. You are not able to do EVERYTHING, yet do you find yourself to be impotent? I hope not.
You’ve also made a simple error in understanding. No one claims that the infallibility of the Bible applies to the Latin or the KJV. The infallibility of the Bible applies to the actual autographs as written by the Apostles or the Prophets. I have shown you that the original Greek and Hebrew do NOT say he is “all capable” just all ruling and all mighty. I can understand your confusion of that. But now that i’ve shown it to you, it is a fallacy to go back to what I’ve already proven and merely repeat it. Either refute what I have shown or accept it. Even your own modern day Greek agrees with what I’ve been saying. You admit this.
You asked how do we know what the limits are and what “most” people have assumed the passage meant. Well we know the limits of his power are simply this: God cannot do that which would violate his Character of Rationality.
I recommend you read Augustine, Aquinus and many of the Church fathers. Then move on to CS Lewis, Chesterton, Plantinga and Piper and of course William Lane Craig. You seem to think that there aren’t 20 centuries of writing on this. We even have writings of the church fathers from the first 50 years of the Church. Christianity didn’t pop out of nowhere.
But db0 now you are arguing against what you suppose we believe and seem to be at cross purposes of finding the truth. Are you interested in finding the truth or just in finding satisfaction that your preconceived notions are right. I hope it’s not the latter.
Here’s the question: is it more rational to believe that a God exists given that his Character is rational, and given that this God could not do anything irrational i.e. do something that is actually impossible than to disbelieve in the God that cannot exist.
Well we agree I also don’t believe that a God who can do the rationally impossible exists.
(To then dive off the deep and say well then God is impotent is illogical and you are merely shooting yourself in the foot for spite. It doesn’t follow and it seems petulant.)
You don’t need to agree that God is the way the church fathers have defined him, but perhaps you can see that it is self consistent.
How so? Your defense is that God cannot do everything that is actually logically possible. This makes him impotent.
Ok, you don’t like the word “impotence” then. Fair enough.
Let me state it again. I have not problem is your defense against the PoE is that your God is just omniscient and all-good.
This is however not what the bible says or what most christians believe. If you want to defend what is lost in translation in the bible, be my guest to take it up with your fellow christians.
My only argument has been the PoE which you’ve conceded.
So, since we do not have these, should we assume that all the bible is inaccurate?
How do you know that? What is a “Character of rationality”?
I will not. This is the part where I will agree with Anthony. There is no reason to believe that what this father said is anything more other than their rabid imagination.
I am arguing against the logical inconsistency of an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent god.
Finding the truth does not come into play at the moment.
You’ve asked for Atheist participation and here we are. To further accuse us of being “at cross purposes of finding the truth” is, well, it does not make sense.
“Rational” can take many definitions. Do you mean logical?
I can agree that a omniscient and omnibenevolent god is consistent with the PoE but I would not call him God if he existed.
OK then we have a consensus:
A being who is Omniscient and Omnipresent and is Pantocrator and Creator.
I certainly won’t and can’t insist that you call him God.
Yes I think we see eye to eye then. Do you see any consequences to that?
Sorry I should be clearer, do you see any consequences in my argument if we agree on that point?
Not certain what you are asking here.
Nevertheless, the way you’ve presented your argument he seems as if he is able to do all these things (stop all suffering etc) when in truth, as not being omnipotent, he might just not be able to.
For example one could assume that God was trying to make a perfect being in Adam, but since he’s not potent enough, the being was faulty.
God then punished Adam and Eve even though he was the one that made the mistake.
Many things take different meaning in the biblical history if we are to assume that god is not omnipotent.
If god cannot be lonely or unhappy, nor have unmet needs, why did he create this world we live in? For our benefit? Basically most of the humans who have ever existed are going to be tortured forever and ever. That’s really beneficial; I’m really looking forward to it personally.
Because he desired something? Seems like there is a contradiction there…
Hmm… perhaps anthony has the right idea.
Josh,
I’m not sure why you think desire is based on need. You can love your wife and be very secure in her love for you and still desire to kiss her or desire to give her roses to make her feel even more loved. Does that mean that you are lacking something or need something? Hmm I think I’ll give my wife a big wet kiss right now. I desire to do it. And she is a babe.
You may be able to say that most humans who HAVE ever existed will be tortured at this point, but you can’t for sure say most Humans who ever WILL ever exist will be tortured. If the trend continues with the population growth at 1% (and slowing) but the rate of Christian conversion and births (less from births) at over 2.33% and growing (even faster rate in Africa and China) at some point in time there could be over 20B humans on this planet and neighboring planets, 18B whom are Christians. At that point the numbers don’t work for you and more humans will enjoy God’s presence than will ever be condemned. I’m not saying that you are definitely wrong, just that you can’t lightly jump to that conclusion and should not constrain the future. While these numbers are estimates one can easily see a trend.
Meanwhile the number of atheists is shrinking. Is this relevant? Perhaps not. But if man is fully a product of evolution then evolution is also responsible for our religious beliefs. In which case it seems that evolutionary speaking, the gene that causes people to not believe in evolution is a more successful gene. (Is that the right word? successful). It’s ironic if that’s true.
Just a thought.
Josh, Jehovah created the universe for the benefit of all. That some choose to do evil, to be selfish and not follow this pattern, to choose sin and destruction, is not God’s fault. It is sad that so many have chosen this selfish path, but you cannot place the blame on God for the choices men make. All the woes, all the suffering, all the evil in the universe are the result of man’s choices, not God’s. Only men are to blame. Blaming God is unjust and irrational.
In Truth and Love,
Ernie
If God can turn water into wine, or walk on water, (or flood Earth and kill off 99% of us damned sinful animals and humans), then he can in fact violate what we refer to as natural laws. Is prayer something that works? Then God can do things in the real world.
Now, if God is a passivist and won’t stop evil, then why doesn’t he intervene and stop unnecessary suffering? Depression and other mental illnesses, disease, malnutrition, poverty, natural disasters and other environmental calamities are all preventable without taking away our free will. Is it just so the rest of us can show bravery, courage, and other humane values in response to these plagues?
Is sacrificing their lives for our character a good trade off? Would it be morally just for me to murder a Christian apologist if I uplift and elevate the moral character of other Christian apologists in turn? I think the value of human life supersedes that of good character and actions.