Can God Create a Rock so Big He Can’t Lift It?
This question came up recently, and I was surprised people still ask this…but anyway, as to an answer it is not all that complicated.
This is a question deliberately trying to “trap” the person into answering that “God can’t do something” no matter how the person answers. However, with a question like this, I have no problem in saying that there are some things that even an infinite God can’t do because the question doesn’t understand the nature of God or the nature of the rock. If God is infinite, uncreated, then there is no way that He can create a finite, created rock that is too big for him to lift. Anything “created”, such as a rock, is material, created, and finite. Therefore, by its nature as a rock, it can never become infinite and uncreated and become too big for God to lift. It is not so much that God can’t do something but that the nature of a rock can never become something other than what it is. If the rock became unmaterial, infinite, and uncreated…then they whole idea of “lifting” it is ridiculous because the idea of lifting is bound to the concept of the material.