Is there anything God can't do?

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When I was a kid a friend asked me a meant to be joking question but I would like to see someone attempt to answer it. “Can god create a rock so big that he is not strong enough to lift it?” Obviously there is objections to both answers.
 
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I heard that before. I have heard that the rock referred to our will. God doesnt force is tondo anything… Through his own choice he makes the rock unmovable. Of course he could choose to make the rock movable if he wanted. Doesn’t really make sense to me
 
No I don’t think so. He is omnipotent. Anything created would just somehow bow to Him. Anything disobedient would just wither in the end. Remember the story of the fig tree that just became try because it wouldn’t give its rods when God commanded so it ceased to exist. I know that story is a metaphor about mankind but it also.represents the absolute power of God.
 
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No, because that involves a logical contradiction, which God can’t do by definition.
 
Rudolph said:
When I was a kid a friend asked me a meant to be joking question but I would like to see someone attempt to answer it. “Can god create a rock so big that he is not strong enough to lift it?” Obviously there is objections to both answers.
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There isn’t a dogma regarding whether God can create contradictions. There are some theologians who say “yes, God can create a rock so heavy even he can’t lift it, but then he can go and lift it.” It is contradictory, and both would be true at the same time, but they hold that God transcends the principle of non-contradiction and all such limitations. The more popular (as I understand it) position among Catholic theologians, however, is that God has the capacity to cause all possible things, but that he can’t create something which is logically impossible (such as one thing which is wholly a square and wholly a circle at the same time). This isn’t a limit on his power, because there is no capacity (so they say) for a square-circle to actually exist. So since such a capacity does not exist, it’s not a power which can be lacked.

I favor the position that God cannot create a contradiction.
 
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Thom18 said:
No, because that involves a logical contradiction, which God can’t do by definition.
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The question you were asked was asked in the middle ages and thoroughly explored. This response is what they came up with. God is logic, order, and love.
 
Rudolph said:
When I was a kid a friend asked me a meant to be joking question but I would like to see someone attempt to answer it. “Can god create a rock so big that he is not strong enough to lift it?” Obviously there is objections to both answers.
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God is omnipotent, so God is able to do anything. Is that what you mean by “can”?
At the same time, there is no contradiction in God, so God does not violate God’s nature. Just because the power exists, doesn’t mean it is exercised in arbitrary or unreasonable ways.
For instance God is goodness itself. To say that God creates evil contradicts God’s nature.
God is truth. To say that God deceived me is a contradiction.

The concept of Logos is a good one. Logos is the “reasonability of God”, or the God who reveals himself intelligibly. Christ is the Logos of God, and reveals how God is in the fullest way conceivable for us. And this is important when we get into the interpretation of difficult scripture passages. When a scripture passage seems contradictory, we must look at Christ as the key to interpretation.
 
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God can do anything He wants to. I learned that from personal experience.
 
Then in what sense is the rock one God can’t lift, since he then goes and lifts it?

The problem is that the rock is defined in relative rather than absolute terms. There is no actual size of rock that God cannot create, but “an object that cannot be affected by an omnipotent force” is not an object you can just define into existence. Either there is an irresistible force or an immovable object — the answer to what happens when they meet is that one will prove not to be as described, because you can’t have both of those things in the same universe. They define each other out of existence.
 
Usagi said:
Then in what sense is the rock one God can’t lift, since he then goes and lifts it?
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I doubt Baby Jesus rolled out of the manger and hefted a boulder. Babies can’t lift boulders. Jesus was a baby. Yet he was also God.

I’m also sure if God had wished to have Baby Jesus heft the boulder or just move it himself from heaven, he’d have been able to do so.
 
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He cannot lie. He is Truth.
I know this is double.post on the same subject with me giving different responses, but I thought a lot over this. And this thought just jumped into my mind. That He cannot lie.
Hope it helps someone. God bless.
 
Yes, He made a rock called the universe.
Can you lift the universe?
Which direction is ‘up’?
 
No, God cannot create a rock which He cannot lift. Creating a such a rock would mean that it would have to be greater than immeasurable, which is a logical contradiction.
 
ioannes_pius said:
No, God cannot create a rock which He cannot lift. Creating a such a rock would mean that it would have to be greater than immeasurable, which is a logical contradiction.
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I don’t see any logical contradiction in not being able to lift an immeasurable (infinite) object.
 
there is nothing God cannot do. Any arguments are human and as is said, our way of thinking is not God’s way
 
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God cannot do anything that contradicts His nature. So in that sense, yes there are things God cannot do. Creating an object that He cannot lift would imply that He can be contained and restrained by something physical which would be against His nature.
 
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