Is there anything God can't do?

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Okay, that works, but I don’t think that’s what people who pose that question are usually picturing. “Can God make a rock that Jesus, using His human capabilities only, could not have lifted?” has a trivial answer of “Yes.”
 
I’m no philosophy major.
I think we would all do well to accept that past a point, God is incomprehensible to our limited human minds and indefinable in human terms.
 
Is it safe to assume that God is incapable of sinning? What would happen to him if he could? It seems like such a contradiction. Like matter meeting antimatter.
 
Rather than this nonsensical question, far better to focus on what God can do.

He can create - thus we exist.
He is love - therefore we can love and be loved.
He promises eternal life for those who love Him.
He sends help when we are helpless.
He grants us each and every breath - every heartbeat.
He withholds eternal justice by the power of His mercy.

The list is infinite because God is infinite.
 
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ioannes_pius said:
Neither do I.

What is your point?
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Great 🙂

If it’s not logically impossible then we can feasibly conceive God’s ability to do it.

“…With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
 
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po18guy said:
God cannot do anything contrary to His nature.
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Right.
Which is another way of saying God can voluntarily impose limitations upon Himself.

Saying…I cannot tell a lie, doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of capacity to do so.

Q. Why can’t you lie God?
A. Because I would never want to. So that could never happen.

Q. But you could if you wanted to…right?
A. Could what? Want to do something that I would never want to do?
 
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Au contraire! Limitations of God’s nature are impossible. His nature is immutable and your assertion requires mutability. Man, as we see from our contorted thinking is nothing but limitations.
 
I’m realizing you’ve crafted a straw man.

I said that having a rock with a weight, size, etc. greater than immeasurable (which would be required for the OPs situation) is a logical impossibility.

You then told me that you didn’t see not being able to lift an infinite object as a logical contradiction, and I agreed.

Having a greater-than-immeasurable object and not being able to lift an immeasurable object are two different things.
 
To me this is like asking whether God can create a square circle. Perhaps, but doing so would so change what it means to be a circle and what it means to be a square that the whole exercise would be meaningless. It would be the same as doing nothing.
 
There are lots of things God can’t do! He can’t lie. He can’t contradict Himself. The question posed is a contradiction! He can’t make a stick with one end. He can’t make a circle that is square!
 
A square circle is a contradiction in terms. It is not a possible reality, it is nothing. A rock that God cannot lift is a contradiction in terms. It is nothing. And nothing IS impossible to God.

But God cannot will himself out of existence. He IS existence.

God died. Jesus is God, and he died.
 
Lion_IRC said:
Q. Why can’t you lie God?
A. Because I would never want to. So that could never happen.
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It’s not that he doesn’t want to. It’s against his nature. By the definition of God, he cannot do no wrong because he is the morality we look to.

It’s like asking if God can give up his powers. He literally can’t because the definition of God is that he is all powerful. Same goes if God can be created. The definition of God would be the uncreated creator.
 
Regarding the original question: It assumes that God can stop being God. That strikes me as nonsensical. That is earthly, finite, non-transcendent thinking, as man can easily construct somthing that is too large to move.
 
Lea101 said:
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Thom18:
No, because that involves a logical contradiction, which God can’t do by definition.
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The only answer you need tbh.
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When folks tell me God can’t do this or that or the other because it’s ‘logically impossible’ I’m reminded of Muslims who say the exact same thing about the Trinity.
 
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