So I was in a discussion with a heathen (member of the folkish Asatru religion), and he posed a question to which I couldn’t give much of a reply. I was hoping someone here might have an insight to this:
He asked if an all-powerful, wise, etc God could make a rock (or anything else) that He could not move? According to his logic, if you say yes He can make a rock He can’t move, then he isn’t all-powerful because He can’t do something…but if you say no He can’t make a rock He can’t move then He is still not all-powerful as there is something He cannot do.
Any thoughts?
A phrase does not acquire meaning by having the words “God can” put in front of it.
The question rests on an equivocation - equivocation being the fallacy of using a word with several possible meanings as though it meant the same thing in all different contexts. Your friend is treating “cannot” as though “X cannot Y” always means the same thing; & it doesn’t. There is more than one sort of inability, and more than one way of being: the being of a stone is not the being of a slicce of bread or an archangel. Or of God, Who is Unique in Being. And ability, is a function of being
We cannot fly - most birds can. OTOH, birds cannot exhibit art at a gallery, or cook: birds do not need to have these abilities. Our inability to do things birds alone can do, is not a deprivation for us, because there is nothing in our make-up as human beings to make our inability to do what certain other animals can do into a cause for complaint: when did you last hear anyone complain that they “could not” weight 175 tons
? Weighing 175 tons is OK for a blue whale - but not for a human being. Just as having three stomachs goes with being a cow, & is fine for a cow - but would be anything but fine for a human being. Some things don’t enhance being human, or cowy, or blue whaley - instead, they would spoil it. What human being wants to “be able to” weigh the same as a blue whale ? Inability to do a thing, is sometimes something for which to be grateful.
God cannot sin. Humans can - in fact, we are superb at it. But sinning does not enhance being human - any more than doing one’s head in by taking lots and lots of cocaine enhances being human. Sin and drugs corrupt, they do not enhance. Evil is like the shadow of the dog’s bone in the fable - it is not a something, but an absence of being when being should be present; and sin is a form of moral evil.
God’s incapability of sin is not a limitation of His Being, it is not something God wishes He could do, but unlike us lucky fellows who can sin, is handicapped from doing. On the contrary - God’s incapability of sin is a consequence, is a mode of His infinite Holiness. And to be holy is a very good thing - it is not a weakness, handicap, corruption, or lessening of being. It is because God is Eternal, Infinite in Being and infinite in Holiness, that sin is alien to Him, is something God cannot do. ##
