Could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it?
The question is meant as a trap: if God cannot make the rock, He is not almighty, and if He cannot lift it, He is not almighty either. Before answering it, the commentators would have us ask a prior question — what do we actually mean when we say God can do all things, and who is doing the measuring?
Power That Never Has To Ask
Scripture never shows God straining, calculating, or testing the limits of His own strength. One writer sets God's power beside man's inventiveness and finds no comparison at all:
James BoydCreation was brought into existence by His Word, and by His Word it is upheld. He has no need to ask Himself the question, Can I do this? Or, Can I not? He has but to speak, and the thing is done.
"Anything He Likes"
Commentators readily grant the first half of the puzzle — God can do whatever He wills. What they refuse is the idea that His will could be turned against His own being. Answering a man who wanted God to set aside His law in order to forgive, one writer put it this way:
A. J. PollockYou may ask perhaps, Cannot God do anything that He likes? Certainly, anything He LIKES. But remember, He must ever act in consonance with His own nature. He cannot do those things that are a contradiction of His nature and being. For instance, "It is impossible for God to lie" (Heb. 6:18).
A Contradiction Is Not A Limit
Here is the heart of the matter. The rock puzzle asks God to do something self-cancelling, then calls the impossibility a weakness. That reasoning is refused directly:
J. N. DarbyGod cannot be or do evil: to say this is a limitation of power is only a delusion. If I say that He cannot do what He pleases, for He cannot do evil, the "cannot" applies to "what He pleases," not to the power of God. As to acts of power, He can do everything. It is morally impossible that there should be in Him the contrary of what He is, that is of good and right. But this is not limiting power or anything; it is denying a limit to goodness, and saying it is absolute.
Nothing Can Stand Independent Of Him
A rock God could not lift would be a thing existing outside His control — a second power He must submit to. Discussing whether God could give a creature life that is inherently its own, one writer shows why that kind of request collapses:
A. J. PollockTo do so would be to abrogate His own Godhead, for it would be equivalent to making another God, independent of Himself, an utter impossibility. We may assert that God can do anything, but it is likewise true that God cannot do anything that is a contradiction of His own Being.
The same reasoning is applied to rival powers as such: two infinite independent powers cannot exist, "because they contradict each other. They are not infinite, for they cannot destroy each other" — while a finite, subordinate power is no contradiction to God at all (J. N. Darby).
The "Cannot" That Steadies Faith
Far from being an embarrassment, God's "cannot" is the ground of every promise. When Balaam was hired to curse Israel and found himself unable, the word he used was not one of unwillingness:
J. N. DarbyHe is not only a God of truth, but He does not alter it… The truth that He tells is truth, eternal truth, and it is now in the mouth of the enemy. "I cannot revoke it." Not, I will not, but I cannot.
Who Is Setting The Test?
There is a posture behind such questions, and the writers name it plainly. Once a creature appoints himself judge of what God may and may not do, the whole relationship has been inverted:
C. H. MackintoshIf man is to sit in judgement upon the actings of God in government; if he can take upon himself to decide as to what is, and what is not worthy of God to do, then, verily, we have lost the true sense of God altogether… Can we comprehend God? If we could, we should, ourselves, be God.
Where His Power Was Actually Shown
Instead of imaginary weights, Scripture points to one real event as the measure of what God can do:
The Bible TreasuryIn the beginning God displayed His power in the creation of the heavens and the earth. In the history of Israel, He showed His power by their redemption from Egypt. But the greatest exemplification of God's power for the Christian is in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ… For here we have the annulment of man's last enemy — death.
Summary
- Can. As to acts of power, He can do everything; He never has to ask Himself whether a thing is within His reach.
- Cannot. He cannot lie and cannot deny Himself — and that "cannot" attaches to what He would will, not to His strength.
- Contradiction. A self-cancelling demand is not a task God fails; it would require another power independent of Him, which is an impossibility.
- Creature. Whoever appoints himself judge of what is worthy of God has already made himself God in thought.
- Christ. The real measure of divine power is not a hypothetical stone but an empty tomb, where death itself was annulled.