I frequent a couple of
apologetics groups on Facebook, and in one of them there was a recent
discussion on the old atheist’s question, “If God is all powerful, can He make
a rock too heavy for Him to lift?” Now
most Christians have been asked this question at some point if they’ve ever
talked to atheists, and the majority of apologetically-minded Christians
probably learned an answer along the lines of, “When we say God is all
powerful, we don’t mean that He can do everything, but that He can do everything
that is logically possible to do. Everyone
agrees that God cannot make a square circle, because that would be logically
impossible to do. Asking for an all
powerful being to do something that would make Him no longer all powerful is,
on the face of it, a logical absurdity.”
There is a problem with
this argument. The problem is not immediately
obvious, however. After all, contained in the meaning of “all powerful” is the
necessity of certain inabilities, which are in fact required in order to make
something “all powerful”. For example, if
something is “all powerful” then that thing is incapable of being defeated. So if God is all powerful, that means He
cannot be defeated, say if I were to play Him in a game of chess. Note, this doesn’t mean God cannot lose, for
it is certainly still possible that God could throw a game and let me win. What
I’m saying is that it is impossible for God to want to win and not be able to
do so. Thus, contained in the concept of
“all powerful” is the notion that certain things are impossible to do. God cannot want to win and still lose if He
is all powerful.
So the logic checks out
in the argument. Because the concept of “all
powerful” contains aspects which necessitate the inability to do certain
things, it’s logically absurd to hold that something cannot be “all powerful”
if it cannot do those things which are necessarily impossible to do given one
is “all powerful.”
What, then, is the flaw
in this response to the atheist? The
flaw comes from the Christian maintaining that the definition of omnipotence is
“the ability to do all that is logically possible to do.”
For normal theism, this
claim is certainly something that is obtainable. That’s why the argument has worked in
philosophy for centuries. But for the
Christian who holds to the inspiration of Scripture, we cannot agree that it is
possible for God to do all that is logically possible to do. The Bible, in fact, gives us a specific
example where this is refuted. It’s
found in a clause in the middle of Hebrews 6:18:
“It is impossible for
God to lie.”
That’s correct. God cannot lie. The passage does not say God will not lie even though
He could. It says it is
impossible for God to lie. (We can also
add in Titus 1:2, which contains the clause “God, who never lies”, but the fact
that Hebrews literally uses the word “impossible” makes it all the clearer.)
Now here’s the
rub. Is it logically possible to
lie? Clearly, yes. Humans lie all the time. No one can make a square circle, so square circles
are logically impossible. But anyone can
say they made a square circle, which would be a lie. It is therefore obvious that lying is
logically possible to do.
Furthermore, we know
that God can speak. He spoke the entire
creation into existence, and the Bible records Him speaking directly to many
individuals. So the impossibility of God
to lie is not because God cannot form words.
Given all that, we are
left with the following:
1) God can do anything
that is logically possible (per definition).
2) God can speak.3) Speaking lies is logically possible.
4) Therefore, God can speak lies.
5) But, Hebrews 6:18 says it is impossible for God to speak lies.
(5) contradicts (4). Since
there’s a contradiction, then (at least one of) 1, 2, 3 or 5 must be wrong. But the only one that seems to be capable of
being wrong is the first.
And there is good news
for the Christian on that front. Nowhere
in the Bible does it ever say that God is able to do anything that is logically
possible to be done. In fact, if we let
the Bible define God’s power, we see it in passages such as these:
Daniel 4:35 – “…he does according to His will among the host
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or
say to him, ‘What have you done?’”
Isaiah 14:27 – “For the
LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out,
and who will turn it back?”
Isaiah 43:13 – “Also
henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who
can turn it back?”
Job 42:2 – “I know that
you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
It’s also implicit in
the fact that God created all things and indeed maintains all that exists.
Romans 1:20 declares “his eternal power” is seen “in the things that have been
made”, and Hebrews 1:3 says “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Indeed, Colossians 1:17 even declares: “And
he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
There are many more
passages that could be quoted on that topic, but I think the one that is most succinct
for Christians to use is found in Psalm 135:6.
“Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas
and all deeps.” I maintain that for a
Christian apologist, this should be the definition of omnipotence that we use.
In fact, I would
maintain that using this passage, we can also see why it is impossible for God
to lie. God does whatever He pleases. It
does not please God to tell a lie. It is
impossible for Him lying to please Him, and therefore it is impossible for Him
to lie.
So would there be any
downsides to using this type of argumentation?
Some may think that God’s omnipotence may be cheapened if we don’t
assert He is capable of doing anything that is logically possible to do. As if saying that God can do whatever He
wants to do, instead of saying God can do every single logically possible
thing, somehow lessens His abilities! I suppose
someone could argue, “So if God wants to do nothing, then Him doing only
nothing would make him ‘omnipotent’?
That seems absurd.” And it would
seem absurd until you realized that if God can always do what He wants, then if
He wants to do nothing there is absolutely no power strong enough to force Him
to do anything. That means He would need
quite a bit of power in order to maintain His ability to do nothing, should He
so desire. None can thwart Him and force
Him to do anything if He wants to do nothing!
If God wants to do something,
He does it; if He does not, none can make Him do it. This seems to be a perfectly fine definition
of omnipotence.
In fact, not only do I not
think this definition lessens God’s omnipotence at all, I think it gives us the
ability to argue for omnipotence in the context of a personal God. If we stick with the language of “anything
that is logically possible to do”, then God can be viewed as an impersonal
force. But if, instead, we maintain that God does whatever He chooses to do,
then we necessarily have a personal being who is interacting with His creation. If God does whatever He desires, and there
are certain things we know He will never desire, then we have confidence that
there are certain things that are impossible to occur. Thus, we can rest in knowing that it is
impossible for God to lie, and that impossibility is because of His
omnipotence. Nothing can ever force God to lie.
That definition of
omnipotence tells me something about the nature and character of God. And that, in my mind, is required in
apologetics even more than simply making a logical argument that could be
satisfied by an impersonal Deistic god.
