Expert: Charles K. MacKay - 4/8/2009

Question
Hello. I would like to ask you a few questions about God and omnipotence. The
paradoxical question "can God create a boulder so heavy He cannot lift it?" still
puzzles me logically. If God is omnipotent, He can 1)create a rock of any weight
and 2) lift anything. To put the question in more general terms, can He create a
situation where it challenges His omnipotence? How can one logically prove from
this paradox if He is omnipotent or not? What is the best way to resolve this
paradox? What do most philosophers say about this paradox? Thank you.

Answer
This is an old, old, old puzzle. We ascribe omnipotence to a God who is clearly a god of Greek philosophy, not the God of the Old and New Testaments, and subject Him (or Her, or It…) to Greek reasoning in Greek categories. If omnipotence means what it means to a Greek philosopher – the power to do anything – then of course God can make a rock too heavy for Him to lift. But on the other hand, if He can’t lift the rock, he doesn’t have the power to do anything. So, we have a paradox. Now the question becomes – and this is a category from medieval philosophy which the Greeks sort of recognized – is the paradox de dicto (about the word) or de re – about the thing?
I think most modern philosophers would say that if a single concept can lead to a paradox like this, there is something wrong with the concept. Perhaps, theologically at least, we should mean by “omnipotence” the power to do whatever it is that He/She/It wants to do – which is not fool around with paradoxes that arise solely from the languages of creatures He/She/It created.