"Can God Make a Rock Too Heavy for Him to Lift?"
You've heard this question before, or one like it, haven't you? Years ago as I waited for a clothes dryer to open up in my college dorm's laundry room, the question was: "If God is all powerful, is He so powerful that He can create a rock so large that even He cannot pick it up?" It's funny how some things never change.
What the question asks is basically nonsense as it purports to set limits upon the Most High God. Because we are creatures and we are not The Creator, our ability to comprehend God is severely limited. We lack the capacity to understand the power and magnificence of God Almighty. We cannot even really grasp what it means to be eternal, because God is not limited by time or space . . . two of the many things that we humans are painfully aware of. The very God who created us and time and this blue planet and the galaxies spinning around in the rest of the universe . . . He existed before He made all of that.
So to the person who asks the question shown above, how can you or I prove the existence or the attributes of God? Well, the simple and straightforward answer is that we cannot. And that is the way that God intended it. Christians do not live life with a blind faith, an ignorant faith or a stoopid faith. As born-again believers who trust in the providence of God Almighty through the Holy Spirit because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we live with a trusting and obedient faith. Many things are not fully explained in the Bible because if they were then we would be incapable of living by faith.
Back to the question. This question does not deserve an answer because of the presumptions already built into the question. The question borders upon using the same kind of logic that is found in "situational ethics" where if someone builds the right presuppositions into hypotheticals a person could, "logically" speaking, prove the correctness of performing any wrongful act based upon human logic.
Jesus didn't answer every ridiculous question that was presented to Him during His lifetime and His ministry. There were several occasions when people, whom He loved and spent time with, would get Jesus' attention and ask "Don't you care?" Such as when Martha was preparing the meal for Jesus and His entourage and Martha was fuming that her sister Mary was sitting and listening to Jesus rather than helping to cook the food for dinner (Luke 10:40). Or like when the disciples were rowing the boat across the lake in the middle of the storm and Jesus was sound asleep below-deck (Mark 4:38).
Neither you nor I need to feel that we must respond to every argumentative question. Proverbs 23:9 talks about wasting your breath and time and energy on a fool. This is a question that does not deserve an answer. We should use our time wisely, and move on.
© S. Chan, 2007. All rights reserved.