It is easy to imagine that every Christian has heard the
skeptical question, “Could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it?”
This question is usually asked by someone who desires to bring doubt on the
existence of God or to push an evolutionist view of life. Often, such a person
will smugly think that merely asking that question somehow proves that God
doesn’t exist, that the Bible is not true, and that he has won the argument by
default. He believes he has Christians “quaking in their boots” by merely
asking a question that has, in reality, been asked and answered countless
times. This question is akin to the ever-popular “Where did Cain get his wife?”
and “How do you Christians explain the dinosaurs?” (See article here.)
The argument goes like this:
“If God can create a rock that He cannot lift, then God is not
omnipotent. If God cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it, then
God is not omnipotent. According to this argument, omnipotence is
self-contradictory. Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent.” (Reference here.)
“Omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything that you
can string together in words. Stringing
together things in words may not be anything that is actually even possible …
For example, God cannot make a married
bachelor … but that doesn’t count against God. If it is not a thing that is
conceptually possible, then God cannot do it.” (Reference here.) I might add
to that, “…nor would He want to.” There is nothing in the character of God to
indicate that he would fool around with the absurd.
The problem here
is that people assume that if God is omnipotent, that means He can do
“anything.” That is, however, incorrect. There are things God cannot do. He
cannot sin. He cannot lie. He cannot deny Himself. He cannot do anything
contrary to His nature. As a matter of fact, I can do some things that God
cannot do. I can die. He cannot. I can sin. He cannot. There are many such
examples. Does my ability to do some things God cannot do make me more powerful
than Him? Of course not! Such a notion is absurd. The things God cannot do
speak not of any weakness on His part, but they actually speak of His great
power.
For a rock to be
so big and heavy that He could not lift it, then it would have to be infinite
and equal to His infinite lifting power. Material things cannot be infinite, so
the question really is, “Can God make a contradiction?” That question is
absurd, and the logic is flawed. The simple answer to this alleged difficult
question is that God can make a rock of any size He chooses, but “infinite” is
not a “size.” A rock of any size would not be infinite, because it could be
made larger. Larger than infinite is another example of absurdity. Clearly, God
can lift anything, regardless of its size or weight, because His power if
infinite, and physical things are not. The obvious answer to the question is,
“No, God cannot make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it, and that does not
diminish His omnipotence. Rather, it underscores it.”
I started college in 1964 and embarked on a path that let me
into the field of education. Over all those years until I retired in 2012, I
have heard repeatedly, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” I
understand the desire on the part of a teacher not to put down students and
make them feel foolish in front of their classmates. However, it did not take
me long to realize that there are, in fact, stupid questions. “Could God create
a rock so heavy He could not lift it?” Now that’s a stupid question.
Rather than making the point it is designed to make, it instead identifies the
person asking it as being ignorant of truth, reality, and the nature of God.
Such a question is a very pathetic attempt to prove a point, but it ends up
proving just the opposite.
God making a rock so big He can’t lift it is not only an
impossibility, but it is a logical absurdity. God cannot and does not deal with
logical absurdities, which are nonsensical, such as square circles, married
bachelors, numbers larger than infinity, etc. People using logical absurdities
to try and disprove God’s power and therefore His existence are merely playing
games with words, and their words do not prove them to be clever or right.
There is a big difference between that which is logically
absurd and that which is merely impossible. Even though God cannot do things
that are logically absurd, because that would put Him in a position of
contradicting Himself, He can do the impossible. Notice what the Scripture
says.
"Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed
time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have
a son" (Genesis 18:14, NKJV).
"Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by
your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You" (Jeremiah 32:17, NKJV).
"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too
hard for Me?" (Jeremiah 32:27, NKJV).
"But He said, "The things which are impossible with men are
possible with God" (Luke 18:27, NKJV).
The life of our Lord Jesus Christ here
on earth was “bookended” by two marvelous, miraculous, “impossible” events –
His virgin birth and His bodily resurrection from the grave. Yes, these events
were impossible, at least from man’s perspective, but they were not logically
absurd. We can believe in a virgin birth
and a bodily resurrection from the dead, done by the power of our
miracle-working God, but we cannot even imagine such things as a married
bachelor, a square circle, or “my brother is an only child.” Those things are
logical absurdities.
God is the God of the impossible. He has done many
“impossible” things. He created the universe out of nothing. Yes, scientists
try to tell us that the universe came about in a “big bang” in which virtually
nothing exploded and became all the stars, planets, and everything else in our
universe. That is impossible. Only God can create out of nothing. God made life
from non-life. “And
the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7,
NKJV). Scientists would have us believe that life is just chemicals that
managed to get arranged in the right order at the right place and the right
time in order to produce life. That is nonsense and certainly describes
something that is impossible without the supernatural working of the great
Creator God.
God has done one miracle after
another throughout the history of the universe. The virgin birth of our Lord
Jesus Christ was no small miracle. "Therefore the Lord
Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son,
and shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14, NKJV). This was impossible, but God had no trouble
performing such a miracle. Even Mary had her doubts when the Angel Gabriel came
to her and told her what was going to happen. “‘And
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call
His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest;
and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His
father David. And
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be
no end.’ Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can
this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the
angel answered and said to her, ‘The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow
you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of
God’” (Luke 1:31-35, NKJV).
God the Son, the great Creator
of the universe, came out of eternity into time and space as the sinless,
perfect, holy, God-man. He was born just like every one of us – with one very
notable difference. He had a human mother but no human biological father. As a
result, he had no sin nature and was therefore a fitting sacrifice for our
sins. If He would have had a human father and therefore a sin nature, he could
not have died in our place to save us from our sins. The virgin birth of Christ
is an absolute necessity to the Gospel narrative. He could not be God if He
were not virgin-born, and He could not be our Savior if he were not God.
The great miracle at the other
end of the time the Son of God spent on earth is the resurrection. The
resurrection makes the Gospel complete. Without the resurrection, we have, like
most of the world religions, nothing more than a dead prophet. However, with
the resurrection, we have a living Savior who has defeated death, and because
of that, we who trust in Him have the gift of eternal life.
The resurrection is one of the
most well-established facts of history. It is only because of bias and unbelief
that this event is not recorded in secular history books.
“…the
apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering
by many infallible proofs,
being seen by them during forty days…” (Acts
1:2-3, NKJV). [Emphasis mine.]
“…He
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He
was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that
He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part
remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that
He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of
all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:4-8, NKJV).
The evidence, biblical and
extra biblical, for the resurrection is overwhelming. Jesus Christ rose from
the dead, and that fact establishes the truth of the Bible, the truth of
Christianity, the truth that He is God the Son, and the fact that there is
salvation only in Him. "...and declared to be the Son of
God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from
the dead" (Romans 1:4, NKJV). “Nor is there
salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men
by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12,
NKJV).
As Christmas approaches, we
hear so much about those who want to remove all “religious” symbols from the
holiday. Some even go so far as to say Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman are
“Christian” symbols and that the holiday should just be called “Winter
Solstice.” I really couldn’t care less about Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, the Winter
Solstice or any of the other secular symbols of Christmas, and it is ludicrous
for anyone to call these things legitimate symbols of the holiday.
Christmas is a time to
celebrate the birth of our Savior into this world. There are many who are OK
with that, just so long as we leave off the “virgin birth” part and see Jesus
as nothing more than a baby in a manger. They see it as a sweet little story of
a sweet little family who endured the hardship of the birth of a child in a
stable. Their patience and enduring is a lesson in love, patience, and kindness
for all of us, etc., ad nauseam. However, there is much more to it than that.
“The world’s Christmas celebration is bound up in a
disturbing incongruity. On the one hand, people go to great lengths to support
and sustain the legend of Santa Claus, using his mystical benevolence to
leverage good behavior from their children. On the other hand, they
systematically minimize the Person and work of Christ — the holiday’s rightful
celebrity — to the point that the Lord is nothing more than a plastic infant,
frozen for all time in the familiar nativity scene. They exchange the singular
Christ for a cheap hoax” (John MacArthur, “The Fullness of God in Helpless
Babe”). This entire article is available here.)
Beyond Bethlehem, there is the cross
of Calvary and the resurrection. He did
all of this to save us, and the Gospel message is very clear. “… I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you … by which also you
are saved … that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was
buried, and that He rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures…”
(1 Corinthians 15:1-4, NKJV). [Emphasis
mine.]
