Those who carry doubts about Christianity tend to rely on certain “gotcha” questions. These are questions or accusations about God or Christianity in general that seeks to point out flaws and contradictions. Sometimes the goal is to make Christians look like fools, while others are meant to simply make Christians question why they believe certain things (which is an important part of the Christian life).
One of those questions seems very popular, and can even be a fun one to debate amongst Christians. While the question itself is almost nonsensical, thinking about it benefits us by forcing us to consider who God truly is. I’d like to briefly discuss, and perhaps answer, the question of “Could God make a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift it?”
Why is this question so difficult?
While we never want to treat God’s word as a rules manual, we still treat it as our highest source of truth. That means that we want to base all our understanding of truth on what God has revealed about Himself. In a way, that can make questions like this difficult to deal with.
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:27)
One thing God regularly reveals is that He is all-powerful. We love Him for that, because only an all-powerful God could keep His promises to His people without any fear of failing. We love Him for His uniqueness and majesty, and we worship Him in awe of the fact that He would allow such unworthy people to be redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But the more we understand God’s power, the more these contradicting questions can trouble us. If we believe that God can do anything, why couldn’t He create a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift it? But if He couldn’t lift it, then He’s not all-powerful.
Worse, how do we answer this biblically? Where in the Bible can we take someone where God helps us understand such a contradiction when the Bible itself can be used against us? And if nothing in the Bible addresses it, does this really show that the idea of an all-powerful God simply impossible?
Honestly, there’s really nowhere we can take someone in God’s word that will answer this. But by understanding God, we can use the wisdom He grants us to realize we don’t need to defend God, but simply point out the absurdity of the question itself. From there, we can even use such a question to talk to people about Jesus Christ.
God can’t do everything (and it’s okay)
When we watch Jesus engage with the Pharisees, He’s consistent with His approach: He always refuses to play their games. The Pharisees would try to create “gotcha” situations, hoping that Christ would get tangled up in the rules they’d created. Instead, Christ used wisdom as He addressed the real situation. I believe we can model our Savior in this way.
At its core, this question tries to put a rule on God that He has never claimed as a part of who He is. It puts God in a very specific and impossible situation:
- God is all-powerful
- If He’s all-powerful, then He should be able to do anything
- If He can do anything, then He should be able to create a situation where He can’t do something
Because people misunderstand that 2nd point, it allows them to make a bad conclusion. If we assume that having limitless power means that the impossible can be done, even to the point of absolute contradiction, then we can declare that God has been defeated by our cleverness.
Don’t play their game. Not because this question is so tricky that we need to dodge it, but because it’s no question at all.
The reality is that God can’t do “everything” if we’re placing such impossible requirements on what that means. When we change the question to other absurd things, we can see why the question isn’t clever, but silly:
- Can God choose not to be God?
- Can God make someone else God?
- Can God be
These situations are absurd. I’m sure we could push our glasses up the bridge of our nose and try to come up with a clever philosophical answer, but in the end these questions are ridiculous because they ask God to take a contradiction and make it true.
It’s asking Him to take the concept of the color green and make it a horse. It’s insisting that God should be able to make 2+2= racecar. It’s saying that God is either weak or imaginary because a truly omnipotent God would be able to jump through any hoop we create for Him, even if it demands that He defy the laws of logic to do so.
Sound blasphemous? You bet.
However, we don’t need to dismiss these conversations. We can, in fact, bring people to the truth of God’s word when they try to place God in such impossible situations.
We can honestly say to them “No, God couldn’t do that. Here are some other things He can’t do.”
Other things God can’t do
“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19)
God can’t lie. Because of His nature, we can trust that everything He says is true. Not only can we trust what He says about the reality of our sin, but we can trust in the complete power of Jesus Christ to atone for those sins so that we can have a restored relationship with our Creator.
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18)
O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting. (1 Chronicles 16:34)
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)
God can neither sin nor do evil. God isn’t just good – He’s the very definition of what “good” is. This is the very foundation to a biblical, God-honoring understanding of what holiness means, what we should desire, and why our sin separates us from Him.
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’ (Isaiah 46:10)
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:27)
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)
God cannot fail. What He’s said He will do is what will be done. The Bible is filled with promises that we depend on – from God removing sin from the world to our very salvation resting on nothing more than the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
God set out to save His people from their sin, and He will accomplish what He has decreed. Likewise, God has saved us with a purpose. The good that He has begun in us will not only continue to develop throughout our lives, but will see its completion on the day of the Lord.
Every piece of hope we hold is based on God’s complete inability to fail. Our very eternities rest in God not just trying really hard to accomplish things, but absolutely fulfilling His word because He is God. “Is anything too difficult for me”? No, nothing is too difficult for the God who cannot fail.
Final thought
Asking logically-impossible questions about God can create barriers and shut down conversations when we don’t know how to respond. However, it can also be a way to open up a genuine conversation with someone who thinks these kinds of “gotcha” questions create a wall that we can’t cross with the gospel. When we set out to glorify God with our minds, we can encounter these questions in a way that not only brings Him glory but points people to their need for Jesus Christ.
