No, God Can't Make A Rock So Heavy He Couldn't Lift It: How God's "Limits" Make Him Greater (Sons of Thunder)

It's an age-old question: "Could God make a rock too heavy for him to lift?" And it seems like a really tough question to answer, because we (Christians) believe that God is all-powerful. And an all-powerful God should be able to create any kind of rock he wanted to create.

It's an age-old question: "Could God make a rock too heavy for him to lift?" And it seems like a really tough question to answer, because we (Christians) believe that God is all-powerful. And an all-powerful God should be able to create any kind of rock he wanted to create. But(!) an all-powerful God should also be able to *lift* any rock he wanted to lift.

This question hits at the problem of God's nature, and, really, it's a question of the limits of God. We might automatically cringe at the idea of God having limits, because of what we think that entails (after all, limits that we experience are limits arising from outside of ourselves--and we certainly don't want to say that anything outside of God could limit him!).

And yet, both Scripture and reason would seem to indicate that there are some things God *can* not do. Or is it that he *will* not? In this episode Joel and Parker get into the "limits" of God and how that impacts the way we think about both his omnipotence and his moral perfection.

Along with the Omnipotence Dilemma (the rock-so-big scenario), they also get into the ancient moral problem known as the Euthyphro Dilemma, which deals with whether God has an external moral standard he must adhere to. If you've ever thought about what it means for God to be morally perfect and perfectly powerful, we think you'll enjoy this episode.

Until next time, I hope it made you think.

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