Can God Create A Rock He Cannot Move?

“I have a question for you…,” one of the two obviously college students proceeded to ask me, “Can God create a rock that He cannot move?”

It was a few years ago that I was standing on a corner in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin on a Saturday evening with a friend of mine from the church where I was attending at the time. We had a sidewalk sign that read, “Read the Bible, it’s for you and concerns you.” I had only come to receive God’s grace through Jesus Christ a year or so earlier and I was quite nervous to return to my home town to “street witness.”

The person that I was with was a much more experienced Christian who engaged passers by with ease while I secretly hoped that everyone would ignore me. While the person I was with from the church spoke to a man who had been walking down this busy street, suddenly two guys approached me.

I was nervous, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, or how God could use me to “witness” about Him, but sure enough, one of them spoke to me. “I have a question for you…,” one of the two obviously college students proceeded to ask me, “Can God create a rock that He cannot move?”

I had known that this was a trick question used in philosophy classes to show the impossibility of an “all powerful creator God.” The idea is this: If God couldn’t create such a rock; it would be proven that there is something that God couldn’t do, who supposedly by definition, could do all things. As a result, you couldn’t answer, “No,” without disproving God. On the other hand, If someone would answer, “Yes,” then the result would be a God was not all-powerful because there is now something He cannot do. Either reply supposedly disproved God’s existence as being irrational to the logical mind.

As all of this flashed across my mind, I felt like I would soon become a failure as a witness for Jesus. Admittedly I replied, “I don’t know the answer,” but I continued, “Let me pray and ask God if He will give me an answer to your question.” So, I bowed my head to pray right there on the sidewalk in front of them. As I prayed silently suddenly I knew the answer.

I raised my head and looked the young man in the eyes and said, “The answer is: Yes and God did! The rock is the Word of God! The Bible says, Heaven and Earth will pass away but my Word will never pass away. Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church. God has established His Word forever.”

At this, the young man’s friend slapped him on the back and shouted, “He got you!” In disbelief, the young men walked away.

There are some very important reasons why this answer is significant and why I believe this answer was in deed from God. In subsequent posts I will go on to explain the ramifications of this immoveable rock and the Scriptural reason for our God who willingly limits Himself so that He cannot do all things (e.g., it is impossible for God to lie). I will also explain the hidden agenda of philosophers who ask the question, “Can God create a rock that He cannot move.”