Can God Create a Stone Too Heavy for Him to Lift?

Before answering, the objection must be taken seriously. The paradox was revived in the 20th century by analytic philosophy: J. L. Mackie gives a first version of it — can an omnipotent being create things it will no longer control, or impose on itself rules that will bind it? — in the context of the problem of evil^[3]; the canonical formulation of the « pierre » came later with Cowan (1965) and Savage (1967)^[4], after the decisive clarification by Mavrodes (1963)^[5]. Taken up by generations of atheist apologists, it looks, at first sight, unassailable. The Catholic task is to show where and why it collapses — but first it must be shown in its strongest version.

The popular formulation and its appeal

In its modern form, the paradox presents itself as an unstoppable trap. The most widespread version — « Can Omnipotence make a stone too heavy for Itself to lift? »^[6] — circulates without an established author: it is sometimes attributed to a poem of the 1960s, but no source confirms this attribution. Its scholarly formulation, by contrast, is well dated: J. L. Cowan systematised it in 1965, then C. Wade Savage gave it its canonical form in 1967. Taken up in introductory textbooks of philosophy of religion, it became the textbook example of a difficulty every theist ought to overcome before going any further.

Its appeal rests on three mechanisms. First, it is simple: no technical vocabulary, no obscure axioms, no theological prerequisites. Second, it looks dichotomous: yes or no, there is no escape — hence its popularity in atheist apologetics videos. Finally, it aims at the heart: if one concedes the slightest point, one seems to concede that God is not omnipotent — and therefore that the God of the great monotheistic religions does not exist as described.

The apparent syllogism

Put in analytic form, the paradox runs as follows:

1. Either God can create such a stone, or He cannot.
2. If He can create it, there is an object He cannot lift; therefore He is not almighty.
3. If He cannot create it, there is something He cannot do; therefore He is not almighty.
4. Therefore God is not almighty.

The move from (1) to (4) rests on an apparently unstoppable constructive dilemma (elimination of a disjunction: both branches lead to the same conclusion). The aim of everything that follows in this article will be to show that premise (1) itself is rigged: it assumes that the « pierre que Dieu ne peut pas soulever » is a possible object — in other words, that there is something to be done — whereas the description actually designates a non-thing.

The contemporary sceptical objection

The contemporary sceptical objection gives the paradox its cleanest version: one might conceive without contradiction a being capable of making a rock too heavy for itself — transposing to the divine case what a finite being can do.

The word conceive does all the work: if one can imagine a being creating an object it cannot lift, then omnipotence does seem to contain a hole. As we shall see, this objection contains a hidden equivocation from its very first line — it confuses what a finite being might possibly do with what a supposedly infinitely powerful being can do.

It is this equivocation that makes the paradox such good value — and it is this equivocation that makes it collapse as soon as it is exposed.

Contrary to what popular apologetics videos suggest, the paradox of the stone was not invented in the 20th century. Its logical structure — can the omnipotent render itself powerless? — runs through the whole Christian, Jewish and Muslim tradition, from the 4th century down to contemporary analytic philosophy. Before its modern analytic formulation, centuries of theologians and philosophers had already clarified the answer.

Pseudo-Dionysius and divine faithfulness (VIᵉ siècle)

The Christian theologian known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite († before 532) is probably the first to isolate the difficulty clearly. In his Noms divins (chap. VIII), he pauses over the Pauline affirmation: « Si nous sommes infidèles, lui reste fidèle, car il ne peut se renier lui-même » (2 Tm 2, 13).^[7] The objection then runs: if God cannot do X, then God lacks that power.

Pseudo-Dionysius answers that being unable to do evil is not powerlessness, but a perfection of power. The structure would then serve to treat every variant of the contradictory « Dieu peut-il… ? ».^[8]

Saint Augustine and the impossibility of lying (IVᵉ-Vᵉ siècle)

Even before Pseudo-Dionysius, Saint Augustine († 430) had stated the principle with a clarity that would mark the entire Middle Ages. In La Cité de Dieu, book V, chapter 10, he lays down the rule:

« Sa puissance n'est pas diminuée quand on dit qu'il ne peut ni mourir ni se tromper. Car c'est ainsi qu'il ne le peut pas : s'il le pouvait, sa puissance serait assurément moindre. Et c'est à juste titre qu'il est appelé tout-puissant, lui qui pourtant ne peut ni mourir ni se tromper. Car il est dit tout-puissant en faisant ce qu'il veut, non en subissant ce qu'il ne veut pas ; et si cela lui arrivait, il ne serait en rien tout-puissant. Aussi est-ce pour cela même qu'il ne peut certaines choses : parce qu'il est tout-puissant. » — Saint Augustin, La Cité de Dieu, V, 10^[9]

The formula is decisive: power is measured by the capacity to act according to one's will, not by the capacity to suffer a failure. Being able to lie, to die, to deny oneself — all failures that omnipotence excludes because it is omnipotence.

Saadia Gaon and the image of the weight (Xᵉ siècle)

Four centuries later, the Jewish philosopher Saadia Gaon († 942), in his Livre des croyances et des opinions (book II, chap. 13), is probably the first to use explicitly the image of a weight too heavy. He defends the idea that omnipotence operates on possible things, and that contradictions are not possible things God would refuse, but non-things that no power, however infinite, can produce.^[10]

The argument then circulated throughout the medieval Semitic world, where the question quickly crystallised: can one speak of an "impossible object" as one speaks of a difficult object?

Saint Anselm: omnipotens et tamen non potest (XIᵉ siècle)

Saint Anselm of Bec († 1109) devotes the whole of chapter VII of the Proslogion to the question: « Comment Dieu est-il tout-puissant alors qu'il y a beaucoup de choses qu'il ne peut pas faire ? » (« Quomodo sit omnipotens, cum multa non possit »). His answer became one of the pillars of the Western tradition:

« Pouvoir être corrompu, pouvoir mentir, pouvoir faire que ce qui est vrai soit faux — ce ne sont pas là des puissances mais des impuissances. Car celui qui peut ces choses peut ce qui ne lui est pas avantageux et ce qu'il ne devrait pas. Plus il les peut, plus l'adversité et la perversité ont de pouvoir sur lui, et moins il en a contre elles. » — Saint Anselme, Proslogion, chap. VII (c. 1078)^[11]

Anselm thus separates the word power from the phrase possibility of failure. The capacity to sin, to lie or to undo oneself is not a strength God would lack: it is a vice that would take Him out of God. Chapter VII concludes with a lapidary formula: « Qui ergo sic potest, non potentia potest, sed impotentia » — « Celui qui peut ainsi ne peut pas par puissance, mais par impuissance. »

Saint Peter Damian and the quarrel over the past (XIᵉ siècle)

At the same period, the Italian hermit Saint Peter Damian († 1072) published the famous De divina omnipotentia (c. 1067), addressed to Abbot Didier du Mont-Cassin. The initial question is: « Dieu peut-il faire que ce qui a été n'ait pas été ? » — a direct relative of the paradox of the stone.^[12]

Damian adopts an extreme position: God can do all things, even undo the past, for divine goodness cannot be constrained by our logic. This position was explicitly set aside by Saint Thomas Aquinas (ST I, q. 25, a. 4^[13]) as dangerous, because it reduces omnipotence to a blind power — and it is on this Thomist answer that the rest of the article relies. But it has the merit of posing the problem in all its rigour: if God cannot undo what is, is He less powerful?

The Thomist answer, which we shall see in detail below, will be: no, for « défaire ce qui a été » is a combination of words describing no real act.

Maimonides and the intelligible limit (XIIᵉ siècle)

In the 12th century, the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides († 1204), in the Guide des égarés (III, 15), draws the definitive boundary between the logically impossible and the possible:

« Sache que les impossibilités absolues ont, comme nous le pensons, une nature stable, qui n'est pas l'œuvre d'un agent ; et il est impossible de la changer. Aussi ne disons-nous pas que la divinité ne peut pas leur donner réalité, parce qu'elles ne sont susceptibles d'aucune réalité. » — Maïmonide, Guide des égarés, III, 15^[14]

For Maimonides, the objectors' error is to regard the impossible as an object on which power might operate, whereas it is a non-object. Omnipotence is infinite on the side of the possible, and only on that side.

Averroes and the philosophers (XIIᵉ siècle)

On the Muslim side, the Andalusian philosopher Averroes († 1198) devotes several sections of his Tahafut al-Tahafut ("Reply to the Incoherence") to the question of omnipotence (§§ 529-536). Against Al-Ghazali, he defends the view that the contradictory is not a possible object of any power.^[15] The Muslim debate between the mutakallimūn (who follow a line close to Damian's) and the philosophers (who follow a line close to Saadia's and Aristotle's) directly prepares the Thomist distinctions.

Saint Thomas Aquinas: the canonical formula (XIIIᵉ siècle)

In the 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) took up the whole debate in the Somme théologique, Iᵃ pars, q. 25, which he devotes entirely to divine power. Article 3 — « Dieu est-il tout-puissant ? » — gives the canonical formula of the Latin tradition. We devote an entire section to it below.

Descartes and the free creation of truths (XVIIᵉ siècle)

In the modern era, René Descartes († 1650) took, in a series of letters to Father Marin Mersenne (15 April, 6 May and 27 May 1630), a radically opposite position: God could have made it that two and two do not make four, or that a circle have sides. The position, known as the "free creation of the eternal truths", remained a minority one: the Thomist tradition rejects it (cf. ST I, q. 25, a. 3^[16]), and the classical analytic treatments of the paradox — Mavrodes (1963)^[17], Plantinga (1974)^[18], Geach (1973)^[19] — hold with Thomas that the contradictory is not an object of power. We shall return to this.

Mavrodes, Frankfurt and the analytic clarification (XXᵉ siècle)

In the 20th century, the paradox returned to the foreground with analytic philosophy. George Mavrodes published in 1963 in the Philosophical Review an article that became canonical, Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence, which shows that the formula "a stone God cannot lift" is, on the assumption that God is omnipotent, logically self-contradictory and therefore designates nothing.^[20]

The following year, Harry Frankfurt added in the same journal a variant (The Logic of Omnipotence, 1964): if God can do the impossible, then He can also both create an unliftable stone and lift it — the difficulty disappears by excess.^[21] These two brief, complementary articles became the classical reference of the contemporary analytic treatment of the paradox.

Plantinga, Geach and Catholic analytic philosophy

The discussion continued among Christian analytic philosophers. Alvin Plantinga, in God, Freedom, and Evil (1974) and Does God Have a Nature? (1980), distinguishes essential omnipotence (a being that is necessarily omnipotent) from accidental omnipotence (a being that happens to be omnipotent at a given moment). This distinction defuses several sophisticated versions of the paradox.^[22]

Peter Geach, in Omnipotence (Philosophy, vol. 48, 1973), proposes replacing the word omnipotent with almighty — « qui a tout pouvoir sur tout ce qui est » — to avoid the ambiguity of the word « tout » in « pouvoir tout ».^[23] The apologist C.S. Lewis († 1963), for his part, gives in The Problem of Pain (1940) the most quoted popular formulation:

« Sa toute-puissance signifie pouvoir tout ce qui est intrinsèquement possible, non pouvoir l'intrinsèquement impossible. Vous pouvez lui attribuer des miracles, mais pas du non-sens. Les combinaisons de mots dépourvues de sens n'acquièrent pas soudain un sens parce que nous y joignons les deux mots "Dieu peut". » — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Macmillan, 1940, chap. II^[24]

What these authors share, across fifteen centuries, is a common insight: one cannot weaken a being by refusing it a power that does not exist.

The paradox trades, without saying so, on a confusion between very different senses of the word possible. So long as these senses are not distinguished, it looks devastating. As soon as they are distinguished, it vanishes.

Logical possibility, metaphysical possibility, physical possibility

The scholastic tradition distinguishes several levels of possibility, which do not overlap:

Catholic omnipotence, since Thomas Aquinas, extends to everything absolutely possible (logical + metaphysical). It does not apply to the logically impossible, not from weakness, but because there is nothing to be done.^[25] The distinction is an old one: Aristotle already suggests it in the Métaphysique (Δ 12, 1019b27) and the Physique (VIII, 6, 259a30), and the whole Latin scholastic tradition inherited it.

The key rule: « ne pas pouvoir l'impossible n'est pas une impuissance »

The rule runs as follows: being unable to do the impossible is not powerlessness, for the impossible belongs to the order of nothingness — expressions such as « célibataire marié » are devoid of sense and belong to non-being.

C.S. Lewis says the same thing in a drier formula:

« Les impossibilités intrinsèques ne sont pas des choses, mais des non-entités. Il demeure vrai que tout est possible à Dieu : les impossibilités intrinsèques ne sont pas des choses. » — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, chap. II^[26]

The useful image is this: if a mathematician says he cannot draw a four-sided triangle, it is not for lack of practice. It is because « triangle à quatre côtés » designates nothing. The impossibility is not on the side of the subject (the mathematician, God, any agent whatever); it is on the side of the described object — which is precisely not an object.

List of things God « ne peut pas faire »

An illuminating list can be drawn up of the "things God cannot do" which call into question neither His omnipotence nor His perfection:

None of the cells in this table is a thing God fails at. All describe non-things, verbal combinations devoid of any real referent.

The word « tout-puissant » in theological language

That is why the formula "nothing is impossible to God" is an approximation: strictly speaking, one should say that nothing metaphysically possible is impossible to God.

To say that God is almighty is not to say that He can do « tout », in the sense in which « tout » would include any word juxtaposed with any other. It is to say that He is the infinite power of being, of truth and of good, with no limit on the side of the possible. That is exactly what the Catéchisme de l'Église catholique takes up from Saint Thomas:

« La Toute-Puissance divine n'est nullement arbitraire : "En Dieu la puissance et l'essence, la volonté et l'intelligence, la sagesse et la justice sont une seule et même chose, de sorte que rien ne peut être dans la puissance divine qui ne puisse être dans la juste volonté de Dieu ou dans sa sage intelligence." » — Catéchisme de l'Église catholique, § 271, quoting Saint Thomas, ST I, q. 25, a. 5, ad 1^[27]

Omnipotence is thus inseparable from wisdom and justice: it is not a blind power, but the power of a God who is intelligent, ordered, faithful to Himself.

The fullest answer comes from Saint Thomas Aquinas, Somme théologique, Iᵃ pars, q. 25, De potentia Dei (« De la puissance de Dieu »). This question contains six articles; articles 3 and 4 deal directly with the paradox.

Question 25 of the Somme théologique

The structure of the question is remarkably clear. Thomas distinguishes:

• a. 1: does power belong to God? (Answer: yes, but as active power, never as passive power.)
• a. 2: is God's power infinite? (Answer: yes, in proportion to His infinite essence.)
• a. 3: is God almighty? (Answer: yes, that is, He can do all that is absolutely possible.)
• a. 4: can God make what has been not to have been? (Answer: no, but this is no weakness.)
• a. 5: can God do what He does not do, and omit what He does? (Answer: yes — power is not measured by real works alone.)
• a. 6: could God do better what He does? (Answer: yes, in a certain sense — His power is not exhausted by His creation.)

Articles 3 and 4 together contain the complete answer to the paradox of the stone.

Article 3: « Dieu est-il tout-puissant ? »

Thomas starts from the Gospel verse: « Car rien n'est impossible à Dieu » (Lc 1, 37)^[28]. He then identifies the issue: how to understand this « rien » without falling into absurdity? His answer is compressed into a few decisive lines:

« On dit communément que Dieu est tout-puissant. Mais expliquer ce qu'est cette toute-puissance présente une difficulté. […] Il reste donc à dire que Dieu est tout-puissant parce qu'il peut tout ce qui est absolument possible. Or, est appelé absolument possible ce dont les termes ne se contredisent pas. […] Tout ce qui n'implique pas contradiction est donc dans cette catégorie de possibles à l'égard desquels on dit Dieu tout-puissant ; mais tout ce qui implique contradiction ne tombe pas sous la toute-puissance divine, parce que cela ne peut pas avoir la nature de possible. Aussi est-il plus juste de dire que ces choses ne peuvent pas être faites, plutôt que de dire que Dieu ne peut pas les faire. » — Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Somme théologique, Iᵃ pars, q. 25, a. 3, respondeo^[29]

Three moves to retain in this canonical passage:

1. Omnipotence is defined positively: the power of all that is absolutely possible (omne possibile absolute).
2. The contradictory is not a possible: a term and its contrary taken together do not form an admissible description.
3. The correct formula is not « Dieu ne peut pas »: the contradictory quite simply cannot be done. It is not God who fails; it is the statement that designates nothing.

The four objections of Thomas

To grasp the scope of the article, here are the four objections Thomas examines and sets aside, which cover almost every variant of the paradox:

The second objection is exactly the heart of the paradox of the stone: an attempt is made to turn against God a « puissance » whose absence is in reality a perfection.

Article 4: Can God Undo the Past?

Article 4 treats the direct relative of the paradox of the stone: « Dieu peut-il faire que ce qui a été n'ait pas été ? » Thomas answers no — not because God would be weak, but because undoing the past is a logical contradiction.

« Faire que ce qui a été n'ait pas été implique contradiction dans les termes. De même que Socrate ne peut pas être assis et non assis sous le même rapport, il ne peut pas avoir été assis et n'avoir pas été assis sous le même rapport. […] Ce qui implique contradiction ne tombe pas sous la toute-puissance divine. » — Saint Thomas d'Aquin, ST I, q. 25, a. 4, respondeo^[30]

Peter Damian's position is thus explicitly rejected. For Thomas, undoing the past is not a possible act God would refuse: it is a combination of words describing no act. The internal coherence of discourse about God counts for more than a verbal exaltation of His power.

Why God's inability to sin is a mark of power

The argument also holds for the question: can God sin? Thomas answers, following Anselm:

« Pécher, c'est manquer à une action parfaite. Aussi, pouvoir pécher, c'est pouvoir manquer dans l'action, ce qui répugne à la toute-puissance. C'est précisément parce qu'il est tout-puissant que Dieu ne peut pécher. » — Saint Thomas d'Aquin, ST I, q. 25, a. 3, ad 2^[31]

The formula is striking: it is because He is almighty that God cannot sin. The capacity for failure is a mark of finitude, not of power. A God who could lie, betray Himself or sin would not be a more powerful God — He would be a god of myth, that is, less than God.

A single great voice of the Western tradition held that God could do the contradictory: René Descartes, in his letters to Mersenne of 1630.

Descartes and the free creation of the eternal truths

« Les vérités mathématiques, lesquelles vous nommez éternelles, ont été établies de Dieu et en dépendent entièrement, aussi bien que tout le reste des créatures. […] On vous dira que, si Dieu a établi ces vérités, il les pourrait changer comme un roi fait ses lois ; à quoi il faut répondre que oui, si sa volonté peut changer. — Mais je les comprends comme éternelles et immuables. — Et moi je juge le même de Dieu. » — René Descartes, Lettre à Mersenne, 15 avril 1630^[32]

For Descartes, God could have, from all eternity, made it that two and two do not make four. Mathematical truths are established by God as a king establishes his laws: they depend on Him without constraining Him.

Why this position is untenable

Three decisive objections are raised against this "Cartesian omnipotence":

1. Self-refutation. If God could make A and non-A true at the same time, then He could make it that Descartes both wrote and did not write that letter, which destroys the very possibility of a rational discourse about God — including Cartesian discourse. The philosopher saws off the branch on which he sits.
2. Semantic emptiness. To say that "God can do all things, even the contradictory" is not to attribute a great power; it is to stop speaking. As Lewis writes: « le non-sens demeure du non-sens, même quand nous le disons à propos de Dieu ».^[33]
3. Fidelity to Catholic tradition. Scholasticism — Thomas at its head (ST I, q. 25, a. 3^[34]) — holds the Thomist position against the Cartesian one. The Catholic Magisterium speaks of omnipotence (CEC §§ 268-278^[35]), never of a power that would make the contradictory true. The First Vatican Council, in Dei Filius (1870), affirms the coherence of faith and reason: God cannot reveal contradictions, « car la vérité ne peut contredire la vérité »^[36].

The contemporary rebound: Frankfurt

Harry Frankfurt attempted in 1964 to rescue Descartes by a logical trick:

« Si Dieu est supposé capable d'accomplir une tâche dont la description est auto-contradictoire — créer la pierre problématique au départ — pourquoi ne serait-il pas supposé capable d'en accomplir une autre ? » — Harry G. Frankfurt, The Logic of Omnipotence, Philosophical Review, 73 (1964), p. 262-263^[37]

In other words: if God is once granted the ability to do the impossible, then He can also both create the unliftable stone and lift it — so the contradiction does not bite. But this defence, formally valid if one accepts its premises, costs too much: it assumes that one is already speaking about something without sense — so that, strictly speaking, one is no longer speaking at all.

The Cartesian way, for all its refinement, thus remains a dead end.

The modern article that structured the contemporary academic debate is by George Mavrodes, "Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence", Philosophical Review, 72/2, April 1963, p. 221-223. His demonstration is limpid.

« En supposant que Dieu soit omnipotent, l'expression "une pierre trop lourde pour que Dieu la soulève" devient auto-contradictoire. Elle devient en effet : "une pierre qui ne peut être soulevée par Celui dont la puissance suffit à soulever n'importe quoi". » — George Mavrodes, Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence, Philosophical Review, 72 (1963), p. 222^[38]

The argument holds in three steps:

1. God is, by hypothesis, omnipotent: His power suffices to lift any liftable object.
2. « Pierre que Dieu ne peut pas soulever » therefore means: « Pierre que ne peut pas soulever Celui dont la puissance suffit à soulever n'importe quoi. »
3. This expression is manifestly self-contradictory — like « cercle carré » or « triangle à quatre côtés ».

So the "stone God cannot lift" is not a possible object. That God cannot create it does not mean He lacks power: it means that the described object is not an object at all.^[39] The paradox bites its own tail: it assumes, in its very formulation, that God is almighty; it then deduces that God is not almighty.

For the general public, the decisive formulation comes from chapter II of Problem of Pain (Macmillan, 1940). Lewis readily admits the paradox's appeal, then dismantles its mechanism with remarkable economy of means:

« Sa toute-puissance signifie pouvoir tout ce qui est intrinsèquement possible, non pouvoir l'intrinsèquement impossible. Vous pouvez lui attribuer des miracles, mais pas du non-sens. Ceci n'est pas une limite à sa puissance. Si vous décidez de dire "Dieu peut donner à une créature un libre arbitre et lui retirer le libre arbitre en même temps", vous n'avez pas réussi à dire quelque chose à propos de Dieu ; les combinaisons de mots dépourvues de sens n'acquièrent pas soudain un sens parce que nous y joignons les deux autres mots "Dieu peut". » — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Macmillan, 1940, chap. II^[40]

And further on:

« Il demeure vrai que tout est possible à Dieu : les impossibilités intrinsèques ne sont pas des choses, mais des non-entités. Le non-sens demeure du non-sens, même quand nous le disons à propos de Dieu. » — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, chap. II^[41]

What Lewis makes explicit, and what recent analytic philosophy has confirmed, is that the word « peut » requires an object: one can do X if X is a thing to be done. If X is a verbal combination without referent, then the sentence « peut faire X » is itself without referent. Putting God in the subject's place changes nothing in this grammar: it is not an act being refused Him; it is that there is no act to perform.

With the tools in hand, the paradox can be defused in a few lines.

The « pierre que l'omnipotent ne peut pas soulever » is a square circle

The word stone is used to give an impression of a concrete object, but it is only a disguise. The decisive element is: « que la puissance infinie ne peut pas soulever ». Now:

• an infinite power can, by hypothesis, lift anything liftable;
• so « ce que la puissance infinie ne peut pas soulever » is « ce qu'aucune puissance ne peut soulever »;
• so « pierre que la puissance infinie ne peut pas soulever » = « pierre qu'aucune puissance ne peut soulever » = « pierre insoulevable par toute puissance »;
• yet a stone is a finite physical reality, and a finite physical reality is, by its very nature, liftable by a sufficient power.

The description therefore contradicts itself: what is demanded is a stone that is not a stone. Like a square circle, it is not a thing difficult to produce: it is not a thing at all. As Maimonides wrote eight centuries earlier: « elles ne sont susceptibles d'aucune réalité ».^[42]

Answer to: « mais un être fini peut produire un objet qu'il ne peut soulever »

The objection transposes to the divine case what a finite being can do: conceiving a being capable of making a rock too heavy for itself. The answer distinguishes the two cases: a finite being can make an object heavier than its own strength, but transposing this to an omnipotent being, capable by hypothesis of lifting every rock, introduces a contradiction in terms.

In other words: a finite being can make an object heavier than its own strength. An infinitely powerful being cannot, not from weakness but because « plus lourd qu'une puissance infinie » is verbally empty. The transposition from the finite to the infinite, which looks innocuous, is in reality a category mistake: it confuses a surpassable threshold with a limit that does not exist.

Once the logical structure of the paradox is defused, more subtle counter-objections may still be raised. Here are the seven most tenacious forms, with their answers.

Objection 1 — « Donc Dieu est soumis à la logique »

The objection: if God cannot do the contradictory, then logic is superior to Him; God would be subject to an external law more fundamental than Himself.

Answer. In classical theism, logic is not a reality distinct from God that would dominate Him. It expresses the intelligibility of being, founded in divine simplicity. God does not obey the principle of non-contradiction as a law from elsewhere; He is Himself the Truth, and the principle of non-contradiction is the most elementary expression of what being means. Asking whether God can be « et ne pas être sous le même rapport » imposes no constraint on Him: it merely asks whether God is coherent — and yes, He is, because He is Being itself.^[43]

Saint Thomas summarises it in question 3 of the Somme: in God, essence and existence, being and power, truth and goodness are not separable components. Logic is not above God; it is the very structure of divine truth as reflected in our finite minds.

Objection 2 — « Mais l'Évangile dit que tout est possible à Dieu »

Jesus, in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, declares: « Pour les hommes c'est impossible, mais pour Dieu tout est possible » (Mt 19, 26)^[44]. The angel Gabriel to Mary: « Rien n'est impossible à Dieu » (Lc 1, 37)^[45]. Some readers conclude from this that God must be able to accomplish even logical contradictions.

Answer. The biblical sense of « tout » in these formulas is limpid in context: no real hindrance, no created obstacle, no limitation of circumstance resists divine power — it is about salvation, miracle, resurrection, the Virgin's childbearing. The Bible itself immediately corrects the drift:

« Si nous sommes infidèles, lui reste fidèle, car il ne peut se renier lui-même. » — 2 Timothée 2, 13^[46]

« Dieu n'est pas homme, pour qu'il mente, ni fils d'Adam, pour qu'il se rétracte. Est-ce lui qui dit et ne fait pas, qui parle et n'accomplit pas ? » — Nombres 23, 19^[47]

« Afin que, par deux réalités immuables, dans lesquelles il est impossible à un Dieu de mentir, nous soyons puissamment encouragés […] » — Hébreux 6, 18^[48]

« Dans l'espérance de la vie éternelle promise avant tous les siècles par le Dieu qui ne ment pas. » — Tite 1, 2^[49]

Four times, Scripture distinguishes what God can (the whole of real possibility) from what would be a failure of God. The biblical doctrine of omnipotence is therefore never the doctrine of an absurd power. It is exactly what the CEC takes up in § 268, associating three adjectives: universal, loving, mysterious.

Objection 3 — « Dieu pourrait-il renoncer à son omnipotence ? »

A subtler variant: could God freely cease to be almighty? If He cannot, He lacks a capacity; if He can, He can become non-almighty.

Answer. God cannot cease to be God. He does not have omnipotence as a property added to His essence that could be taken from Him: He is His power. Catholic metaphysics speaks of divine simplicity: in God, essence and existence, being and power, truth and goodness are not separable components.^[50]

The Incarnation does not contradict this point. The Son takes a real human nature, vulnerable, unto the death of the Cross, yet He does not cease to be God:

« Lui qui est de condition divine n'a pas revendiqué son droit d'être traité comme l'égal de Dieu mais il s'est dépouillé prenant la condition d'esclave. Devenant semblable aux hommes […] » — Philippiens 2, 6-7^[51]

The abasement of Christ is free, and it manifests divine power paradoxically, in apparent weakness. But the divinity of the Word is neither lost nor suspended: that is precisely the meaning of the Christological dogma of Chalcedon (451) — two natures, one single Person, without confusion or separation.

Objection 4 — « Si Dieu ne peut pas pécher, il n'est pas libre »

The objection: a freedom that cannot fail is not a true freedom. God would therefore not be free.

Answer. This objection confuses freedom and possibility of failure. Yet human freedom itself tends, as it blossoms in the good, toward a fixity in the good. The blessed in Heaven do not become less free because they no longer wish to sin; on the contrary, they are « confirmés en grâce », fixed in union with the Supreme Good.^[52]

Saint Thomas Aquinas sums up: sinning would be failing in the perfection of acting — the exact inverse of omnipotence:

« Pécher, c'est manquer à une action parfaite. Aussi, pouvoir pécher, c'est pouvoir manquer dans l'action, ce qui répugne à la toute-puissance. C'est pourquoi Dieu ne peut pas pécher, lui qui est tout-puissant. » — Saint Thomas d'Aquin, ST I, q. 25, a. 3, ad 2^[53]

The capacity to sin is a mark of wounded freedom, not of perfect freedom. God is not limited because He cannot fail: He is almighty precisely because no failure can reach Him.

Objection 5 — Accidental omnipotence (Plantinga)

A more sophisticated variant distinguishes essential omnipotence (a being that is necessarily omnipotent) from accidental omnipotence (a being that happens to be omnipotent at a moment t). An accidentally omnipotent being might perhaps create a stone it would not lift, by rendering itself non-omnipotent.^[54]

Answer. This variant (analysed by Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, Harper & Row, 1974, p. 27-29) is elegant, but it does not concern the God of Catholic doctrine. The Christian God is essentially omnipotent: His omnipotence is not a revocable accident. The distinction is useful to show that certain concepts of omnipotence (for instance that of a created god that could abdicate) are incoherent, but it does not touch the classical conception. For God, « cesser d'être tout-puissant » is as empty as « cesser d'être Dieu » — that is, as Anselm would have said: not a power, but a non-thing.

Objection 6 — « La toute-puissance se contredit elle-même »

Last form of the paradox: if God is almighty, He ought to be able to produce a stone He cannot lift. If He cannot, omnipotence itself is an incoherent concept. So God does not exist.

Answer. The conclusion does not follow. What the paradox shows, at best, is that the definition of omnipotence as « pouvoir tout, même l'absurde » is incoherent. But this definition was never upheld by Catholic doctrine. The received definition since Anselm and Thomas — « pouvoir tout ce qui est absolument possible » — is, for its part, perfectly coherent. The paradox therefore does not refute omnipotence as defined; it refutes a caricature of omnipotence.^[55]

It is a classic logical figure: an argument can be valid against the version it targets, and completely beside the real position. The paradox of the stone targets a concept nobody defends.

Objection 7 — « Pourquoi Dieu n'a-t-il pas créé un monde sans contradictions logiques ? »

A modern variant, sometimes brandished in internet debates: if God were truly almighty, He could have created a universe where logical contradictions are possible — where one can suffer and not suffer, die and not die, and so on.

Answer. The objection contains its own refutation. For a universe to exist, there must be stable distinctions: this is not that, here is not there, now is not after. A « monde où la contradiction est possible » is not a world different from ours — it is the absence of any world, for there would no longer be anything determinate to know, to think, to inhabit. To ask God for a universe where contradictions reign is to ask Him to create « quelque chose qui ne soit rien » — the canonical formula of non-being.

Beyond the technical debate, the paradox of the stone is a privileged occasion to ask again: what is omnipotence, seen from Christian Revelation?

A universal, loving, mysterious power

The Catéchisme de l'Église catholique devotes a whole section (§§ 268-278) to divine omnipotence. Three adjectives recur:

« De tous les attributs divins, seule la Toute-Puissance de Dieu est nommée dans le Symbole : la confesser est d'une grande portée pour notre vie. Nous croyons qu'elle est universelle, car Dieu qui a tout créé, régit tout et peut tout ; aimante, car Dieu est notre Père ; mystérieuse, car seule la foi peut la discerner lorsqu'elle "se déploie dans la faiblesse" (2 Co 12, 9 ; cf. 1 Co 1, 18). "Tout ce qu'Il veut, Il le fait" (Ps 115, 3). » — Catéchisme de l'Église catholique, § 268^[56]

Three adjectives that rule out every caricature. Universal: nothing in creation escapes it. Loving: it operates as the power of a Father, not as the force of a tyrant. Mysterious: it cannot be reduced to our categories — including our coffee-house paradoxes.

Power in weakness: the Cross

The deepest paradox is not that of the stone, but that of the Cross. There, the almighty God freely chooses to be delivered up, judged, tortured, seemingly abandoned.

« Lorsque je suis faible, c'est alors que je suis fort. » — Saint Paul, 2 Corinthiens 12, 10^[57]

« Ce qui est folie de Dieu est plus sage que les hommes, et ce qui est faiblesse de Dieu est plus fort que les hommes. » — Saint Paul, 1 Corinthiens 1, 25^[58]

The CEC explicitly takes up this paradox in § 272:

« La foi en Dieu le Père Tout-Puissant peut être mise à l'épreuve par l'expérience du mal et de la souffrance. […] Dieu le Père a révélé sa Toute-Puissance de la façon la plus mystérieuse dans l'abaissement volontaire et dans la Résurrection de son Fils, par lesquels il a vaincu le mal. Ainsi, le Christ crucifié est "puissance de Dieu et sagesse de Dieu. Car ce qui est folie de Dieu est plus sage que les hommes et ce qui est faiblesse de Dieu est plus fort que les hommes" (1 Co 1, 24-25). » — Catéchisme de l'Église catholique, § 272^[59]

The power that creates a universe, that maintains the galaxies in being at every instant, is the same as the one that, on the Cross, does not defend itself — not because it is diminished, but because it is freely ordered to the salvation of men. A « pierre que Dieu ne pourrait soulever » is a rhetorical toy. The Cross is the true limit God sets for Himself — not from lack of power, but from excess of love.

Mercy as the summit of omnipotence

This is what the collect of the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time sings — the supreme proof of divine power is pardon —, in consonance with the whole Thomist doctrine of mercy^[60]:

The Catéchisme de l'Église catholique takes up the formula:

« Dieu manifeste sa Toute-Puissance en nous convertissant de nos péchés et en nous rétablissant dans son amitié par la grâce : "Dieu, qui donnes la preuve suprême de ta puissance, lorsque tu patientes et prends pitié…" » — Catéchisme de l'Église catholique, § 277, quoting the collect of the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time^[61]

A truly almighty God forgives without losing anything; a finite god could forgive only if it found its advantage in it. The summit of power is therefore not a cosmic lifting exploit: it is the act of the thrice-holy God bending over the sinful creature to raise it.

« À moins de croire que l'amour de Dieu est Tout-Puissant, comment croire que le Père a pu nous créer, le Fils nous racheter, l'Esprit Saint nous sanctifier ? » — Catéchisme de l'Église catholique, § 278^[62]

The three errors that make the whole paradox can now be named in a single word each:

1. Semantic error — confusing « chose à faire » and « combinaison verbale ». A « pierre que la puissance infinie ne peut soulever » is not a thing; it is a hollow word.
2. Metaphysical error — applying to God images drawn from bodies: muscles, levers, backs, effort. God has no muscles; His power is not a bodily force.
3. Theological error — defining omnipotence as « pouvoir tout, même le contradictoire ». Catholic doctrine does not say this, and never has.

Short answer

Dieu ne peut pas créer une pierre que Dieu ne pourrait pas soulever, parce qu'une telle pierre est une contradiction dans les termes, non une chose possible. La toute-puissance n'est pas le pouvoir de rendre l'absurde réel : c'est le pouvoir infini de l'être, de la vérité et du bien. Le paradoxe ne diminue pas Dieu ; il diminue seulement une caricature de Dieu.

This answer, fifteen centuries old, has never been seriously shaken. As C.S. Lewis wrote: « Le non-sens demeure du non-sens, même quand nous le disons à propos de Dieu. »^[63]

• Does God exist? — overview of the rational proofs.
• If God created everything, who created God? — another classic objection on the cause of God.
• The argument from contingency — why the contingent presupposes a necessary being.
• Is divine foreknowledge compatible with free will? — another classic paradox of omniscience.
• The answer to evil and suffering — divine power and the permission of evil.
• The dogma of the Trinity — what God reveals of Himself.