Head-dibs

Our youngest son asked me the other night, “Why do people talk about four corners of the earth? The earth is round. How can it have corners?” As I answered, I realized I also had the answer to a so-called problem often posed by so-called atheists in their attempts to disprove the existence of God. The problem is, “Can God make a square circle?” “After all,” they will say, “logic dictates that two discrete sets defined with mutually exclusive definitions have no elements in common; in other words, no ‘square’ could ever be made into a ‘circle.’” The question intends to discredit God with semantics, an attempt to base His existence on a misunderstanding of His Omnipotence. The intent is to shoot at God while He is seemingly trapped in the corner of basic geometry. What does strength have to do with existence? You exist, though you can’t arm-wrestle yourself . . . I used to answer this question with something like, “What does this have to do with the fact that you will stand before Him on...

A visitor to my site posed a question to refute the existence of God, "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?" Greg Koukl wrote the following response to this worn-out argument: This is known as a pseudo-question. It’s like asking, “Can God win an arm wrestling match against Himself?” or, “If God beat Himself up, who would win?” or, “Can God’s power defeat His own power?” The question is nonsense because it treats God as if He were two instead of one. The phrase “stronger than” can only be used when two subjects are in view, for example, Bill is stronger than Bob, my left arm is stronger than my right arm, etc. Since God is only one, and since He has no parts, it makes no sense to ask if He is stronger than Himself. That’s why this is a pseudo-question. It proves nothing about any deficiency in God because the question itself is incoherent. This pits one aspect of God’s ability against another--in this case, His creative ability against His ability...