OMNIPOTENCE, PARADOX OF

1Not a true paradox, but a term for the difficulties surrounding free will in a universe governed by an all-powerful being, who seems therefore to foresee and connive at our wrongdoing, or even to have abetted it. See free will defence.

2The trivial problem whether God, who can do everything, can create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it. If He cannot, then He is not omnipotent (since even lowly creatures such as we are can create things we cannot lift) but if He can, then He is not omnipotent, since He would bring about something He could not do (lift what he created). The standard resolution allows that God's omnipotence does not extend to doing what is logically impossible, and points out that for Him, unlike us, it is logically impossible that there be such a stone.