Can God do anything?

What the Bible says

Scripture speaks of God's power again and again. When Abraham and Sarah were too old to expect a child, God asked:

Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you — in about a year — and Sarah will have a son.

Gen 18:14

Jeremiah, ordered to buy a field while Babylon besieged Jerusalem, prays in confusion. He holds on not to his feelings but to creation.

Oh, Lord GOD! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!

Jer 32:17

The New Testament sings the same song. When the disciples were stunned by what Jesus said about the rich entering the kingdom, he answered:

With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Matt 19:26

And the angel's word to Mary is that no word from God will ever fail (Luke 1:37).

Yet the same Scripture also speaks of what God cannot do. Paul writes of eternal life as something "which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began" (Titus 1:2). Hebrews is even more explicit.

Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

Heb 6:18

And Paul tells Timothy:

if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

2 Tim 2:13

James says that God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). So Scripture does not contradict itself; it draws one picture. God's power is without limit, but it is not a power detached from who he is. God cannot become something other than God.

The church's witness

In the Apostles' Creed the church confesses belief in "God the Father almighty" The Apostles' Creed. Notice that the creed joins almighty power directly to fatherhood. Power does not come first and love later; the one with power is a Father.

The Catena on Luke 1:37 includes Augustine dealing with the question head-on. If someone says, "If God is omnipotent, let Him cause those things which have been done to have not been done," Augustine replies that this is to say, "Let Him cause those things which are true, in that very respect in which they are true to be false." Then he adds: "we do not so call God omnipotent as supposing also that He could die" Augustine. To be able to die is the mark of weakness, not of power.

On the same verse Chrysostom says, "For the Lord of nature can do all things as He will, Who executes and disposes all things, holding the reins of life and death" Chrysostom. Faced with news she could hardly believe, Mary was given a word of power that makes the impossible possible.

Matthew Henry, on Hebrews 6, explains why God cannot lie: "it would be contrary to his nature as well as to his will" Matthew Henry. On Jeremiah 32 he gives this advice: "When at any time we are perplexed about the methods of Providence, it is good for us to look to first principles" Matthew Henry. The first principle is that God is the source of all being, power and life.

In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas put it this way: what implies a contradiction does not fall under possibility at all, so it is better to say that such things cannot be done than that God cannot do them. That has been the church's broad tradition. Descartes held that God freely established even the eternal truths of mathematics, and some read him as saying that God's power reaches the rules of logic; that remains a minority view. Most Christians understand God's freedom not as freedom to act against his own nature.

In the original languages

The Hebrew verb behind "too difficult" in Genesis 18:14 is pala (פָּלָא), which carries the senses of "wonderful," "too hard" and "beyond ordinary power." Sarah laughed because to her it was pala, beyond anything she could manage. God's answer is that nothing is.

For God's almighty power the New Testament uses the title pantokratōr (παντοκράτωρ), "Almighty." It is built from "all" and the verb for holding or ruling, and it leans toward "the one who actually rules over everything" rather than "the one who could do any imaginable thing." The Greek text of the Nicene Creed uses it in confessing God the Father Almighty.

The "impossible" of Hebrews 6:18 is adynaton (ἀδύνατον). The same word stands behind "with man this is impossible" in Matthew 19:26, and a verb from the same root appears in Luke 1:37, which older translations render as nothing being impossible with God. So Scripture uses one vocabulary both for "nothing is impossible for God" and for "it is impossible for God to lie." The two statements do not collide. One says that no outside force can stop him; the other says that he is true to himself.

Common objections

"Can God make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it? If yes, he cannot lift it; if no, there is something he cannot make." This is an old puzzle and a fair one. On the surface either answer seems to put a limit on God. But the question asks whether an all-powerful being can do something that would make him not all-powerful. That is the same kind of request as "draw a round square." The words are grammatical but name nothing. God does not fail here for lack of strength; the demand points to no possible thing. Some point here to the incarnation: the Son humbled himself and took the form of a servant without ceasing to be God (Phil 2:6-7). That was not a loss of power but power used for love's sake.

"If God cannot lie or sin, is that not a limit on his power? Then 'almighty' is empty." This objection is strong, because by definition an almighty being should be able to do anything. But the God of Scripture is perfectly good. Not lying is not a lack of ability to lie; falsehood simply does not fit who he is. We do not call a person weak because they cannot betray someone they love; we call them faithful. The traditional answer is that the ability to do evil is a defect, not a power. It should be said honestly, though, that not everyone is satisfied with this answer, and philosophers still debate it.

"If God is almighty and good, why is there evil?" This is the heaviest question for omnipotence, and it cannot be answered fully here. But we can say that omnipotence does not mean that God does at once everything he might wish. He made free creatures, and love cannot be compelled. See Why does a good God allow evil?

Going further

God's power is not meant to end as a philosophy exam. Paul turns it into the deepest comfort in Romans 8.

What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Rom 8:31

The chapter ends: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38-39). Power is a comfort when it comes with love. Power without love would only be frightening, and love without power would be only sympathy. The God of the Bible is both.

You might ask yourself: What have I been telling God is too hard? Between the belief that God can do anything and the fact that he does not always do it my way, what am I holding on to? What peace does it give me that the one with all power is faithful?

To read further, see Who is God?, Does God change his mind? and Is God in control?