Can God Create a Being that He Cannot Control?

Many people are familiar with the classic atheist question, “Can God create a stone that he can’t lift?”  The answer to that, of course, is the same as the answer to a question like, “Can God create a square circle?”  What is a square circle?  It’s nonsense; and so is “a stone that God can’t lift.”  There is no such thing; there couldn’t possibly be such a thing; from a Christian perspective, there couldn’t be such a thing because God is Unchanging Truth – logical and consistent.

So what about the question, can God create a being that He cannot control?  Is it parallel?

There is no such thing as a stone God – an all-powerful , capital G God – can’t lift; could there logically be a being that He could not control?  It shouldn’t take too many mental gymnastics to figure out that by the capital G definition of God – a God than whom there is nothing bigger – a “being that God can’t control” is a nonsense phrase.  Whether or not such a God exists is a different question; but if He does, there cannot be any creature of His that He does not control.

What does this mean for man’s free will?  Well, it means that if “free will” is defined as complete independence from control by anyone, then either free will in that sense does not exist, or there is no God – though there may be a god.

The issue isn’t an abstract one: it’s a big God, versus big Men.  It’s as practical as doing what you want, versus trusting someone bigger than you to tell you how to live.  Because if God is in control, you had better play by His rules, not your own.

And the tragedy is, when we exalt humans and human ideas over God, we end up destroying humanity.  If we are our own standard, then there is nothing bigger than us, nothing more important than us.  And then there is absolutely no reason why, if the pleasure of creating a super race exceeds the pain of destroying the less worthy, we shouldn’t have a holocaust.