Sometime in the past some person wanted to make a smartalec remark about the limitlessness of God. When a Christian said, "God can do anything." This person said, "Oh yeah. Can he make a rock so big that He can't pick it up?" Now obviously God can't do things that are against His nature. For instance He can't sin or lie because He is the definition of holiness and truth. Likewise, because He is the opposite of pointless, He won't be a stupid head and create something as totally useless as a rock He can't pick up. I, however, have no such limits. I can be a stupid head whenever I want and so I'd like to take the time for my head to entertain such a stupid question.

"Can God create a rock so big that He can't pick it up." The question was intended to put forth a scenario in which God has to do either one thing or the other. He can't do both. The point was that if God can create the rock then He can't pick it up, or if he can pick it up then He can't create that big of a rock. There's always a "can't" involved. Yet not only is there a way in which God can indeed both create a rock too big for Him to pick up AND pick it up as well, there are in fact TWO ways. I'm sure whoever thought this question up thought he was pretty clever, but there were three things he didn't count on. One was the rules of quantum physics. The second was the characteristics of dimensions that are higher than the forth. Last, was a college student who has read a little about both the first and the second and also was in desperate need to write something that remotely qualified as a theological journal (i.e. Me).

The first method is by using the logic defying laws of quantum physics. Quantum particles (like quarks and electrons) have certain properties (such as spin) which are called quantum properties. These properties have the strange ability to exist in two states at the same time. That is, they don't choose a specific state to be in until someone measures that state, the act of observing actually forces the quantum particle to choose which state it will assume. Until that time of observation, the particle literally exists in both states at the same time.

Consider Maxwell's famous "cat in the bag" thought experiment. He started with putting a theoretical cat in a paper bag with a device containing cyanide. This device was entangled with a quantum particle so that a quantum property of that particle had the ability to cause the device to release the cyanide. Say if the particle had UP spin the cyanide would be released and the cat would die. If the particle had DOWN spin, the cyanide would remain in the device and the cat would continue in a living state. Once you looked in the bag to see what had happened, the cat would either be dead or alive, but until you looked in the bag, quantum theory dictates that the cat is quite literally both dead AND alive at the same time. Similarly, if we contend that God can create anything. Say God was to put a rock-making device He had created in a bag and entangle that device with a quantum particle. If that particle had UP spin the device would make a rock He COULD pick up and if the particle had DOWN spin the device would make a rock He COULD NOT pick it up. As long as God didn't look in the bag, the rock would literally be too big for Him to pick up AND small enough that He could pick it up at the same time. Pretty nifty, huh? Now if God actually tried to pick up the bag, rock and all, He would in a sense be measuring the state of the rock that the rock maker had created. This in turn would measure the state of the quantum particle the rock maker was entangled with. At this point, the state would be decided and the rock would be either too big or not to big for Him to pick up. However, the question never had anything to do with God actually picking the rock up. It just asked whether God could create a rock too big for Him to pick up. Answer: Yes. And He could pick it up too.

Method two for God to create this fabled rock has to do with upper dimensional qualities. Up until now (March 1999) scientist have had solid proof of only 4 dimensions (time being the 4^th). However the Grand Unification Theory (GUT), which is currently the most popular theory on force unification in physics, states that there must be at least 10 dimensions to make the unification of the various physical forces work mathematically. Later this year scientist expect to complete work on an atom crusher that will produce levels of energy at which evidence of the 5th dimension can be seen. Anyway, theorists have described the upper dimensions as dimensions in which motion defines certain characteristics we see as static in our dimension. For example a particle's motion in a loop in the 5^th or higher dimension may describe it's mass in our 4th dimension. The theorist I was reading said that theoretically if you could alter qualities in this fifth dimension, you could take an object apart quantum particle by quantum particle and then change their motion in the upper dimensions to make each particle massless in the 4^th. You could then send that now massless object speeding off to where ever at the speed of light and then switch it back to having mass once it got to its destination. Now, assuming that God resides in the infinite dimension and that He can alter qualities in lower dimensions at will, He could create a rock so big that He couldn't pick it up, and then by altering it's upper dimensional qualities change its mass to zero. It would still be the same rock in our dimension, yet it would weigh absolutely nothing and any one including God could pick it up. Thus He would have created a rock too big for Him to pick up and be able to pick it up too.