This theospin-dressed-as-philosophical-argument is the biggest cartload of manure I've seen all year. (Granted, the year is young yet.)
Problem #1: this question commits the fallacy known as a loaded question.... "Have you stopped beating your spouse yet?" ...
Likewise, the question "Can God make a rock so big He cannot life it?" also starts with a false assumption, i.e., that God is not omnipotent.
No. There would be a similarity, if the first question read: "Can you beat your wife?" in which case the inherent assumption would be that the person questioned has a wife. A truthful answer might then be: Yes - I am stronger than her. or No, she is stronger than me. or I don't know; I've never tried.
Alternatively, in order to be a loaded, or begged question, the second would have to read: "Is God still trying to create a rock a he cannot life?"
If you answer "Yes" to the question, that means that God is not omnipotent since He can make the rock but isn't powerful enough to lift it. But if you answer "No," that also means that God is not omnipotent since He couldn't make a rock so big He cannot lift it! In other words, the question itself is dishonest, a pseudo-question, since it begs the question by assuming God is not omnipotent.
Any way you answer the question, you must either be lying or misdefining the words. The underlying assumption of the question is not that god is not omnipotent, but that omnipotence is impossible, and therefore an omnipotent entity is impossible, and if omnipotence is a necessary attribute of god, god cannot exist. The question is simply intended to challenge you to find an answer that is self-consistent. If you can't, your claim to such an impossible entity is demonstrated.
Therefore you sidestep the question by trying to invalidate it, thus:
Problem #2: this question commits a categorical fallacy. The question itself is incoherent and meaningless.
Suppose I were to ask you, "What does the color blue smell like?" or "How much does the number seven weigh?" These are category mistakes because colors don't smell and numbers don't weigh anything.
A synaesthetic might be able to answer both of those questions. But neither is anything like the god/rock question:
Rocks
do have weight - or at least mass - depending on their placement.
Gods
are credited [by their believers] with the ability to create things.
Gods
are credited with the ability to affect and manipulate physical objects.
Rocks
can be lifted.
... asking the question "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?" is essentially to ask "Can God's power defeat His own power?"
Precisely! Which regards,
not the characteristic of rocks and lifting power - both of which are real and measurable - but the claim of omnipotence. Rocks are possible. Lifting is possible. Power is possible. Omnipotence is impossible.
The question makes sense; but no possible answer does.
.... "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...
except, of course, that phrase was not in the question.
it makes no sense to ask if He is stronger than Himself."
We didn't as this; he did.
Problem #3: this question commits a straw man fallacy. The goal of the skeptic who asks this question is to somehow undermine the Christian concept of an omnipotent God.
This is the straw-man fallacy. It attributes a false motivation to the skeptic. The motivation of the skeptic is
not to somehow undermine a concept, but to demonstrate the internal contradiction of the concept.
....However, this line of reasoning is attacking a distorted concept of Biblical omnipotence
I would like to see the biblical citation that was being distorted.
Omnipotence doesn't mean that God can do anything.
omni - all potency - power
Yes, it does. And if it doesn't, i wish you'd stop up those billboards tht say
Nothing is Impossible with God