A 747 jetliner was halfway across the Atlantic when the captain got on the loudspeaker and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have lost one of our engines, but we can still reach London with the three we have left. Unfortunately, this will make us one hour late.” An hour later the captain made another announcement, “Sorry, but we lost another engine. No need to worry though, because we can still make it on two. However, this will make us two hours late.” A short while later, the passengers heard the captain’s voice again, “Guess what folks? We just lost our third engine, but rest assured, we can fly with only one. We will now arrive in London three hours late.” At this point, one passenger became furious and shouted out, “For Pete’s sake, if we lose another engine we’ll be up here all night!”

Of course this little story is just a joke.  But it illustrates absurd reasoning, which often surfaces when the subject of the omnipotence of God comes up.  The word omnipotence means all powerful.  The word comes from the Latin prefix omni which means all, or in all ways or places, and the word potent which means powerful.

When the subject of the omnipotence of God comes up, you often hear someone raise this question: “Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?” Now on the surface, that seems like a legitimate question.  But it is actually absurd reasoning, much like the reasoning of the passenger on the airplane who feared that if the plane lost its fourth engine, they would be up in the air all night.

Wondering whether God can make a rock so big that he can’t life it is a bit like asking if God can make a square circle. It’s a self-contradiction, a confusion of categories. If a circle is square it is no longer a circle. It’s a square. There is no such thing as a square circle or a rock so heavy an omnipotent God can’t lift it. In the words of C. S. Lewis, “We may attribute miracles to God, but not nonsense.” 

But not every objection to the omnipotence of God falls in the category of the absurd.  There is also the category of the serious.  Although the serious objection to God’s omnipotence may be stated in many ways, it goes something like this: “If God is all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?” Why do accidents happen or tornadoes destroy homes? Why does God allow deranged individuals to kill innocent people? Why is there so much disease? Why do good people die of cancer? Why doesn’t God stop the suffering in the world?  Space does not permit me to deal with this question here, but we will explore this difficult question on Sunday.  In the meantime, here’s a bone for you to chew on.

If our God is good and if he cares for us, then we can believe he has all power, even in the face of sickness, suffering, and death itself. Your starting point makes all the difference. If you start with your trials and try to reason your way back to God, you’ll never make it. Start with lung cancer and it’s hard to find God. Start with divorce and it’s hard to find God. Start with rape and it’s hard to find God. Start with bankruptcy and it’s hard to find God. He’s there, but he’s hard to see when you start with your own difficulty.

So, you have to start with God and reason from what you know about God back to your trials. There is an invisible line that stretches from God to us. That line is the line of God’s goodness. We rest our faith on that invisible line. That’s why 2 Corinthians 4:18 says that “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” As long as you start with what you see around you, you’ll have a hard time finding God in the darkest moments of life. But if you start with God, his light will illumine your darkness.