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At some point or another, I presume most if not all of us have heard the purposefully thought provoking question, "Can God create an immovable rock?" Humor me here, the idea the question is intended to purport is that if God can create a rock that he himself cannot move then he is lacking in power because he then can't move it. On the other hand, if he is unable to create such a rock then he is lacking in power because of his inability to create it. There is an inherent flaw in this logic. The common logic adhered to in this exercise assumes that God's power must include anything that can be conceived in the mind, any possible thought that could come from the vast expanse of human imagination. But is that really what it means to be Omnipotent? The short answer is: NO. In order to keep this post somewhat short, suffice it to say that omnipotent in its most true form from the original Greek means "all powerful". The key word here being all. The "all" in all powerful in reality represents "every real thing". If something is not real it is not included with all. If there is something for which the power to accomplish does not exist then that thing is not a "real thing" and therefore it cannot be factored in to a definition of omnipotence. To further illustrate this point the Guide to the Scriptures identifies Omnipotent as: The divine trait of having all power . Notice all power rather than every conceivable power, or unlimited power as many people consider the word to mean. I think this is very important to understand because even our fellow Christian brethren often have a complete misconception of Omnipotence which is why they accept the concept of creation ex-nihilo, which from an LDS perspective we understand to be false due to the fact that it is impossible. If we can correctly convey the true meaning of omnipotence to others we can better communicate doctrinal differences in a meaningful way. I could go on and on but in conclusion: 1) God is omnipotent because he has the power to do every thing that can possibly be done (all power). 2) God can not create an immovable rock, because the ability to do such does not exist, and since such a task can not be accomplished ever, it has no bearing on God's omnipotence.
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