Hi, My roommate claims that it is impossible for an omnipotent being to exist. His logic is that if a being can create a rock so big it cannot lift it, then that being is not omnipotent because its lifting power is not infinite. But also, if it cannot create the rock so big it cannot lift, then it's creation power is not infinite. And because of this paradox, an omnipotent being cannot possibly exist. My boss was a philosophy major in school. He claims that this explanation is completely wrong. However, I do not understand his explanation as he said it very quickly and with many names of old philosophers and theorems and such that I cannot remember. So who is right? Regardless of whether or not an omnipotent being does exist or not, can one exist? Thanks.

I'd like to add one further point to the two made so far. Many contemporary philosophers infer from the so-called Paradox of the Stone that omnipotence is not a matter of being able to do anything, but only a matter of *being able to do anything it is possible to do*. That observation suggests another possible insight. Consider the Problem of Evil. If God exists, then it might seem puzzling that God should permit the extent and kinds of evil that we can find. Now there are many things to say about this, but one pertinent to God's omnipotence is this: Certain moral virtues seem to require some evil, and in such a way that even God can't have one without the other. Even God, it might be remarked, can't make a world in which there is, for instance, forgiveness in the absence of any wrongdoing. (I can't forgive you unless you've wronged me in some way.) This is not to say that all virtues require evil, but just that some seem to, even if you're God. As it happens, contemporary philosophical...