I'll mostly reply to this one because it seems the most relevant and you requested it.

God does have the "power" to reject our free choice and substitute his own, but this would be a violation of love and freedom he grants us. He cannot both be loving and force us to choose Him.

Imagine a scenario where you love someone who is capable of making decisions on their own, if you force them to live with you despite them desperately not wanting that, is that love? If you have to tie them down and bolt the doors closed so they don't freely leave you, is that love? God gives us the ability to freely choose to unite with him, and respects our wishes to disobey him even though the consequences of sin is death. I think your understanding of death vs damnation is the issue here, and I think it likely stems from a lack of understanding of Orthodox Christianity and you seem to be leaning on some type of protestant view.

Christ harrows hell, after his death on the cross he enters hell and defeats death, and preaches the gospel to those distant from Him in Hades. Damnation, or the second death, is the eternal distance after you have fully chosen to distance yourself from God even after coming to the realization of the Truth, the Life.

Your relation with God is a personal loving relationship of free will, and your choice to reject Him is not met with a legal punishment of hell but that is the natural consequence of rejecting the Truth and the Life.

I think a lot of this confusion also stems from the heretical idea of penal substitution pushed in some Western churches, like the idea that the Father bore his Wrath on the Son as if the Triune God can be separated in will. His work on the cross was a loving act to unite us with Him, not a legalistic substitution to quench the Father's eternal wrath.

This post was edited by majorblood on Oct 2 2025 06:50pm

You're asking why God allows a human to make their own free will decisions.

God's solution to fix what man has cause was taken care of on the cross.

Both arguments are defeated by the same issue: incoherence, not mutually exclusive properties.

God is omnipotent (can do all that is logically possible).
The object created is defined as being beyond God's power (too heavy to lift).

this is a meaningless arrangement of words, just like a square circle is not a logically possible thing for God to create due to incoherence. God's power is not a measurable quantity that can be defeated by a hypothetically "larger infinity" or a heavier object. It is the absolute source of all possibility. We cannot use incoherent language to invent a logical limitation on an unlimited being, it is simply linguistic incoherence and not a logical defeater of God or of omnipotence.

/e the other question "#1" rests on your understanding of consequence of humanities choices vs legal punishment and my previous answer to "#4" also answers your hypothetical question about suffering. I don't think repeating myself is as good of an answer as correctly stating the distinction in your understanding of consequence vs legalistic punishment in understanding God's nature.

This post was edited by majorblood on Oct 2 2025 07:00pm

3) Can God make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?

Let's play it out.
I assume you mean 'in space' cuz the rocks on earth wouldn't be big enough. In space there is no up and down, so 'lifting' isn't the best word choice here. We lift something opposite the direction the gravity pulls it. But in space there is no gravity (assuming there are no other big celestial objects around). Indeed the rock itself would have its own gravity if made big enough. So instead of saying 'lift', it might be better to say 'move'.
Any rock made big enough as a planet would naturally shape itself as a sphere due to its gravity 'pulling its edges toward the center'.

If you went even further and made it the size of a star, it would indeed be a star, as a rock with enough density and gravity would indeed become a star (and further a black hole, but let's not get there). Since you said 'rock' yourself, we're talking about planet size rocks (technically they are planets, but ok)

Can God move create and move such a rock? Obviously. He already created many planets and they can move on their own due to laws of physics without his interference. Yes, he could move them on his own too.

now about your question
Your question has two parts. One expresses ability statement (creating a rock), the other expresses inability statement (not being able to lift/move it), and they must be performed together. Inability defies omnipotence.
It's much like asking a God 'can you do something that makes you not omnipotent?' God could say yes, he can. But it doesn't mean that he will do it.

So, of course, God can lift any rock he makes. So if you ask him a question 'can you create a rock so big you cannot lift it?', he could say 'Yes I can, but that would imply making myself not omnipotent in order not to be able to lift it'. So the answer is, yes he could do it, but he won't cuz that would mean he's making himself not omnipotent. So he can do what you asked, but as long as he doesn't do it, he's still omnipotent.

This post was edited by kin198989 on Oct 3 2025 01:57am

this isn't reasonable, God's will isn't to play a trick of language. This doesn't really address the hypothetical correctly and skirts around it in almost a way to deceive. He cannot make a rock so be he cannot lift it, as even answering 'yes' to this would be to defy omnipotence even if he doesn't actually do it. The problem is the incoherence of the question itself, and it isn't even a theological question but a linguistic one.

it doesn't defy omnipotence.

All I am saying is that God himself has the ability to even become not omnipotent. But he himself will not do it.

let me make it crystal clear:
Answering 'yes' doesn't mean that he cannot lift such a rock. It just means that he has the ability to make himself unable to do it. As long as he doesn't do it, he's still omnipotent.

This post was edited by kin198989 on Oct 3 2025 02:25am

You are confusing power with being, God's omnipotence is essential to His nature, that essential attribute is not like an article of clothing he can choose to take off and simply doesn't will to. To say God has the ability to "become not omnipotent" means He has the ability to cease being God. This is not possible as He is necessary and eternal. He cannot choose to not exist because He is the necessary precondition and sustainer for all existence, including the very concept of "choice" itself.

This also begins to explain the category error of the initial question, as it's a problem of understanding who God is and what omnipotence means. Omnipotence doesn't include the ability to power to do contradictory or meaningless things.

I simply meant that as an omnipotent being he maybe has the power to diminish his powers.
But if you don't believe that, it's fine, we can agree to disagree.
I am not saying I am 100% right, it's hard to understand God and his powers, all of what i wrote is simply my own thinking that I did this morning when I thought about the third point OP made.

Note that OP posted a VERY hypothetical point. So I simply used logical thinking to show him that his hypothetical doesn't disprove omnipotency. Can God actually diminish His powers thereby surrendering His omnipotency and stop being a God if he wishes to? Honestly, I have no idea. What I did was simply a thought experiment

This post was edited by kin198989 on Oct 3 2025 03:37am

Right, my central issue or disagreement with your understanding is omnipotence isn't a "power" He chooses to have or not have, but essential to His divine nature. And the answer is no again to the second part, for the same reason and understanding of who He is.

You could be right, but you're talking more from a theological point of view (difference between power and being and whether he actually can stop being omnipotent).

I am talking strictly within the hypothetical the OP made. OP wants to defy omnipotence by finding something God can't do. He thinks it doesn't make sense that God can do everything but cannot do what he described in his 3rd point. Being able to do everything and anything would also imply that He can also change the essence of His being in a way that He cannot do something. You may argue that, from a theological standpoint it may not be true, or that it doesn't correlate with real life, but imo OP made a hypothetical statement, which is hard to be applied to real life. Such a statement can only be countered inside its own 'hypothetical reality'. Imo, if we apply real life, or what actually is, the whole premise falls apart.

This post was edited by kin198989 on Oct 3 2025 04:09am