God's Omnipotence

The philosophical question about whether God can create a stone so heavy that She can't lift it seems rather simple at first. It's an omnipotence paradox. Being unable to create that stone, or being unable to lift said stone will be taken as a sign that God isn't really omnipotent.

That does not seem terribly satisfactory to arrive at a stalemate this way. A logical approach would be to consider the assumptions behind the nature of omnipotence and creation. Omnipotence is assumed to be the pinnacle of can-do, meaning that God should hypothetically be able to do anything. Including creating a stone that cannot be lifted. Well, that seems fair enough. Omnipotence in creation implies that.

However, the assumption also means that it is possible for God to create another God that is equally omnipotent. Since it is by definition impossible for omnipotence to be superseded by something greater, I think it is pointless to ask whether God can create a greater God. Hence the question on the limitations of creation.

If creation were limitless, there would be no question about whether the stone could be created. It probably could be. Yet, creating a stone with an attribute (weight) that exceeds another (God's strength) is akin to the case of creating an even more omnipotent God (i.e. one that is greater than God Herself). The assumption that the upper limit of creation is omnipotence itself is also an assumption of creation's limit.

I figure that the absence of an equivalent omnipotent God (that's a monotheist assumption, after all) means that either creation is limited to creating lesser beings (while not implying God's inability, as creation does not define God) or that God simply did not bother with that exercise. Certainty in such matters does seem like hubris, since there can only be uncertainty with regards to the motivations of divine beings.

If we were to consider creation capable of creating a stone that is incredibly heavy, that weight would have to be precisely balanced with God's ability to lift it. In which case the stone will be precisely halfway between being lifted, and sitting on the ground.