A friend asked me this question some months ago, and I think it’s a very intriguing puzzle.
If god is omnipotent, couldn’t he create a copy of himself? Could he create a greater copy of himself? Wouldn’t doing so break all logic? Would it be logically contradictory? Could god change the laws of logic to make creating an even greater being than that which is maximally great be logically possible?
What do you think?
The Complete History of the Universe: A Personal Journey 
These are the sort of questions I mull over. They make my brain explode. Wait a moment while I clean up…
OK. I’m back.
On the one hand, it doesn’t seem like the God many believe in could be limited by anything, since He created everything.
I realize this is getting a bit off the questions you asked, but I think it is related. Where was he when he created? Just sitting around alone in a vacuum?
Even without bringing a deity into the picture… what of the universe? What is it “in”? Scientists can’t really answer the question except to say that it is expanding and the question “into what?” doesn’t really make sense.
My mind can’t fathom the concept of “everything.”
What all this leads me to is the idea that nothing is literally infinite. Infinite is a concept, but nothing ever reaches it. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omni-anything are not possible… they are concepts that express the limits of things we experience, limits that nothing can ever reach.
Does that make any sense?
Or, it could be that our brains are simply not capable of understanding reality beyond what we have evolved to understand.
Good thoughts!
I think I disagree on the “nothing is literally infinite”, because sets in mathematics are – there are literally an infinity of even numbers, that sort of thing. But then, numbers and sets are also concepts.
That last sentence really hits the nail on the head, though: “our brains are simply not capable of understanding reality beyond what we have evolved to understand.” It’s a very succinct way of putting a concept I’ve encountered before.
In Judeo Christian theology, God cannot deny his own nature. So God cannot lie. When he forgives sins he “forgets” them. God does not tempt people to do evil, etc.
God can’t make a rock bigger than he can lift, because that’d be outside of his nature [creating an infinite rock that’s existed for all time, etc]
God can’t stop being God, so he can’t create another entity that would make him cease to be God. And so on.
Why can’t god change those rules, if he’s really god? If he’s truly omnipotent, he could change his nature.
Further, why would god cease to be god if he creates a twin for himself?