Divine Omnipotence

THOMAS MORRIS; A MODERN DISCUSSION OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE

In Christianity, it is said that ‘with God all things are possible’, but what does this mean?

What is the magnitude of God’s power?

1. God can do everything-Entails god can create spherical cubes. When you have the expression of a logical impossibility, you end up with nothing that can even be a candidate for power ascriptions. The net result being nothing at all, no task specified.

2.  God can do everything logically possible- But there’s a massive gap between what is logically possible and what we can do. It doesn’t seem cautious enough. If each of us has free will, then it is possible for us to do something not done by God. But we do not want to say that God can do something not done by God

3. Anything which it is logically possible for God to do, he can do- Just because it is logically possible for me to do something, it does not mean I can do it. Also, this leaves open the possibility that God can be weak in numerous ways i.e. it may not be logically possible for God to do something we would usually see as a simple task. Do we want to allow this?

4. Anything that it is logically possible for a perfect being to do, God can do- Better than 3, because any weakness is surely an imperfection, but the usefulness of this definition depends on our having some prior sense of what is logically possible for a perfect being to do. If part of perfection is omnipotence, we have reached a sort of circularity.

GEACH believed it was hopeless to try and understand God’s power in terms of things God can do, so he put forward ‘almightiness’ . Instead of looking at that God can do, we could look at the powers God possesses.

The power to create ex nihilo (from nothing), is the most fundamental sort of power and is relevant to our understanding of the power of God.

Note, that when I say ‘Jones cannot do x’, I may mean that Jones lacks the power necessary for doing x. Or, again, I may grant him the power and the skill, but believe he lacks the opportunity for drawing on that power. He may lack the practical knowledge of his situation to realise x.

Alternatively, we could say that doing x would be contrary to Jones’ firmly entrenched character and personality, thus he cannot do it. This is very different from talking about power, skill, opportunity or practical knowledge’. This is ‘moral capability’ or ‘capability’.

There is one final factor potentially involved in action; will power. The element of determination in pursuing a line of action.

So, one must be ‘able’ to do x (via power, skill opportunity and practical knowledge), have the determination to do x, and have the moral capability to do x. When all these are present,  one ‘can do x’. In other words, we’re not always talking about ‘power’ here.

This is why any explination of what God can do, his omnipotence, is so difficult. Keeping these things in mind will help us understand the simpler notion of omnipotence in terms of power possessed.

So, what is the magnitude of divine power?

It can be said that when we describe God as omnipotent, we commit ourselves to his having every power which it is logically possible to possess. It is impossible to imagine coherently and greater account of perfect power.

PROBLEMS FOR DIVINE POWER

The Ctitic’s argument is ‘the paradox of the stone’. If god were omnipotent, could he create a stone which he could not lift?

• If no, then he is not omnipotent, for he cannot create the object
• If yes, then he is not omnipotent, for he does not have the power to lift it

Thus, God is not omnipotent. There cannot be such a being. This is the critic’s argument.

paradox

This critique assumes that if there is something specifiable that God cannot do, he is not omnipotent, but this is too quick,if we understand omnipotence to be ‘perfect power’ as Kenny suggests.

It seems here that God only lacks the power, skill, opportunity, determination or moral capability to perform the act. It does not directly follow that there is some power God lacks. Actions such as creating a married batchelor do not even present a possible candidate for action, so no power here is missing.

Some philosophers hold that the act needed to create the unliftable stone is an incoherent act description. It does not designate a logically possible power, thus it does not show that God lacks any power.

Other philosophers do not think that this is an incoherent act description. They hold that there still might be a possible form or source of immobility that can’t be overcome even by God. If God cannot ascribe this property to the stone, then he lacks a possible power.

Ho would such a property work?

An alternative is that God could create a stone, and promose never to lift it, therefore creating a stone that he cannot move. God cannot do x, because he does not have the moral capability to do x. Here, yes, God can create a stone he cannot lift. Here, God does not have a lack of power.

In sum, whether God can or cannot create the immovable stone does not show him to lack omnipotence. In both instances, he can be shown to retain omnipotence.

Some philosophers have argued that necessary goodness is incompatible with omnipotence. Surely it is logically possible to possess the power of sin, yet on so many accounts God is perfectly good, thus cannot possess the ower of sin.

There are two responses to this

1. We could acknowledge that there is this power that God lacks, but then we would have to revise our conception of the magnitude of divine power. But if morality were part of God, and we said that none of God’s capacities could have a negative impact on his perfection, so that his perfection is not self-destructing
2. (Best response) Deny that there is a causal-power to sin. If God is necessarily good, then it is impossible for him to Sin, or ‘God cannot sin’.  This does not mean God lacks any power, ‘the power to sin’, as has been explained before.

To say that God cannot sin indicated a necessarily firm directedness in the way in which God will use his unlimited power.

There are many powers necessary for sinning in various ways, but there is no single, distinct power to sin. The difference is not in the powers possessed, but in the moral capacity for employing these powers, thus God can still be considered omnipotent.

A remaining problem? How can the positive ascription of omnipotence ever be justified? Is the provision of a positive ground impossible? We ascribe powers through observing what people do, but we can never whitness so much of God’s action to ascribe omnipotence to him.

Not only would we never be able to see this omnipotence, God too would not be able to justifiably believe it, or know it.

There is a simple answer. God does not come to know himself inferrentially. Thomas Aquinas taught us that God knows himself directly. Secondly, we do not have to rely on observations for our ascriptions to God. We hold he is omnipotent because of the requirements of a perfect being. We dedude this from conceptual and intuitive resources. So until there is an observation to believe the contrary, we are justified in holding God’s omnipotence.