Omnipotence

Omnipotence (literally, "all power") is power without limits. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to God. In the philosophy of most Western monotheistic religions, omnipotence is listed as one of God's characteristics among many, including omniscience, omnipresence, and benevolence.

Theodicy is the study of the question regarding the coexistence of evil and an omnipotent God in the philosophy of religion.

Different Views of Omnipotence

Mainly in monotheistic religions, the term, "omnipotence," has been used to connote a few different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. God is absolutely able to do anything; that is, the answer to "Can God do x?" is always "yes," regardless of what x may be.
2. God is able to do whatever is not "intrinsically impossible." "Intrinsically impossible" things are of two kinds: 1) things which would not be in accord with God's nature (e.g., sinning or lying); and 2) things which would be logically impossible, connoting mutually repellent elements simultaneously (e.g., a squire circle).
3. God chooses to act through the laws of nature.

Absolutely able to do anything

For some theists such as René Descartes, omnipotence means that God is absolutely able to do anything. God is not only able to perform such biblical miracles as parting the Read Sea and stilling the Sun in the sky, but is also able to perform feats that seem to be intrinsically impossible such as making a square circle, making 2+2=5, and even doing things against his nature. This, of course, leads to obvious contradictions and is not a widely held view by philosophically aware theologians, but those who adhere to it usually argue that to try and rationalize God's omnipotent power is a vain undertaking since one cannot ever really understand God's power, and it is perhaps better to take it on faith. Descartes indicated his idea in his Meditations on First Philosophy that trying to develop a theory to explain, assign, or reject omnipotence on grounds of logic has little merit, since being omnipotent would mean that the omnipotent being is above logic. Similarly, according to Hindu philosophy, the essence of God or Brahman can never be understood or known, since Brahman is beyond both existence and non-existence, transcending and including time, causation, and space, and thus can never be known in the same material sense as one traditionally "understands" a given concept or object.

Able to do whatever is not intrinsically impossible

This second position has been developed since the time of Medieval scholasticism and is accepted by most Christians. In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. They are "intrinsically impossible" things. According to Thomas Aquinas, "whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility."

There are two kinds of intrinsically impossible things God cannot do. First of all, God cannot do anything which would contradict his nature. For example, God cannot sin, since to sin is repugnant to God's nature. To sin is repugnant to omnipotence anyway: "To sin is to fall short of a perfect action; hence to be able to sin is to be able to fall short in action, which is repugnant to omnipotence." Second, God cannot do anything which would be logically impossible. For example, God cannot create a man who is at the same time a donkey, for in the statement that a man is a donkey "the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject." To draw another example, God cannot create an infinite rock, since any rock is a finite creature; and this answers in the negative the famous question: Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it?

In recent times, C.S. Lewis has adopted a scholastic position in the course of his work, The Problem of Pain. Lewis follows Aquinas' view on intrinsic impossibility:

His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say "God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it," you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words "God can."… It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.

The omnipotence of God within the limits of these intrinsically impossible things, however, is not meant to be "passive" or "imperfect" power but "active" or "perfect" power in the highest degree, according to Aquinas, because God is "pure act." So, what God does shows the perfection of his true power and not the imperfection of creaturely passive power. This standard scholastic position allows that creaturely acts, such as walking, can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth are possible only because of an imperfection in human power. The thing is that although God cannot do these imperfect, creaturely acts, which are not in accord with his nature, he is still omnipotent: "God is said to be omnipotent in respect to His active power, not to passive power... Whence the fact that He is immovable or impassible is not repugnant to His omnipotence."

Choosing to act through the laws of nature

The two preceding positions generally hold that the laws of nature are not part of God's nature but the principles upon which he created the world. They both believe, therefore, that God is able to intervene in the world when he accomplishes what he wants to accomplish. The only different between the two is that while the first believes that God's intervention suspends the laws of nature, the second holds that divine intervention is simply added side by side with the laws of nature without necessarily suspending them. However, many modern scholars such as John Polkinghorne do not agree; they rather hold that the laws of nature are not separate from God's nature, and that God acts in the world through the laws of nature. This new understanding still affirms the omnipotence of God, by saying that his choice to work only through the laws of nature was made on his own out of love for his creation. In the words of Polkinghorne:

It is important to recognize what is meant by speaking of God as "almighty." God can do what he likes, but God wills only what is in accordance with his nature. The very last thing that the utterly consistent and rational God can be is a kind of capricious celestial conjurer. Love works by process, respectful of the other's independence and integrity, and not by overruling magic. That is God's relationship with his creation, to which he has given the gracious gift of being itself. Those very laws of nature, whose regularities are discerned by science, are understood by the theologian to be willed by God and to reflect God's continuing faithfulness. God cannot work against the laws of nature, for that would be for God to work against himself. If God acts in the world, his action will be within the grain of the universe and not against it.

Divine omnipotence, then, is understood in the context of divine love out of which God absolutely decided that the world be created with the laws of nature that stipulate its integrity of indeterminism. Omnipotence as understood this way is referred to as "a kenosis (emptying) of divine omnipotence, which allows for something other than God to exist, endowed with genuine freedom."

Rejection or Limitation of Omnipotence

Some monotheists reject the view that God is or could be omnipotent, or take the view that, by choosing to create creatures with free will, God has chosen to limit divine omnipotence. In Conservative and Reform Judaism, and some movements within Protestant Christianity, including process theology and open theism, God is said to act in the world through persuasion, and not by coercion (for open theism, this is a matter of choice—God could act miraculously, and perhaps on occasion does so—while for process theism it is a matter of necessity—creatures have inherent powers that God cannot, even in principle, override). God is manifest in the world through inspiration and the creation of possibility, not necessarily by miracles or violations of the laws of nature.

The rejection of omnipotence often follows from either philosophical or scriptural considerations, discussed below.

Philosophical grounds

Process theology rejects unlimited omnipotence on a philosophical basis, arguing that omnipotence as classically understood would be less than perfect, and is therefore incompatible with the idea of a perfect God.

The idea is grounded in Plato's oft-overlooked definition of being as "power": "My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power. From this premise, Charles Hartshorne argues further that:

Power is influence, and perfect power is perfect influence … power must be exercised upon something, at least if by power we mean influence, control; but the something controlled cannot be absolutely inert, since the merely passive, that which has no active tendency of its own, is nothing; yet if the something acted upon is itself partly active, then there must be some resistance, however slight, to the "absolute" power, and how can power which is resisted be absolute.

The argument can be stated as follows:

1. If a being exists, then it must have some active tendency
2. If beings have some active tendency, then they have some power to resist God
3. If beings have the power to resist God, then God does not have absolute power

Thus, if God does not have absolute power, God must therefore embody some of the characteristics of power, and some of the characteristics of persuasion. This view is known as dipolar theism.

The most popular works espousing this point are from Harold Kushner (in Judaism). The need for a modified view of omnipotence was also articulated by Alfred North Whitehead in the early twentieth century and expanded upon by the aforementioned philosopher Charles Hartshorne. Hartshorne proceeded within the context of the theological system known as process theology.

Scriptural grounds

In the King James version of the Bible, as well as several other versions, in Revelations 19:6 it is stated "…the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." However, much of the narrative of the Old Testament describes God as interacting with creation primarily through persuasion, and only occasionally through force. A primary New Testament text used to assert the limit of God's power is Paul's assertion that God cannot tell a lie. Thus, it is argued, there is no scriptural reason to adhere to omnipotence, and the adoption of the doctrine is merely a result of the synthesis of Hellenic philosophy and early Christian thought.

Many other verses in the Bible do assert God's omnipotence without actually using the word itself. There are several times in the Bible when God is called simply, "Almighty," showing that the Bible supports the belief in an omnipotent God. Some such verses are listed below:

Psalms 33:8-9: Let all the earth fear the Lord: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

Genesis 17:1: And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

Jeremiah 32:27: Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?

Psalm 107:25: At his command a storm arose and covered the sea.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Flew, Antony and Alasdair C. MacIntyre. New Essays in Philosophical Theology. London: SCM Press, 1955.
• Hartshorne, Charles. 1964. Man's Vision of God. Hamden, CT: Archon.
• Jowett, Benjamin, trans. Plato: Sophist. Philosophy on the EServer. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Lewis, C.S. 2001. The Problem of Pain. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0060652969
• Oppy, Graham. 2005. "Omnipotence." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 71, no. 1: 58.
• Pike, Nelson. God and Evil; Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
• Polkinghorne, J.C. Serious Talk: Science and Religion in Dialogue. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1995. ISBN 1563381095
• Schaff, Philip. 1890. St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine. New York: The Christian Literature Publishing Co. Retrieved December 16, 2007.
• Urban, Linwood and Douglas N. Walton. The Power of God Readings on Omnipotence and Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0195022017

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Pratt, Richard. "Does God Observe the Law of Contradiction? ... Should We?" Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Omnipotence and Free Will in Judaism. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
• Problems with Divine Omnipotence. Retrieved October 27, 2007.

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