Omnipotence

Omnipotence (literally, "all power") is power with no limits or inexhaustible, in other words, unlimited power. 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 omnibenevolence.

Meanings of omnipotence

Between people of different faiths, or indeed even between people of the same faith, the term omnipotent has been used to connote a number of different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. God is able to do everything that is in accord with his own nature (thus he is not able to lie, for instance, since what God speaks is truth by definition). God is able to intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics and probability, since they are not part of his nature, but constructs of a physical world.
2. God can not only transcend the laws of physics and probability, but can also transcend logical truths (for example, God could create a square circle, or could make one equal two), because God is not bound by any limitations.

Scholastic definition

Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." 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. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer 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 were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God." [1]

In recent times, C.S. Lewis has adopted a scholastic position in the course of his work the problem of evil. Lewis follows Aquinas' view on contradiction:

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.

— Lewis, 18

Rejection of omnipotence

Some monotheists reject altogether the view that God is or could be omnipotent. 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. God makes himself manifest in the world through inspiration and the creation of possibility, but 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 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 statement that "Being is 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

— Plato, 247E [2]

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?

— Hartshorne, 89

The argument can be stated as follows:

1) God exists

2) Existence is power

3) If a being exists, it must have power

4) If all beings have some power, then they have some power to resist God

5) 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 20th 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

Some of those who reject omnipotence do so on scriptural grounds. They note that the word "omnipotence" is absent from the Bible. They also note that 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 [3]. 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 and early Christian thought.

However, many 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 spake, 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?

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

Paradoxes of omnipotence

For further discussion, see the main article Omnipotence Paradox

Belief that God can do absolutely anything can be thought to yield certain logical paradoxes. A simple example goes as follows: Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it? If he can, then the rock is now unliftable, limiting God's power. But if he cannot, then he is still not omnipotent. This problem led in the High Middle Ages to developing the concept of mathematical infinity, and laid the basis for infinitesimal calculus. Combining omnipotence with omniscience can yield the difficulty of whether or not God can pose a question to which he would not know the answer.

Augustine, in his City of God, argued that God could not do anything that would make God non-omnipotent:

For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent.

Thus Augustine argued that God could not do anything or create any situation that would in effect make God not God.

Absolute power <-> Absolute potential

All these claims of power are, of course, all based upon human perception, in reality we cannot see nor know what is done by God, so we cannot know the limits of His/Her powers. All these assumptions are based on the little knowledge we have of God, and that laws of physics are the same everywhere (with this is meant the hypothetical existence of multiple universes.) If laws of physics can be unlimitly different in other endlesly universes, this means God's power is unlimited as to all universes. And maybe there is something "outside" this multiverse (Nirvana, Chaos, Nothingness).

We can debate that, if God makes a seed grow into a tree, then God has the power of growth. But maybe God gave the power of growth to the seed, giving it potential. So God would have and give absolute potential. Pantheism and/or panentheism sees the universe/multiverse as the body of God, making God everybody and everything. So if you do something, actually God is doing it. We are His/Her means.

References

• Augustine, City of God and Christian Doctrine
• C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
• Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God
• Plato, Sophist
• Tertullian, Against Praxeas
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

See also

• Problem of evil

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• "Does God Observe the Law of Contradiction? ... Should We?" by Richard Pratt, professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary
• Omnipotence and Free Will in Judaism
• Problems with Divine Omnipotence