Omnipotence

Omnipotence (literally, "all power") is power with no limits i.e. 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 benevolence. Since he was God made flesh, Jesus was also said to be omnipotent.

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 anything, i. e. the answer to "can God do x" is always "yes", regardless of what x may be. However this leads to obvious contradictions and is a view rarely held by theologians. Although it can be argued that to try to rationalize God's omnipotent power is a vain undertaking, since we cannot ever really understand God's power, and is perhaps better to take it on faith.(see Kierkegaard)
2. God is able to do anything that is logically possible for God to do.
3. God is able to do anything that God chooses to do.
4. God is able to do anything that is in accord with His own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of God's nature that what God speaks is truth, then God is not able to lie).
5. Hold that it is part of God's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for God to go against His own laws unless there were a reason to do so.

Under many philosophical definitions of the term "God", senses 2, 3 and 4 can be shown to be equivalent. However, on all understandings of Omnipotence, it is generally held that God is able to intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics, since they are not part of his nature, but the principles on which he has created the physical world. However many modern scholars (such as John Polkinghorne) hold that it is part of God's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for God to go against His own laws unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so.

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 Pain. 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 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 freewill, 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 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) 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

For example, though I might control a lump of jelly-pudding almost completely, the inability of that pudding to stage any resistance renders my power rather unimpressive. Power can only be said to be great if it is over something that has defenses and its own agenda. If God's power is to be great, it must therefore be over beings that have at last some of their own defenses and agenda.

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

In the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, as well as several other versions, in Revelation 19:6 it is stated "...the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (the original Greek word is παντοκράτωρ, "all-mighty" ). Although 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.

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. (The Hebrew word used here is "shadday" )

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

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 question cannot be answered using formal logic due to its self-referential nature. See liar paradox and Godel's incompleteness theorem. 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.

Others have argued that (alluding to C.S. Lewis' argument above), that when talking about omnipotence, referencing "a rock so heavy that God cannot lift it" is nonsense just as much as referencing "a square circle." So asking "Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it?" is just as much nonsense as asking "Can God draw a square circle?" Therefore the question (and therefore the perceived paradox) is meaningless.

There is also the argument that omnipotency breaks logic. Meaning, "God can make a rock so heavy God can not lift it, and lift it anyways because he is omnipotent." It is the only way to properly explain omnipotency as to be able to do everything.

Uncertainty and other views

All the above stated claims of power are all based on scriptual grounds and upon empirical human perception. This perception is limited to our five senses. The power of God is related to its existence; for more info on the proof on the existence of God and methods see Existence of God.There are however other ways of perception like: reason, intuition, revelation, divine inspiration, religious experience, mystical states, and historical testimony.

According to the 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.

So presuming there is a god-like entity consciently taking actions, we cannot know the limits of God's powers.

Since the current laws of physics are only known to be valid in this universe, it is possible that the laws of physics are different in parallel universes, giving a God-like entity, more power. If the number of universes is unlimited, than the power of a certain God-like entity is also unlimited, since the laws of physics may be different in other universes, and accordingly making this entity omnipotent. Unfortunately concerning a multiverse there is a lack of empirical correlation. To the extreme there are theories about realms beyond this multiverse (Nirvana, Chaos, Nothingness).

Also trying to develop a theory to explain, assign or reject omnipotence on grounds of logic has little merit, since being omnipotent would mean the omnipotent being is above logic. A view supported by René Descartes He issues this idea in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

It can also be debated that God, assuming there is a God-like entity, is consciously taking actions. It could be concluded from an emanationism point of view, that all actions and creations by God are simply flows of divine energy (the flowing Tao in conjunction with qi is often seen as a river; Dharma (Buddhism) the law of nature discovered by Buddha has no beginning or end.) Pantheism and/or panentheism sees the universe/multiverse as the body of God, making God everybody and everything. So if one does something, actually God is doing it. We are God's means according to this view.

In the Taoist religious or philosophical tradition, the Tao is in some ways equivalent to God or the logos. The Tao is understood to have inexhaustible power, yet that power is simply another aspect of its weakness.

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