Omnipotence

Key word: Omnipotence

• All powerful 🔑 Key ideas:

Can God do the logically impossible?

Miracles of Jesus seem to be logically impossible so implies yes.

Book of Job: "How then can a mortal be righteous before God?" Poetic references of God's power can be found throughout the scripture.

God's omnipotence is represented several times throughout the bible, such as the creation of the universe and miracles.

If God was not omnipotent, he wouldn't able to do things necessary for human salvation such as resurrection.

God's omnipotence is crucial as it is what separates him from his creation, if God had the same capabilities as humans then he would not be worthy of worship.

Descartes:

Descartes advocated "voluntarism"; the view that God can do the logically impossible.

Descartes came to the conclusion that God can do anything, even the illogical.

Law of mathematics for example only exists because God made it that way and therefore is beyond them as all logic stems from God himself.

Any other definition of omnipotence would dishonour God's greatness and anthropomorphise him.

However:

If God can do the logically impossible, then it is not logically impossible.

If God can do the logically impossible, he would be able to prevent suffering in the world without encroaching on our free will.

Aquinas:

God is omnipotent in the sense of being in charge of the whole world, creating it and sustaining it.

God can do "everything that is absolutely possible."

God can only do the logically possible according to Aquinas, yet he remains omnipotent as he knows everything that there is to know and therefore is not limited.

Alvin Plantinga:

Plantinga believed that complete omnipotence is not necessary, God chooses to limit powers to preserve free will.

According to this line of thinking, God remains all powerful as limitations are self imposed however it attempts to solve the problem of evil and the inconsistent triad.

Peter Geach:

Power over everything, not to do everything.

Can God do the logically impossible? Miracles of Jesus seem to be logically impossible so implies yes.

🔑 Essay points

1. Omnipotence is an essential criteria for salvation, a core concept in Christianity. If God was not omnipotent, Jesus would not have been resurrected and he would have been perceived as a normal human-being, therefore undermining the whole foundation of Christianity.
2. Omnipotence is crucial as if God wasn't all powerful it would undermine his potential and ability to be a superior, transcendent being, therefore anthropormising God and making him less worthy of worship.
3. The inconsistent triad, omnipotence is incompatible with the other attributes of God. To solve the problem, people rely on either the importance of free will or diluting the definition of "all powerful."
4. The laws of logic stem from God, they only exist because he created them and therefore his is limitless, self imposed limitations.
5. Biblical evidence Conclusion

Ultimately whether you take the approach that God has self imposed restrictions on his power or he can do the logically impossible, the fact remains that God is a transcendent being who we will never be able to fully understand or comprehend. If we could easily understand the attributes of God, he wouldn't be the transcendent being that he is represented as in the bible.