The Act of Omnipotence: Abolition of the Mystical Quest

God's Omnipotence, 2024

This paper explores the divine attribute of omnipotence in Christian theology, focusing on the contrasting views of Thomas Aquinas and Jürgen Moltmann. While Aquinas presents God’s omnipotence as consistent with His perfect nature, unable to act contrary to His goodness, Moltmann reimagines omnipotence through God’s participation in human suffering, particularly in the crucifixion. The paper critiques both approaches, proposing a synthesis that balances God’s self-limiting love with His ultimate sovereignty, emphasizing that God’s omnipotence must reconcile logical coherence with human suffering. This synthesis offers a more nuanced and pastorally compassionate understanding of divine power.

Themes from Richard Swinburne, 2016

Religious Studies, 2012

An omnipotent being would be a being whose power was unlimited. The power of human beings is limited in two distinct ways: we are limited with respect to our freedom of will, and we are limited in our ability to execute what we have willed. These two distinct sources of limitation suggest a simple definition of omnipotence: an omnipotent being is one that has both perfect freedom of will and perfect efficacy of will. In this article we further explicate this definition and show that it escapes the standard objections to divine omnipotence. (2012) 48, 403-414

The Heythrop Journal, 2001

Philosophical debate about the problem of evil derives, in part, from differing definitions of omnipotence. Philosophical theists like Thomas Aquinas, Terence Penelhum, Alvin Plantinga and John Hick attribute evil in the world to the uncoerced acts of free agents. On this Christian account, God is not responsible for evil, for even an all-powerful or omnipotent God could not create free agents who were forced to be good. Adam and Eve and their progeny, in choosing of their own free will to participate in evil, have brought suffering into the world. Modern atheists such as John McTaggart, J. L. Mackie, Earl Conee and Danny Goldstick propose a radically different concept of omnipotence. They maintain that an omnipotent God must be able to accomplish anything, even if it entails a contradiction. On this account, God possesses absolute or radical omnipotence. The Christian God cannot be both omnipotent and benevolent, for a benevolent, omnipotent God would have forced free agents to desist from evil and prevented the introduction of suffering into the world. If the task of creating free agents that are forced to be good entails a contradiction, this is of little consequence, for a God who is truly omnipotent can perform contradictory feats. In this article, I argue that the atheistic tradition is mistaken. Firstly, the concept of absolute omnipotence does not present an obstacle to belief in a benevolent God. Even an absolutely omnipotent God could, as an act of benevolence, create a world in which there is suffering. Secondly, I argue, in line with theological and philosophical tradition, that the concept of absolute omnipotence is fatally flawed. A God who was able to violate the laws of logic would be less than all-powerful. He would be weak rather than strong. So the atheist's argument fails when it is carefully considered on its own terms and when it is evaluated in the light of a more rational account of omnipotence.

Faith and Philosophy, 2000

One of the cornerstones of western theology is the doctrine of divine omnipotence. God is traditionally conceived of as an omnipotent or all-powerful being. However, satisfactory analyses of omnipotence are notoriously elusive. In this paper, I first consider some simple attempts to analyze omnipotence, showing how each fails. I then consider two more sophisticated accounts of omnipotence. The first of these is presented by Edward Wierenga; the second by Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso. I argue that both of these accounts fail. Finally, I propose and defend a novel account of omnipotence.

Religious Studies, 2012

The notion of omnipotence has proved to be quite recalcitrant to analysis. Still, during the last three decades or so, there has resurfaced a clever argument to the effect that, whatever omnipotence is, it cannot be exemplified in God: an allegedly impeccable and all-perfect being. Scrutinizing this argument, however, I find it less than convincing. Moreover, and more importantly, I venture a positive account of my own: a non-technical and distinctively metaphysical definition of omnipotence which, if true, sidesteps quite a number of well-known pitfalls. Also, by way of introduction, I review some earlier attempts.

January , 2022

The omnipotence of God can be defined as the perfect ability of God to do all things that are consistent with the divine character. Open theists see God as one who is influenced as God interacts with human beings in time and space (temporally). Thus, for Open Theists, God is affected and influenced by the world. This paper revisits the historical, biblical and theological grounds for the doctrine of omnipotence with the aim of re-establishing the relevance of divine omnipotence. Using a literary investigation this article traces the developments of the doctrine of God's power from the Early Church Fathers to the Reformers to establish whether the articulation of God's power within Open Theism resonates with Orthodox Theology and Evangelicalism.

This paper develops a simple and attractive account of the traditional divine attribute of omnipotence which makes available equally attractive resolutions of two difficult puzzles in philosophical theology concerning the compatibility of traditional divine attributes. The first puzzle concerns the compatibility of the attributes of omnipotence and perfect goodness, while the second puzzle concerns the compatibility of perfect goodness and freedom. The account of omnipotence here developed is sufficiently plausible and sufficiently different from other competing contemporary accounts of this attribute to merit attention on its own; but, it is even more deserving of attention given the unique resolutions of the aforementioned puzzles it makes available.

In this paper presentation, I try to resolve two paradoxes involving our intuitions concerning omnipotence: The paradox of the stone and the conjunction of the Incarnation with omnipotence. I hypothesize that joining God's omnipotence and His perfect moral character will grant us a beginning strategy for resolving both. This paper has been updated to reflect questions and comments I received at ETS.

2005

I shall begin by criticising the two most promising extant accounts of omnipotence . After providing various reasons for finding these accounts unsatisfactory, I shall then go on to make some suggestions about how the notion of omnipotence should be understood.