Incoherence of God - Omnipotence

What is Omnipotence?

• Omnipotence is the attribute of being all powerful

What is the Paradox of the Stone?

• Can God create a stone so heavy that he can’t lift it?

  • If yes, he can’t lift it, therefore he is not all powerful

  • If no, he can’t create it, therefore, he is not powerful

Does Omnipotence mean you can do the logically impossible?

• Aquinas disagrees

  • Stating the words that you use to describe the impossible contradict each other

  • Therefore, anything described as logically impossible is not meaningful

  • So what is logically impossible is not anything at all

• There is no limitation on God’s power - there is still nothing that God can’t do

Swinburne’s Response to Paradox of the Stone

• Omnipotence is God being able to do everything that is congruent with God’s character

Mavrodes Response to the Paradox of the Stone

• ‘The power to create a stone an omnipotent being can’t lift’ is logically incoherent, so it is not a possible power

• The fact that God can’t create a stone that God can’t lift does not mean he doesn’t lack any power

What does C. Wade Savage argue?

• That the concept of an omnipotent being is incoherent, therefore Mavrodes response is weak

Savage’s Argument

1. Either x can create a stone which x cannot lift, or x cannot create a stone which x cannot lift

2. If x can create a stone which x cannot lift, then, necessarily, there is at least one task which x cannot perform (in this case, lifting the stone)

3. If x cannot create a stone which x cannot lift, then, necessarily, there is at least one task which x cannot perform (in this case, create the stone)

4. Hence, there is at least one task which x cannot perform

5. If x is an omnipotent being, then x can perform any task

6. Therefore, x is not omnipotent

Response to Savage

• If “ X cannot create a stone which X cannot lift therefore there is a task which X cannot do”

• This does not follow from the first part of the claim

• Imagine two beings: X who makes stones, and Y who lifts stones

• X can create infinitely heavy stones

• Y can lift infinitely heavy stones

• There is no limit on X’s power just because Y can lift any stone

• This holds true even if X and Y are the same person

What is the Omnipotence and Super Goodness problem?

1. To commit evil is to fail to be supremely good

2. If God is supremely good, then God cannot commit evil

3. Therefore, if God is supremely good, there is something that God cannot do

4. Therefore, God cannot be both supremely good and omnipotent

What solutions are there to the Omnipotence and Super Goodness problem?

1. God can commit evil (omnipotence), but always chooses not to (goodness)

   • God has all the powers to do the act which would be evil, but chooses not to

2. Aquinas: there is no distinct power of ‘committing evil’ because ‘evil’ is not a type of act - it is simply the absence of good

   • God does not lack the power to do good, so God cannot commit evil