Monday, December 11, 2017

Limits to Omnipotence

I recently mentioned in a paper I wrote that my personal understanding of God does not require Him to be omnipotent. In fact, I'm not sure He can be. Consider the Euthyphro Problem. Euthyphro once asked another philosopher (Socrates, I think) whether moral acts were moral because God commands us to do them or whether God commands us to do those acts because they are moral. My answer to that question is the latter. I believe that there are universal moral laws whose existence predate the Godhood of God. I do not believe that God can change those laws or break them without consequences. This means that there is at least one thing that God cannot do. Hence, He is not truly omnipotent.

I also have problems with omnipotence in general. There are dozens of paradoxes that illustrate the problems that omnipotence can encounter. For example, could an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy that that being couldn't move it? One's first thought might be "no, because an omnipotent being could move a rock of any weight," but that would mean that there is at least one thing that that omnipotent being could not do: create an immovably heavy rock. Omnipotence seems to be impossible.

I acknowledge that God is very powerful. I might even be able to acknowledge that "He has all power in heaven and in earth," as we sometimes read in scripture, as long as that doesn't imply that He has the power to override the universal laws that go beyond this heaven and this earth. He certainly seems to be powerful enough to consider Him omnipotent for all reasonable intents and purposes. Yet, I don't think that God is truly omnipotent, and I'm not altogether certain that true omnipotence can even exist.

1 comment:

Sariah said...

I think it is foolish for any of us to determine what God can or cannot do. How do we know that He can't go against universal laws? Perhaps He can but in his infinite wisdom understands and chooses not to. If scriptures teach us that He is omnipotent, then instead of trying to prove or disprove it, I'd rather just accept that I am limited in my knowledge and understanding, and though I can't even begin to wrap my head around what it truly means or how it works, I can accept that this must be a truth that is beyond my comprehension.