Is an Omnipotent God a Coherent Idea

The idea of God being omnipotent is a central, or vital, part of the core beliefs of the main monotheistic religions of the world today: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Contemporary theism demands that believers in God accept the notion that He is all-powerful and not subject to limitations on this power; as the Christian Evangelist Matthew puts it in his Gospel: Jesus looked at them and said “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

In Judaism also the belief in God’s omnipotence is rooted in the Bible: “Attribute to the Lord all glory and power” (Psalm 29), and most Rabbinic works attribute to God the characteristics of omnipotence, which I will discuss in the course of this essay. But is the notion of God’s omnipotence a coherent idea? In order to be able to dissect this question we must have an understanding of the true nature of omnipotence, which is in itself interpreted in many different ways.Questioning the coherence of the idea of God being an omnipotent being is most evidently a theological issue; but after further examination it is apparent that there are logical and, most importantly, linguistic aspects to this question. Indeed it is my opinion that this subject is extremely tangled within the realm of linguistic semantics.

Can we safely assume that God is omnipotent once we know the characteristics of omnipotence and at the same time are presented with certain puzzles in semantics that would seek to contradict any affirmation of God’s omnipotence as a coherent idea?For indeed there are numerous repudiations of the theory of omnipotence, which I will examine also in this essay. To begin with, let me outline the nature of the group of related paradoxical questions which seek to reject the existence of God as an omnipotent being on the basis of whether an omnipotent deity is logically coherent, as they form the main basis for any criticism of the theory. The theist is presented with paradoxical problems corresponding to the claim of contemporary religions that God has an almighty, limitless power.The Oxford dictionary definition of the word “omnipotent” is thus: “adjective (of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.

” Can God then create a stone heavier than He can lift? Can God create a triangular circle or a married bachelor? Can He commit a sin or an Evil even though it is said that He is a purely good being? Now you can see the theory of omnipotence can be questioned in many ways. As a starting point, despite the existence of a dictionary definition, we cannot make the mistake of assuming that there is a conclusive or absolute definition of the term omnipotent from which to base any question of coherence on.Instead we can aim to only provisionally - for the sake of preserving omnipotence as an essential property of God and agreeing on its coherence as an idea - define the term with a certain dilution, which provides us with a more evolved term to oppose these problems. Thomas Aquinas, the revered Christian philosopher said “This phrase, God can do all things, is rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible”. If we take this for our own use we can adapt the definition of omnipotence to “God can do all things that are logically possible”.Now there is a clause in this definition; omnipotence is not absolute: God can only do all things that are considered logically feasible.

This phrasing of the nature of God’s omnipotence would solve some of the paradoxes by virtue of ruling out any action that cannot be considered within the realms of logical possibility – a circle by very definition is circular; if it wasn’t it would cease to be a circle, so to ask can God make a triangular circle is to ask a non-question – each term cancels each other out by way of definition and the question escapes any logical coherence.God cannot make yes and no true at the same time, not because of His lack of power, but because of the lack of possibility, such things are intrinsically impossible (Aquinas, 1952, I-18, 19)”. However this does not completely solve our problem as a slightly revised version of the stone question – can God make something heavier than He can lift – still works against this diluted definition. There is nothing logically contradictory about this question: a human could, for example, build a cart heavier than he/she could lift and for an omnipotent being to be unable to complete this task would be odd.

Another way of refuting this definition is by way of linguistics, which rears its head here not for the last time. Aquinas uses the verb “cannot” which, although he would consider it posing no limitation on God’s power as there is no genuine question involved, does imply, by way of linguistic meaning, that God’s power is applicable to such a case, and the result is He cannot do it. Aquinas does go some way to sidestepping this linguistic pitfall when he says in his Summa Theologica: “It is more appropriate to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them”.It has been said also that this definition doesn’t work when applied to cases of free will when a human does something not done by God – can God be said to have done this? Theists would argue that free will can be said to come from God as: “From Him everything comes, through Him everything exists and in Him everything ends”, so this argument is void. But what if we consider the question: “Can God sin? ”. Sinning is most definitely an act of some kind, but God cannot sin as we see in James 1:13, "Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil”, therefore God would appear to not be omnipotent.

We can evolve our definition of omnipotence further in this case to preserve God as an omnipotent deity by saying: “Anything which is not only logically coherent but also possible for God to do, He can do”. Under this God would remain omnipotent whilst being unable to sin as sinning is something that God cannot do as part of His own divine nature. This revised and diluted definition of omnipotence is almost unrecognizable from its root as “God can do all things” but it would seem to suggest a logical coherence in the possibility of God being omnipotent.But under this definition God might possibly appear to not be almighty. Consider this: what if God is proposed to have a weakness that is essential to His nature as a divine being? It would be logically impossible for God to overcome this weakness but under the definition He would still remain omnipotent.

This situation would result in a flawed God, which goes against all contemporary theistic teachings so we must revise our definition further: “God can do anything which is logically possible for a perfect being to do”.Has the omnipotence of God escaped the clutches of those paradoxical questions fashioned to deny its credibility and thus maintained logical coherence? Not quite. The definition centers on our understanding of a “perfect being”. What exactly is a perfect being? Something or someone that has no flaws, no limitations or can even be said to be able to do all things, i.

e. an omnipotent being? Needless to say we have not reached a satisfactory logical conclusion; rather we have presented ourselves with the need to define omnipotence once more.Re-arranging or revising the definition of omnipotence is not the only way theists have tried to defend the omnipotence of God. Although the defenders of this controversial attribute of God may use different techniques, they all essentially have the same objective; to maintain or prove that an omnipotent deity is conceivable. Confusingly, you will find a counter proof in every case; as I have said before this question is anything but simple.

To give you an idea of the different approaches used in arguing for the coherence of omnipotence, I will again take the example of the stone supposedly “heavier than He can lift” as a starting point. Many have answered this by taking into account the Christian and Hindu ideas of one God who is manifest in several different beings, meaning that God could create the stone that He wouldn’t be able to lift we have a cyclical problem as you cannot presume the question of omnipotence is terminated; if the 2nd manifestation of God was to make the stone the problem would start again!Others have claimed that the answer lies in the actual act of creating such a stone – they have reasoned that, yes, it is a self-contradictory task, but if God is supposedly able to perform one task whose description is seemingly illogical - creating the troublesome stone – should He not be capable of performing another – that of lifting the stone heavier than He can lift? Those that put faith in this argument reason that, after all, is there any greater trick in performing two logically impossible tasks than there is in performing one?Again this argument can be countered and has clear holes in it. The logical impossibility in the creation of the stone lies in not being able to lift it once it comes into existence, and in the lifting of the stone it lies in the fact that the stone now exists to resist such attempts hence there is ONE logical impossibility rooted in both actions of creation and lifting. And so the debate rages on. The flustered but faithful believers offer defence upon defence, swatting away the steady flow of tricky questions from the sceptics.One of the more high profile sceptics today is a certain Richard Dawkins who is scathing in his rebuke of omnipotence in his book “The God Delusion”, claiming it to be mutually incompatible with another of the supposed characteristics of God – omniscience.

He reasons that if God is omniscient he must know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about the intervention which would render him not omnipotent.He quotes a verse written by Karen Owens: “Can omniscient God, who knows the future, find the omnipotence to change His future mind? ”. Again this would appear to refute the possibility of an omnipotent deity, but if God were independent of time, not constricted by past, present or future, then this would not apply. There is an overwhelming sense that what we are trying to do by attempting to evaluate the coherence of the omnipotence of God as an idea is like trying to throw a small fishing net over the entire ocean.There are areas we can assemble our net but as soon as we turn our attentions to the greater body of water we find ourselves ill equipped and helpless.

The problem is we are trying to ensnare something we have no comparable case of in human existence, something that we can’t comprehend or define in terms of our logic. There may or may not be a God, never mind an omnipotent one, but I reason that expounding on the feasibility of such a God will never be conclusive, for a divine entity will be alien to any human notion, thought or conception that has ever existed.The “omnipotence paradox” is a petty battle of linguistic semantics that is a cul de sac of human logistics. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian born philosopher said “When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words”. Omnipotence is inherently a problem of semantics in my view, as language consistently fails to define or come close to resoundingly conclude the omnipotence paradox; language cannot refer to the divine entities in question in a satisfactory way.