What is Omnipotence?

Omnipotence_A is the power to do anything.  This power, if a being had it, would include the capacity to do all logically possible acts, such as create and destroy material objects,  do math problems, and so on.  This power would also include the capacity to do logically impossible acts such as create a square circle, or a married bachelor, cause 2 + 2 = 5, avoid unavoidable occurrences, and so on.

Omnipotence_LP is the power to do anything that is logically possible.  This power, if a being had it, would include the capacity to do any act that does not generate a logically contradictory state of affairs.  So this being could create a world that has free rational beings in it, but it could not create a world that both has free, rational beings in it and that is a void world with nothing in it. 

There are several problems generated by Omnipotence_A.

The Stone Paradox

1.  Consider this act:  creating a stone that one cannot lift.

2.  Either God can or God cannot do this act.

3.  If he can, then there is an act that he cannot do—namely lift the stone that he just created.

4.  If he cannot do this act, then there is an act that God cannot do—namely create a stone that he cannot lift. 

5.  So there are always acts that God cannot do. 

6.  That is, it is not possible for a being to possess the property of omnipotence_A.  (No matter how much power a being has, there will always be acts that it cannot do.)

A common, but mistaken response:  God is omnipotent_A.  He can create a stone that he cannot lift, and then he can lift it.  This response is mistaken because if God then lifts the stone, he failed to create one that he cannot lift.  If he lifts it, then there is still something he cannot do—create a stone that he cannot lift. 

The Enhanced Problem of Evil:

1.  Attributing  omnipotence_A to God  makes the problem of evil worse. 

2.  Logically impossible actions would include:

a.  the power to avoid unavoidable suffering

b.  abolish evil even if it is necessary to contrast with good

c.  create free moral agents who are not free to do evil.

d.  achieve good goals without employing any evil means, and so on.

3.  So if God can do anything, including the logically impossible, then he is not limited and should not have to tolerate or employ evil in any of these ways. 

4.  So if we attribute the power to do even logically impossible acts to God, then we can no longer explain the presence of evil. 

4.  Responses to the problem of evil like:

A.  Some kinds of suffering are necessary to achieve a greater good.

B.  Evil must exist to present a contrast to good

C.  The evil committed by free moral agents is not evil that God can prevent.

D.  God accepts evil as a cost for a greater good. 

all presume that God has omnipotence_LP

The Understanding Paradox

1.  If God can do anything, even logically impossible acts, then he can both exist and not exist at the same time; he can and cannot eliminate evil; he can be all powerful and not all powerful; he can be infinitely good and not infinitely good, and so on. 

2.  Fundamentally, to assert that a thing has a property, or to describe it, is to say that it is one way and not another.  To say that "The dog has three legs," is to assert that it is not the case that it has 4 legs. 

3.  If any description or property and its opposite can apply equally to an omnipotent_A God, then claims about God don’t really assert or say anything at all.  There's no implication or content to saying that God is X.

4.  That is, if God is omnipotent_A, then we can have no hope of forming any idea of him, finding grounds for believing in him, understanding anything about him, or forming any kind of relationship with him. 

So God, if he exists, can at most be omnipotent_LP