However, relational facts like the one under discussion show that it is quite difficult to draw this distinction. Some philosophers have attempted to meet this difficulty head-on by adopting particular theories of temporal facts Flint and Freddoso , while others have tried to sidestep the concern by formulating theories of temporal omnipotence which do not require a distinction between past and non-past facts. Rosenkrantz and Hoffman introduce a number of further qualifications, but the central point of their account is the notion of unrestricted repeatability.
Intuitively, an unrestrictedly repeatable state of affairs is one that can obtain, cease to obtain, and then obtain again indefinitely many times, throughout all of history. Rosenkrantz and Hoffman hold that an omnipotent being could, before , have brought about Mt. After , an omnipotent being could still bring about the latter state of affairs, though not the former.
According to this view, it is impossible for God to do evil. It seems, however, that no being could be both omnipotent and necessarily morally perfect, since an omnipotent being could do anything, but there are many things a necessarily morally perfect being could not do. The argument can be formulated as follows Morriston Consider some particularly evil state of affairs, E, such as every sentient being suffering excruciating pain throughout its entire existence.
Some theists have simply accepted the conclusion, replacing either necessary moral perfection or omnipotence with some weaker property. A number of philosophers who have accepted the incompatibility of omnipotence with necessary moral perfection have regarded the latter as more central to religious notions of God, and have argued that divine omnipotence should therefore be rejected Geach ; Morriston ; Funkhouser Defenders of the compatibility of omnipotence and necessary moral perfection must deny at least one of the premises of the argument, and, indeed, each of them has been denied.
Premise 1 is perhaps the most difficult to reject. To be necessarily morally perfect is to be morally perfect in every possible world, but there seem to be some states of affairs such that bringing them about is inconsistent with moral perfection, and so it seems that if any being is necessarily morally perfect, then there are some states of affairs which that being does not bring about in any possible world.
However, defenders of certain sorts of divine command theories of ethics are committed to the claim that God is morally perfect only in a trivial sense, and these views will have the result that 1 is false. If this is right, then 1 is false: God could bring about E, but if he did bring about E, then E would be morally good.
However, most philosophers regard this line of thought as tending to show the absurdity of these versions of divine command theory, rather than the falsity of 1. However, these definitions fall prey to the McEar objection and, more generally, open the door to all kinds of limitations on what an omnipotent being can do.
Many philosophers of action take it as an axiom that there are no necessarily unexercised powers or abilities, or capacities , and 3 is merely an instance of this general principle.
Nevertheless, the rejection of 3 is defended by Wielenberg , who argues by means of the following analogy. Suppose, however, that a certain stone is too slippery for him to get a grip on. He therefore cannot lift it. In the same way, Wielenberg argues, there are many things which it is not possible for God to do. However, God is omnipotent, since it is not for lack of power that God is unable to do these things, but for other reasons, such as his necessary moral perfection.
It is sometimes argued that if the existence of an omnipotent agent is possible, then the existence of a non-omnipotent free agent is impossible. However, if Caesar could have brought about that state of affairs, then it must be a possible state of affairs, and an omnipotent being could therefore bring it about.
Therefore, an omnipotent being could not bring about this state of affairs. But if even an omnipotent being could not bring it about, then surely Caesar, who is not omnipotent, could not bring it about either.
Therefore, Caesar was not free and, by parity of reasoning, neither is any other non-omnipotent agent. The Leibniz-Ross theory renders the problem even more acute.
According to Leibniz, God chooses precisely which possible world will obtain. God, therefore, chooses whether Caesar will cross the Rubicon. However, if someone else chooses what Caesar will do, then Caesar is not free. The choice is up to God. It is therefore not up to Caesar, at least not in the sense which according to some philosophers is required for free will.
Neither Leibniz nor Ross finds this objection particularly troubling. According to Leibniz, since it is possible that Caesar freely refrain from crossing the Rubicon, there must be a possible world which represents him as doing so.
In making a world actual, God does not in any way change the intrinsic character of that world Leibniz sect. As a result, had God brought about that world, Caesar would still have been free.
Compatibilists about free will may be satisfied with the responses given by Leibniz and Ross. Most of those who have been so concerned have followed an approach developed by Plantinga ch.
This approach hinges on the existence of a class of propositions known as counterfactuals of freedom. A counterfactual of freedom is a statement about what an individual would freely choose if faced with a certain hypothetical circumstance. Now, suppose that Brutus wants Caesar to freely refrain. This sort of bringing about is known as strongly actualizing. According to Plantinga, in order for creatures to be free, it must not be up to anyone else which counterfactuals of freedom are true of them, so even an omnipotent being could not bring it about that particular counterfactuals of freedom are true.
However, an omnipotent being could presumably bring it about that it knows the true counterfactuals of freedom or if the omnipotent being was also essentially omniscient, then it would already know , and it could presumably strongly actualize many of their antecedents, and so weakly actualize a variety of states of affairs in which non-omnipotent beings acted freely.
An omnipotent being could not, however, weakly actualize just any possible state of affairs. It is typically pointed out that it is logically impossible for any being to strongly actualize a state of affairs in which another being makes a free choice, and it suffices for omnipotence that a being be able to strongly actualize those states of affairs which it is logically possible that that being should strongly actualize Wierenga This approach, however, runs into McEar-style counterexamples.
Others have attempted to analyze omnipotence in terms of what an omnipotent being could weakly actualize. Flint and Freddoso require that an omnipotent being S be able to weakly actualize any possibly actualized state of affairs which is consistent with the counterfactuals of freedom about beings other than S.
Divine omnipotence is typically used as a key premise in the famous argument against the existence of God known as the Logical Problem of Evil. The argument can be formulated as follows:. The argument is here formulated in Leibnizian terms, and Leibniz notoriously rejected premise 3.
Premise 2 has also been rejected: some philosophers have denied that there is a unique best possible world and others, most notably Robert Adams, have argued that even if there is such a world, creating it might not be the best course of action Adams However, the premise that is of present concern is 1.
Although 1 is accepted by Leibniz and Ross, considerations related to necessary moral perfection and human freedom have led many philosophers to reject it. If this is so, then, despite being both omnipotent and morally perfect, God would bring about a world which was less than the best, such as, perhaps, the actual world.
Kenneth L. Pearce Email: kpearce usc. Omnipotence Omnipotence is the property of being all-powerful; it is one of the traditional divine attributes in Western conceptions of God. The Self-Consistency of Omnipotence a.
The Stone Paradox Could an omnipotent being create a stone too heavy for it to lift? Act Theories Once voluntarism is rejected, it is necessary to specify more precisely what is meant by saying that an omnipotent being could do anything. Result Theories The main alternatives to act theories of omnipotence are result theories, theories which analyze omnipotence in terms of the results an omnipotent being would be able to bring about.
Omnipotence and Time The Leibniz-Ross theory entails that the exercise of omnipotent power cannot occur within time. Then: 1 If any being is necessarily morally perfect, then there is no possible world at which that being brings about E 2 If any being is omnipotent, then that being has the power to bring about E 3 If any being has the power to bring about E, then there is some possible world at which that being brings about E Therefore, 4 No being is both necessarily morally perfect and omnipotent Some theists have simply accepted the conclusion, replacing either necessary moral perfection or omnipotence with some weaker property.
Omnipotence and Human Freedom It is sometimes argued that if the existence of an omnipotent agent is possible, then the existence of a non-omnipotent free agent is impossible. Omnipotence and the Problem of Evil Divine omnipotence is typically used as a key premise in the famous argument against the existence of God known as the Logical Problem of Evil. The argument can be formulated as follows: 1 An omnipotent being would be able to bring about any possible world 2 Given the opportunity to bring about some world, a morally perfect being would only bring about the best world available to it 3 The actual world is not the best possible world Therefore, 4 The actual world was not brought about by a being who is both omnipotent and morally perfect The argument is here formulated in Leibnizian terms, and Leibniz notoriously rejected premise 3.
Must God create the best? Philosophical Review 81 3 Aquinas, St. The summa theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Part 1, Qu. Cowan, J. The paradox of omnipotence. Analysis Argues, against Mavrodes , that the Stone Paradox cannot be solved by claiming that God can perform only logically possible tasks.
Curley, E. Descartes on the creation of the eternal truths. The Philosophical Review Descartes, Rene. The philosophical writings of Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Defends voluntarism, the thesis that God can do literally anything, even draw a round square. See Sixth Replies and letters to Mersenne. Flint, Thomas P. Maximal power. In The existence and nature of God , ed. Alfred J.
Combines the apparatus of Plantinga with an Ockhamist account of foreknowledge to develop a result theory sensitive to issues about time and freedom. Frankfurt, Harry G. The logic of omnipotence. Philosophical Review 73 2 : Points out that if, as Descartes supposed, God can do the logically impossible, then God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift and still lift it.
Funkhouser, Eric. Faith and Philosophy 23 4 : Argues that omnipotence is incompatible with necessary moral perfection, and that omnipotence is not a perfection, and therefore should not be attributed to God. Geach, P. Philosophy 48 : Considers four theories of omnipotence and argues that they are all unacceptable.
La Croix, Richard R. Philosophical Studies 32 2 Argues that every possible definition of omnipotence either renders omnipotence inconsistent with traditional divine attributes or falls prey to McEar-style counterexamples.
Austin Farrer. La Salle, Ill. Mackie, J. Evil and omnipotence. Mind 64 : Argues that it is incoherent to suppose that a world containing evil was created by an omnipotent and perfectly good being.
Mann, William E. Ross on omnipotence. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 2 Mavrodes, George I. Some puzzles concerning omnipotence. Philosophical Review 72 2 Argues that an omnipotent being could not create a stone so heavy he could not lift it, since the notion of a stone too heavy to be lifted by an omnipotent being is incoherent. Meierding, Loren. The impossibility of necessary omnitemporal omnipotence. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 1 : Morriston, Wes.
Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection: are they compatible? Religious Studies 37 2 : Argues that no being could be both omnipotent and necessarily morally perfect. Oppy, Graham. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 1 : Pike, Nelson. American Philosophical Quarterly 6 3 Plantinga, Alvin.
God and other minds: a study of the rational justification of belief in God. The nature of necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chapter 9 argues that there are possible worlds which God, though omnipotent, cannot actualize. Rosenkrantz, Gary, and Joshua Hoffman.
What an omnipotent agent can do. Defends a result theory according to which an omnipotent agent can actualize any unrestrictedly repeatable state of affairs. Ross, James F. Philosophical theology. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill. Omnipotence is the topic of chapter 5. After a survey of Scholastic theories of omnipotence, Ross argues that no act theory of omnipotence can succeed.
Ross then presents his own theory according to which a being is omnipotent if for any contingent state of affairs p, it is up to that being to choose whether p obtains.
Journal of Philosophy 77 10 : Further develops, and defends from objections, the account of omnipotence given in Ross Swinburne, Richard.
American Philosophical Quarterly Argues that a result theory can, and an act theory cannot, defeat the Stone Paradox.
However, it is conceded that the Paradox shows that no temporal being could be essentially omnipotent. Wielenberg, Erik J. Omnipotence again. Faith and Philosophy 17 1 : Criticizes Wierenga and Flint and Freddoso and argues for a result theory according to which there is no state of affairs such that lack of power prevents an omnipotent being from actualizing it.
Wierenga, Edward R. Issue Date : October Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Skip to main content. Search SpringerLink Search. Schrader Authors David E. Schrader View author publications. Additional information I want to express my appreciation to Michael Jubien, Gareth Mattews, John Robison and Robert Paul Wolff, all of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the editors of Synthese for their very helpful comments and criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.
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