Concept

Divine Omnipotence

Intro

When Christians say God is all-powerful, they mean God can do anything that is really doable. "Is any thing too hard for the LORD?" (Genesis 18:14). Nothing that can be done is beyond Him. What omnipotence does not mean is that God can do nonsense: make a square circle, make a married bachelor, or make a rock both liftable and unliftable by the same unlimited power. Those are not tasks too hard for God. They are strings of words that do not describe any task at all.

Two popular challenges lean on misunderstanding this. The first is the old riddle, "Can God make something He cannot overpower?" The second goes the other way: "If God can do anything, why doesn't He come down right now and prove Himself?" or "Why didn't He just make Jesus out of dirt like Adam?" The answer to the first is that a contradiction is not a thing. The answer to the second is that being able to do something is not the same as being obligated to do it, or having no reason to do it another way.

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In full

Classical theism defines omnipotence as the power to bring about any state of affairs that is logically possible and consistent with the divine nature. Thomas Aquinas argues (Summa Theologiae I q.25 a.3) that whatever implies a contradiction falls outside the scope of omnipotence, not through any lack of power but because it lacks the character of possibility; a contradiction does not name something that could be done. C. S. Lewis made the same point for a general audience in The Problem of Pain (ch. 2): combining meaningless words does not give them meaning, and prefixing "God can" to such a combination does not either. The qualification "consistent with His nature" follows from Scripture itself, which says without embarrassment that it is "impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6:18, KJV) and that "he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13, KJV). These are not limits imposed on God from outside; they are expressions of perfection. Lying and self-denial are defects, and a being able to do them would be less than perfect.

Two corollaries matter for apologetics. (1) Contradictions are not tasks. The paradox of the stone, and its variants ("create something you cannot overpower," "create a being greater than yourself"), combine incompatible properties into a single description, so the inability they point to is the inability to make a contradiction true, which is not a power at all. (2) Can does not entail must. Omnipotence settles what God is able to do; it does not settle what God will or ought to do. God's choices among possible actions follow from His wisdom and purposes, so "God could have done X" never by itself shows that God was wrong, weak or non-existent for doing Y.

The biblical vocabulary

• El Shaddai, "God Almighty" (Genesis 17:1); see H7706 - shaddai.
• Pantokratōr, "the Almighty," the Septuagint and New Testament title (Revelation 19:6); see G3841 - pantokrator.
• Nothing too hard: Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:17; Luke 1:37.
• With God all things are possible: Matthew 19:26, said of the salvation of the rich, the thing impossible "with men."
• What God cannot do because He is perfect: lie (Numbers 23:19; Hebrews 6:18), deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

The paradox of the stone

The riddle. "Can God create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it? If He can, there is something He cannot lift. If He cannot, there is something He cannot create. Either way He is not omnipotent."

The answer, step by step.

1. The description "a stone that an unlimited power cannot lift" assigns two incompatible properties to one object: made by a being of unlimited power, and exceeding that same unlimited power.
2. An object with incompatible properties is not a very hard object to make; it is no object. The sentence describing it does not pick out any possible state of affairs.
3. Failing to make what is impossible is not a failure of power. There is nothing there to have power over.
4. So the dilemma attacks a definition of omnipotence ("can do even contradictions") that no classical theist holds.

The live version. A useful question to put back: "Describe a logically possible thing God cannot do, rather than combining two definitions that cancel each other." That moves the conversation from word games to substance. See God is Impossible Paradox Cluster for the related attribute paradoxes.

Can does not entail must

Many objections have the shape: "An all-powerful God could have done X, so why didn't He?" The inference hides a premise: that a being who can do something must do it, or can have no reason for doing something else. Omnipotence supplies no such premise.

"If God can do anything, why not come down now and reveal Himself?" Nothing about the request is impossible. But ability is not obligation, and a person is not required to perform on demand because he could. The stronger form of the question is not about power at all but about love and hiddenness: why would a God who wants relationship leave sincere people uncertain? That is a real question, answered at Divine Hiddenness Objection Defeater and Sign on Demand Objection Defeater.

"God could have made Jesus from dust like Adam instead of using Mary." Yes, if omnipotence is granted, He could have. Christianity has never said the virgin conception was God's only option. It says the incarnation had a purpose that forming an adult from dust would not accomplish: that the Son should be "made of a woman, made under the law" (Galatians 4:4, KJV), entering Adam's own family line through conception, gestation, birth and childhood, rather than appearing beside it. Adam came from the ground (Genesis 2:7); the second Adam comes into humanity from within. Luke also describes a miraculous conception by the Spirit's power (Luke 1:35), not sexual union. The separate objection about Mary's age rests on a figure the New Testament never gives; see Underage and Non-Consensual Marriage Objection Defeater and Virgin Birth Is Biologically Impossible Objection Defeater.

"If God is all-powerful, why is there evil?" Here too the argument needs more than power. It needs the premise that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit the evils there are. That premise is where the debate lives; see Problem of Evil and Free Will Defense.

Omnipotence and the other attributes

• Goodness. Power guided by perfect goodness is not arbitrary. See An Omnipotent God Has No Moral Middle Ground.
• Simplicity. God's power is not a faculty added to His essence; it is God Himself acting. See Divine Simplicity.
• Creation. The most fundamental exercise of power is giving existence itself, creation from nothing. See Principle of Proportionate Causality and Ipsum Esse Subsistens.
• Sovereignty. Omnipotence is the power; sovereignty is its rule over all things. See Divine Sovereignty.

See also

• Divine Attributes, the full catalogue
• God is Impossible Paradox Cluster, nine paradoxes built on omni-attributes
• Divine Sovereignty and Divine Providence
• Law of Non-Contradiction, why contradictions describe nothing
• Divine Incomprehensibility, God beyond our grasp but not beyond logic
• Classical Theism