ABSTRACT
According to traditional western theism, classically expressed by Anselm and others, God is the greatest being possible. Included among the attributes of such a being is omnipotence, or maximal power. In other words, God is conceived of as being as powerful as any being could be. Our approach to understanding omnipotence presupposes the canons of rational theology, where by rational theology we mean a theology that conforms to the principles of rationality. The latter include the laws of logic, both deductive and nondeductive, as well as principles covering the use of evidence from sense perception, introspection, and memory. Hence, we would not accept, for example, an account of omnipotence that entails a contradiction. This rational approach to God’s omnipotence is faced with several challenges, including concerns about the coherence of omnipotence, related questions about what limits, if any, there are to the power of an omnipotent agent, and the issue of the compatibility of omnipotence with God’s other attributes. First, the famous ‘paradox’ of the stone challenges the coherence of omnipotence: could an omnipotent being make a stone so massive that such a being could not move it? It has seemed to some that because this question cannot be answered coherently, the notion of omnipotence is self-contradictory. Second, some have held that an omnipotent agent has the power to bring about or change what is necessarily true. Is such an understanding of omnipotence coherent? Third, it might be thought that since many past occurrences are contingent, an omnipotent being can now bring about or change the past. Such a view is highly controversial, in that many philosophers regard the past as xed and backwards causation as impossible. A coherent account of omnipotence should address this controversy. Fourth, there is the issue of whether the notion of an omnipotent being other than God is coherent. For example, could there be a single, non-divine omnipotent agent? Could there be two or more omnipotent beings at the same time? Finally, are two of the de ning characteristics of God, namely, omnipotence and moral perfection, compatible? More speci cally, if God is powerless to do evil, then how can God be omnipotent?
