Nature of God- Omnipotent

Question 1

JL Mackie:

Answer 1

• Responds to Descartes.
• Ideas of logically impossible actions are ‘only a form of words which fails to describe any state of affairs’.
• Nothing is logically impossible, logical impossibilities do not exist.
• You cannot have something logically impossible, semantically breaks it apart. Impossible= cannot happen ever.
  Logically possible.
  Not logical if its impossible. So a form of words that don’t make sense.

Question 1

Descartes:

Answer 1

God can do anything, even the logically impossible.
- Can suspend logic and can replace it with what he wants.
- He is not restricted by laws of physics and nature.
- Not understanding this is a limit on our human knowledge, not God’s.

Question 2

General criticism of Descartes:

Answer 2

• Non-sensical to make a square circle, not a limitation of our human knowledge.
• Also makes an unpredictable God, difficult to understand him or be close to him if he disbands rules of nature.
• Why doesn’t he prevent evil then?

Question 3

Aquinas:

Answer 3

• God can do whatever is logically possible.
• ‘whatever involves a contradiction is not held by omnipotence’.
• God cannot do anything that contradicts to perfect nature.
• Cannot sin, contradicts perfect nature.
• God cannot run as he is incorporeal (no body).

Question 4

Swinburne:

Answer 4

• Supports Aquinas.
• We need to understand what everything is.
• Square circle does not exist.
• If it’s not a ‘thing’, God does not need to be able to do it.

Question 5

Self-imposed ______

Answer 5

Self-imposed limitation.
- Peter Vardy and Macquarie.

Question 6

Vardy:

Answer 6

• God’s omnipotence is limited.
• He created the universe this way, so it can support free, rational creatures.
• Self- imposed limitation so we could have free will.
• God is still all powerful because only God can limit his own power.

Question 7

Macquarie:

Answer 7

-God is not constrained by logic, laws of nature or physics.
- He chooses to limit his power out of love for humanity.
- Doesn’t want to restrict or intervene.
- When speaking of God’s power, we do so as an analogy. We are comparing God’s power to our power.
- Can never be the same because God is infinitely greater than us.