Perhaps Omnipotence Means That God Can Do Absolutely Anything, Including The Impossible And The Self-Contradictory

Question 1

Descartes concluded that God can do anything logically impossible, making a square circle or 2+2 to equal 5 because he’s the supreme perfection and has no ? The laws of maths exist because God created them. Descartes rejected other understandings of omnipotence because they put limits on the greatness of God and dishonoured God’s greatness.

Answer 1

Limitations.

Question 2

For Descartes, God could be capable of doing evil (because of his omnipotence), and incapable (because of his love) at the same time. We’re limited by logic and by the smallness of human understanding. God can see how to be self-contradictory because he’s ?

Answer 2

Omnipotent.

Question 3

God can do anything; but logical contradictions aren’t ‘things’. It’s not a lack of power that prevents god from making a square circle but this is ?

Answer 3

Nonsense.

Question 4

Descartes’ view also turns God into an unpredictable and arbitrary ? If God’s really all-powerful in the sense that he can do anything at all, then God has to be capable of doing evil, of being unforgiving, of turning against us, and of failing.

Answer 4

Tyrant.

Question 5

Descartes’ view creates difficulties for theodicy (attempts to justify God in the face of the existence of evil). If Descartes’ correct, the existence of evil in the world becomes something that God could change if he wanted to, but which he chooses to inflict on us even though there’s no ? for it.

Answer 5

Justification.

Question 6

Theodicies put forward by most Christian thinkers, like ?, ? and ? ? suggest God couldn’t act in any other way than the way he does without depriving us of our free will.

Answer 6

Irenaeus.
Augustine.
John Hick.

Question 7

Descartes’ understanding of absolute omnipotence isn’t wholly supported by the Bible. Numbers ?:? Claims that because God’s God and not human, he can’t fail in some of the ways that humans fail: “God isn’t human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind”.

Answer 7

23.

18.

Question 8

Hebrews 6:18 states that “it’s impossible for God to ?”.

Answer 8

Lie.

Question 9

The Bible emphasises the greatness and power of God’s on a scale way beyond nothing that humans can do or imagine, but it doesn’t necessarily support ? idea that literally nothing’s impossible for God.

Answer 9

Descartes’.