DIVINE ATTRIBUTES: POWER


Readings:
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles II, chaps. 22-26
Anthony Kenny, "The Definition of Omnipotence"
Thomas P. Flint and Alfred J. Freddoso, "Maximal Power"


A. The Elements of Divine Power

St. Thomas first argues that God is omnipotent or almighty and then proceeds to say something about what an analysis of omnipotence would look like.

1. That God is omnipotent (i.e., that God's power is not limited to any particular effect) SCG II, 22:

    a. God alone can create (since only a being that has or is unparticipated being is such that its transeunt action requires nothing as a patient of that action). So everything that exists, corporeal and incorporeal, derives its being from God. But no power that produces all these effects but not from matter is determined to one particular effect. That is, if a being can produce diverse effects without making them from anything, then it is not limited to a set effect or set number of effects.

    b. God's proper effect is being (perfection) as such. So his power extends to all things that can have being and not just to this or that kind of thing.

    c. As Pure Act, God has all perfections. So He is able transmit all perfections and all combinations of compossible perfections.

    d. There are infinitely many potentialities inherent in created being; but such potentialities are not in vain or purposeless. Therefore, God can by his active power actualize all the potentialities in created things and hence is not limited to a set number of effects.

    e. If God's power were limited, this limitation would arise from one of three sources: (i) the effect's not having a similarity to the agent--but every being is as such similar to God and is his proper effect; (ii) the effect is too excellent to be produced by the agent--but God transcends all things in perfection and goodness; (iii) the effect's requiring a matter that the agent cannot act upon--but God is the cause of matter and, in addition, needs no matter to act upon.


2. Things that God can't do or make even though He is omnipotent

(NOTE: Until we get to those that involve God's will, all of these impossibilities are such that the following is true: Even if God were to will p, p would still be false.)

a. LIMITATIONS ARISING FROM GOD'S NATURE AS PURE ACT:

From the fact that God lacks passive potency, several "inabilities" with respect to acting follow:

    i. God cannot be a body.
    ii. God cannot be deprived of anything that belongs to His nature.
    iii. God cannot do anything that bespeaks a lack of power or knowledge, e.g., grow tired, forget what He knew before, etc.
    iv. God cannot be causally acted upon or suffer violence.
    v. God cannot repent (i.e., change His mind) or be angry or sorrowful. (St. Thomas cites these specifically because they are Scriptural; his point is that these can be predicated of God only metaphorically because they are like the effects brought about by a human being who is angry or sorrowful, etc.)


b. LIMITATIONS ARISING FROM THE NATURE OF WHAT IT IS IN GENERAL FOR SOMETHING TO BE MADE:

    i. God cannot make contradictories or contraries to exist at the same time.
    ii. God cannot make a thing to exist without one of its essential principles.
    iii. God cannot make a thing that violates the formal principles of all things, i.e., the principles of logic or mathematics.
    iv. God cannot make the past not to have been. (For the past is necessary, so that to make it not to have been is make it be that the past both was and was not.)


c. LIMITATIONS ARISING FROM THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF THAT WHICH IS MADE:

    i. God cannot make Himself, since it is essential to a thing which is made that it depends on another cause for its existence.
    ii.God cannot make a thing equal to Himself, since He is superior in being and perfection to anything that is created.
    iii.God cannot bring it about that a thing is preserved in being without Himself.


d. LIMITATIONS ARISING FROM THE FACT THAT CERTAIN THINGS ARE SUCH THAT GOD CANNOT WILL THEM:

(NOTE: These things are such that counterfactuals of the following form are true: If per impossibile God willed p, then p would be true.)

    i. God cannot make himself not exist or not be happy or not be good.
    ii.God cannot do evil and hence cannot sin.
    iii.God cannot fail to cause what he has willed. (Note: This is a relative or suppositional necessity. Suppose God has the power to X and God's X-ing would in these circumstances constitute the non-fulfillment of something he has willed or promised. Then it follows that God has the power to do something such that if He were to do it, He would never have willed not to do it. This is explicable on the Molinist view of providence, as is especially evident in cases in which involve the free choice of creatures.)


e. LIMITATIONS ARISING FROM THE FACT THAT GOD'S KNOWLEDGE IS INFALLIBLE:

(NOTE: These impossibilities are all on a supposition.)

    i. God cannot both foresee that he will do X and yet not do X.
    ii.God cannot both will X and do not-X.
    iii.God cannot both will X and fail to do X.


B. The Analysis of Omnipotence