Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
12It c annot be replied that the question whic h sets this paradox is not a proper
question. It would make perfectly good sense to say that a human mec hanic has
made a mac hine whic h he c annot c ontrol: if there is any diffic ulty about the
quest ion it lies in t he not ion of omnipot enc e it self.
This, inc identally, shows that although we have approac hed this paradox from
t he free will t heory, it is equally a problem for a t heologic al det erminist. No one
thinks that mac hines have free will, yet they may well be beyond the c ontrol of
t heir makers. The determinist might reply that anyone who makes anything
determines its ways of acting and so determines its subsequent behaviour: even
the human mec hanic does this by his choice of mat erials and st ruc t ure for his
mac hine, though he does not know all about either of these: the mec hanic thus
determines, though he may not foresee, his mac hine’s ac tions. And since God is
omnisc ient, and sinc e his c reation of things is total, he both determines and
foresees t he ways in whic h his c reat ures will ac t. We may grant t his, but it is beside
the point. The question is not whether God originally determined the future actions
of his c reatures, but whether he c an subsequently c ontrol their ac tions, or whether
he was able in his original c reation to put things beyond his subsequent c ontrol.
Even on det erminist princ iples t he answers ‘Y es’ and ‘No’ are equally irrec onc ilable
with God’s omnipotenc e.
Before suggesting a solution of this paradox, I would point out that there is a
parallel Paradox of Sovereignt y. Can a legal sovereign make a law rest ric t ing it s
own fut ure legislat ive power? For example, c ould t he Brit ish parliament make a law
forbidding any future parliament to soc ialize banking, and also forbidding the future
repeal of t his law it self? Or c ould t he Brit ish parliament , whic h was legally
sovereign in Aust ralia in, say, 1899, pass a valid law, or series of laws, whic h made
it no longer sovereign in 1933? Again, neither the affirmative nor the negative
answer is really satisfactory. If we were to answer ‘Yes’, we should be admitting the
validit y of a law whic h, if it were ac t ually made, would mean t hat parliament was
no longer sovereign. If we were to answer ‘No’, we should be admitting that there
is a law, not logic ally absurd, whic h parliament c annot validly make, t hat is, t hat
parliament is not now a legal sovereign. T his paradox c an be solved in t he following
way. We should distinguish between first order laws, that is laws governing the
ac tions of individuals and bodies other than the legislature, and sec ond order laws,
t hat is laws about laws, laws governing t he ac t ions of t he legislat ure it self.
Correspondingly, we should distinguish between two orders of sovereignty, first
order sovereignt y (sovereignt y (1)) whic h is unlimit ed aut horit y t o make first order
laws, and second order sovereignty (sovereignty (2)) whic h is unlimit ed aut horit y
to make second order laws. If we say that parliament is sovereign we might mean
that any parliament at an y time has sovereignty (1), or we might mean that
parliament has both sovereignity (1) and sovereignity (2) at present, but we c annot
without c ontradic tion mean both that the present parliament has sovereignit y (2)
and that every parliament at every time has sovereignity (1), for if the present
parliament has sovereignty (2) it may use it to take away the sovereignty (1) of
lat er parliament s. What the paradox show is that we c annot asc ribe t o any
c ontinuing institution legal sovereignty in an inc lusive sense.