goes, it does not go far enough. For not only does God now lack the power to bring about
a state of affairs (e.g., George W. Bush's not being the 54th president of the United
States) that directly conflicts with some fact wholly about the past, but he cannot now
actualize a state of affairs that both has already been actualized and is such that it cannot
be actualized again. For some states of affairs, like Franklin Roosevelt's being elected
president of the United States in 1932, are such that, once actualized, they can never be
actualized again, whereas others, like Franklin Roosevelt's being elected president of the
United States, are such that they can be actualized more than once. So, perhaps we should
say that for God to be omnipotent is for God to have the power to bring about any state of
affairs that is contingent, not inconsistent with some fact wholly about the past, and not
already actualized and such that it can never be actualized again. This broader account
accords with our sense that God cannot now actualize dated past facts such as Franklin
Roosevelt's being elected president of the United States in 1932.
It would be a relief now to declare victory on what it is for God to be
end p.
omnipotent, and move on. But there are two further issues in the account of God's
absolute power that need to be considered. First, suppose we humans sometimes are free
to perform some action and free not to perform it. Suppose, for example, that Jones
causes his decision to change jobs while having at the time the power not to cause that
decision. In short, Jones freely decides to change jobs. Is it in God's power to cause
Jones's freely deciding to change jobs? It does not seem so. God can, of course, cause
Jones to decide to change jobs. But if God does so, then Jones lacks the power not to
decide to change jobs: Jones doesn't freely decide to change jobs. This means that,
although omnipotent, God cannot cause Jones's freely deciding to change jobs, or any
other free acts of beings other than himself. At best, God can arrange for Jones to be in a
situation in which God knows that Jones will freely decide to change jobs. So, we have to
add the free decisions of agents other than God to the list of states of affairs that God,
although omnipotent, cannot directly cause to be actual.
The second issue concerns the fact that God lacks powers with respect to what actions he
himself performs. That God lacks certain powers with respect to himself follows from the
fact that God is essentially morally perfect, essentially all-knowing, and essentially
eternal. Because it is an impossibility for a being whose very nature is to be eternal,
morally perfect, and all-knowing to cease to exist (to not be eternal), to perform a morally
wicked act (to not be morally perfect), or to believe to be true something that is false (to
not be all-knowing), God's infinite power cannot be understood as implying that God can
do what is morally wrong, make a mistake due to ignorance, or commit suicide. Because
our powers do extend to such activities, it may appear that God's power is limited by
virtue of some of his other essential attributes.
One way of understanding the issue before us is to consider the difference between
a. God's causing there to be a square circle
and
b. God's causing there to be an innocent person who suffers intensely for no good reason
Both (a) and (b) are impossible states of affairs. But (a) is impossible because what God
is said to cause is itself an impossible state of affairs (something's being a square circle),