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Divine omnipotence and moral perfection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2010

ANDREW LOKE
ANDREW LOKE*
Affiliation:
Department of Education & Professional Studies, King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, Waterloo Road, London SE1 9NH
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Divine omnipotence entails that God can choose to do evil (even though He will not) by taking up a human nature. In showing others by way of example how temptations are to be overcome, His exposure to evil desires in such circumstances is consistent with moral perfection. The view that ‘God has the greatest power and is morally perfect simpliciter’, is religiously more adequate than ‘God has great power and is essentially morally perfect’. The essentiality of other divine attributes to God is discussed, and rebuttals to Anselmian arguments are offered.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 525 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

Notes

1. For some significant examples, see Thomas Flint & Alfred J. Freddoso ‘Maximal power’, in Alfred J. Freddoso (ed.) The Existence and Nature of God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 81–113; Edward Wierenga The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); Joshua Hoffman & Gary S. Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2006 edn; Wielenberg, Erik ‘Omnipotence again’, Faith and Philosophy, 7 (2000), 26–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. For criticisms against the first three, see Oppy, Graham ‘Omnipotence’, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 71 (2005), 59–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For criticisms against the fourth, see Morriston, Wes ‘Omnipotence and the power to choose: a reply to Wielenberg’, Faith and Philosophy, 19 (2002), 358–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See e.g. Brian Leftow ‘Omnipotence’, in Thomas Flint & Michael Rea (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

4. For a discussion of the difficulties involved, see the literature cited in nn. 1, 2, and 3.

5. The concept of ‘maximal power’ is taken from Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’, though my understanding of this concept differs from theirs (see 11f).

6. Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’. ‘Universal possibilism’ is famously argued by Descartes, and it continues to have appeal to believers of a more fideistic inclination; Gijsbert van den Brink ‘Capable of anything? The omnipotence of God’, in idem & Marcel Sarot (eds) Understanding the Attributes of God (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1999), 148–149; idem, Almighty God: A Study of the Doctrine of Divine Omnipotence (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1993), 95. Brink notes that Descartes' treatment of this is scattered over some eight letters which Descartes wrote to various persons and his Replies to Two Sets of Objections against his Meditations. See also Meditations 1 from his Meditations on First Philosophy. For philosophers who have defended a similar view recently, see Goldstick, Danny ‘Could God make a contradiction true?’, Religious Studies, 26 (1990), 377–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Earl Conee ‘The possibility of power beyond possibility’, in James Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 5: Philosophy of Religion (Atascadero CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co., 1991), 447–473.

7. Cf. Geach, Peter ‘Omnipotence’, Philosophy, 48 (1973), 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Thomas Morris Our Idea of God (South Bend IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 67.

9. Ibid., 66–67; contra Goldstick ‘Could God make a contradiction true?’, 383–384.

10. William Rowe ‘Divine power, goodness, and knowledge’, in William Wainwright (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 17–18.

11. Ibid., 17–18.

12. Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’.

13. Rowe ‘Divine power’, 18. Cf. Morriston, who referring to Plato's demiurge and our pre-philosophical concept of omnipotence, complains that ‘the idea of God's having to work with a stock of possible persons which have various dispositional properties that limit his power sounds a bit too much like the idea of a finite limited craftsman who does the best he can with the admittedly recalcitrant materials at his disposal’; Morriston, Wes ‘Is Plantinga's God omnipotent?’, Sophia, 23:3 (1984), 45–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 55. In response, this complaint seems to presuppose a pre-philosophical and universal possibilist's concept of an unlimited craftsman, where God is supposedly able to determine and hence take away human libertarian free actions while at the same time give human libertarian free actions! Unlike Plato's demiurge who has to deal with eternally existing materials, the existence of humans are not eternal but dependent on the free choice of God who is pleased to bring them into existence.

In relation to the issue of free will, it has been argued that the presence of evil is inconsistent with a perfect good and omnipotent God (e.g. Mackie, J. L. ‘Evil and omnipotence’, Mind, 65 (1955), 200–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morriston, Wes ‘Power, liability and the free-will defence: a reply to Mawson’, Religious Studies, 41 (2005), 71–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For responses, see e.g. Alvin Plantinga God Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1974); Stewart Goetz ‘The argument from evil’, in William Lane Craig & J. P. Moreland (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 449–497.

14. Since, necessarily, an omnipotent agent can move any stone, no matter how massive, a stone too heavy for him to lift is impossible. But, as we have seen, an omnipotent agent is not required to be able to bring about an impossible state of affairs; Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’, see also Rowe ‘Divine power’, 19–20.

15. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 2, 25, 17.

16. It should be noted that Anselm was not the first to suggest such a view of God's omnipotence. Augustine, for example, asserts that God cannot die, err, etc.; Augustine The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York NY: Random House, 1950), 156–157.

17. Keith Yandell ‘Divine necessity and divine goodness’, in Thomas Morris (ed.) Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 314–315, 318.

18. That is, the being who holds the title ‘God’; this qualification applies for the rest of this paper.

19. Brink ‘Almighty God’, 181; Karl Barth Church Dogmatics, II, part 1, T. H. L. Parker & Geoffrey William Bromiley (trans.) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1957), 587.

20. Cited in Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’; See also Richard Swinburne The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 151; Brink ‘Capable of anything?’, 181; Stephen Davis Logic and the Nature of God (London: Macmillan, 1983), 73–76.

21. Rowe ‘Divine power’, 19–20.

22. Ibid.

23. Carter, W. R. ‘Impeccability revisited’, Analysis, 45 (1985), 52–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Thomas Morris Anselmian Explorations: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 70–75.

25. Morriston ‘Power, liability and the free-will defence’, 73, who points out that this issue is the heart of the disagreement between himself and Mawson in their recent exchange in Religious Studies concerning God's omnipotence and goodness.

26. Aquinas asserts that given God's knowledge of the future, it follows that He cannot do what He has foreknown that He will not do, or abstain from doing what He has foreknown that He will do; Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 2, 25, 25. This is true, but it does not necessarily imply theological fatalism, according to which God's foreknowledge determines His choices such that He has no (libertarian) free choice. Against the implication of theological fatalism, one can assert the Ockhamic thesis that foreknowledge is dependent on what God will freely choose to do (not vice versa), and foreknowledge has no causal influence on what He will freely choose to do; see William Lane Craig & J. P. Moreland Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003), 518–521. If God foreknows that He will do A, He will do A, but He could have done not-A, in which case He would have foreknown that He would do not-A. There is a possible world in which God will do A and He foreknows that He will do A, and there is a possible world that God will do not-A and He foreknows that He will do not-A. However, there is no possible world in which God will do not-A but He foreknows that He will do A (and vice versa, this would be consistent with Aquinas's assertion).

27. Morriston, Wes ‘Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection: are they compatible?’, Religious Studies, 37 (2001), 143–160CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 156–157.

28. Idem ‘Are omnipotence and necessary moral perfection compatible?: reply to Mawson’, Religious Studies, 39 (2003), 441–449CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 441.

29. Mawson, T. J. ‘Freedom, human and divine’, Religious Studies, 41 (2005), 55–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 67.

30. This reply is not what Morriston makes in his exchange with Mawson. Morriston's own reply is that a case may perhaps be made for saying that it would not be good for God to have such a power, but on the ground marked out by Mawson there is at least as strong a case for saying that it is not good for us to have it either; Morriston ‘Power, liability and the free-will defence’, 74–75. This is related to Morriston's argument from evil (see n. 13).

31. Ibid., 74.

32. Demetrios Bathrellos The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of Saint Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 191–192.

33. Cf. Ibid.

34. Morriston ‘Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection’, 156–157.

35. For the view that God incarnate could choose to do evil in situations of temptation, see Yandell ‘Divine necessity’.

36. This objection was pointed out to me by an anonymous referee for the journal.

37. To show others by example does not imply that God would have to be exposed to all kinds of evil desires. Rather, depending on the circumstances, exposure to a few kinds of temptations would be sufficient to illustrate some general principles which are applicable to all kinds of temptations.

38. Morriston notes that his argument in his correspondence with Mawson is only problematic for the Anselmian view of God. The theist who does not hold this view can reply by simply denying that God is morally perfect in every possible world, and affirming that as long as God is morally perfect in the actual world, all is well; Morriston ‘Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection’, 158.

Metcalf, however, thinks that even affirming that God is morally perfect in the actual world will not do, because ‘moral perfection must persist in an omnipotent and omniscient being. For it is morally imperfect to choose to cease being morally perfect, and surely an omnipotent and omniscient being couldn't be taken unawares and forced or coerced into abandoning its moral perfection’; Metcalf, Thomas ‘Omniscience and maximal power’, Religious Studies, 40 (2004), 289–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 296–297. In response, the theist can affirm that God will always choose to remain morally perfect (which is what moral perfection requires), even though He is able to choose not to remain morally perfect (which is what omnipotence requires).

39. In Part I, Q25, article 3, reply to objection 2 of the Summa Theologica. Aquinas thinks that God necessarily wills Himself to be good and happy and that He cannot make Himself not to be good or happy; Summa Contra Gentiles, 2, 25, 20–22.

40. Anselm Proslogium, ch. 7.

41. Nelson Pike ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, in Paul Helm (ed.) Divine Commands and Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 72. Based on his conclusion that there is no passive potency in God, Aquinas argues further that God cannot move, cannot change, cannot fail, cannot be weary or forgetful (since weariness results from a defect of power, and forgetfulness from defect of knowledge, God having no passive potency and thus cannot change cannot possibly be subject to either), cannot be overcome or suffer violence (for these are found only in something having a movable nature), can neither repent, nor be angry or sorrowful (because all these things bespeak passion and defect); Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 2, ch. 25. In response, it has been pointed out that it is not obvious that the thesis that God is pure Act with no passive potency is true, except on the supposition that God is timeless (Richard Sturch The Word and the Christ: An Essay in Analytic Christology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 175–176), a supposition that is dubious in view of God's actions in the world and God's knowledge of tensed facts; see William Lane Craig ‘Divine eternity’, in Flint & Rea The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology.

42. William Shedd & Alan W. Gomes Dogmatic Theology (Phillipsburg NJ: P & R Publishing, 2003), 288–290.

43. Marilyn McCord Adams William Ockham, 2 vols (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 2:1160.

44. Ibid., 2:1160, 1264–1265.

45. Ibid., 2:1265.

46. David Steinmetz ‘Calvin and the absolute power of God’, in Richard Gamble (ed.) Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: A Fourteen Volume Anthology of Scholarly Articles, IX (New York NY: Garland Publishing, 1992), 7.

47. Davis, Logic, 91.

48. Ibid., 91–92.

49. Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’.

50. Morriston ‘Omnipotence and necessary moral perfection’, 156–157.

51. Senor, Thomas ‘God's goodness needs no privilege: a reply to Funkhouser’, Faith and Philosophy, 23 (2006), 423–431CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 424–426.

52. Hoffman & Rosenkrantz ‘Omnipotence’.

53. Morriston ‘Omnipotence and the power to choose’, 365.

54. Cf. Metcalf ‘Omniscience’, 290–299, who argues that given libertarian freedom God cannot bring about that ‘somebody freely learns’, whereas another being (call Jane) with all the power God has and not being omniscient can bring about that ‘somebody freely learns’ by bringing about that ‘herself (i.e. Jane) freely learns’. In response, ‘somebody freely learns’ is an imprecise description of the states of affairs in question [even though ‘we speak of “some person” doing something fairly frequently, and we are certainly aware of when this state of affairs has obtained’ (Ibid., 298); any state of affairs that anyone is able or unable to bring about should have the object (in this case, the ‘somebody’) clearly specified. Once the ‘somebody’ is specified as God who is omniscient, it follows that, since it is metaphysically impossible to increase the knowledge of an omniscient being, failing to bring about ‘an omniscient being freely learn’ should not be taken to count against omnipotence. It is interesting to note, however, that God can take up a human nature and simulate the learning experiences of humans; see Loke, Andrew ‘On the coherence of the Incarnation: the divine preconscious model’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 51 (2009), 50–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. While this means that God's actions will always be good, this does not mean that a being who has all the power God has but is not morally perfect would have more power than God, for God can choose to do all that this being does, just that He will not choose to do so. Contra Oppy (Oppy ‘Omnipotence’, 82) and Senor (Senor ‘God's goodness’, 424), who think that the inconsistency with omnipotence remains even if God is not conceived of as essentially perfect.

56. Jordan Sobel Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14–15.

57. Thomas Morris The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 134–136.

58. For criticism of the Anselmian view on this point, see Davis Logic, 95–96; Patrick Grim ‘Impossibility arguments’, in Michael Martin (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 211; Rowe ‘Divine power’, 21–23.

59. Wierenga The Nature of God, 212; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II. iii. 5.

60. A Christian who is theologically orthodox would affirm that Jesus was God (incarnate) and He was tempted according to the scriptures (e.g. Hebrews, 4.15).

61. See 8f.

62. I am grateful for the very helpful comments and assistance from Dr Alister McGrath (my doctorate supervisor at King's College London) and Mary Lim, as well as from Professor Peter Byrne and an anonymous referee for Religious Studies.