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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    321,452
    Perspectives
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Divine omnipotence is equivalent to God's ability to bring about anything that is good.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Omnipotence classically entails power over logical possibilities, not merely morally permissible ones (Descartes, AT VII 432).
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    • 2.Restricting divine power to 'the good' conflates God's moral nature with God's metaphysical capacity, collapsing two distinct attributes.
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    • 3.A being whose power is bounded by goodness lacks the ability to do evil, making omnipotence derivative of omnibenevolence rather than a primary attribute.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Peter Damian himself argued God can restore virginity or undo the past, acts whose goodness is not self-evident, suggesting power exceeds 'the good' as defined by rational ethics.
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    • 2.If 'good' is defined by God's will (divine command theory), then equating omnipotence with doing good is circular and uninformative about God's actual power.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Divine omnipotence can be characterized as God's ability to bring about anything that God can will.
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    • 2.God can will anything that is good.
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    • 3.God cannot will anything that is evil.
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