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    The absolute sense of omnipotence (having the power to br... — Carmelics
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    The absolute sense of omnipotence (having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible ones) is incoherent.

    Divine Attributes
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    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.If an agent has the power to bring about a state of affairs, then it is possible that the agent brings about that state of affairs.
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    • 2.It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs, since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction.
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    • 3.It is not possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs, because a necessary state of affairs obtains whether or not anyone acts, so the counterfactual condition (that the state of affairs would have failed to obtain had the agent not acted) is false.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.The modal framework presupposed by P2 is itself contingent on human logical systems, not a constraint on divine power.
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    • 2.Descartes argued in letters to Mersenne that God's omnipotence precedes and grounds necessary truths, meaning God could have made contradictions true.
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    • 3.If God creates the laws of logic, the impossibility invoked in P2 cannot serve as an external limit on divine omnipotence without begging the question.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.P3 misconstrues the relevant counterfactual by assuming necessary truths are metaphysically independent of divine will.
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    • 2.If divine voluntarism is true, necessary states of affairs hold only because God continuously sustains them, making divine agency causally relevant to their obtaining.
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    • 3.An omnipotent God who actively upholds necessary truths thereby 'brings them about' in a sense that P3's counterfactual analysis fails to capture.
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    Topics

    Divine Attributes

    Related

    An omnipotent God who actively upholds necessary truths thereby 'brings them abo...Descartes argued in letters to Mersenne that God's omnipotence precedes and grou...If God creates the laws of logic, the impossibility invoked in P2 cannot serve a...If an agent has the power to bring about a state of affairs, then it is possible...
    +6 moreShow less
    If divine voluntarism is true, necessary states of affairs hold only because God...It is not possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs, bec...It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs, s...P3 misconstrues the relevant counterfactual by assuming necessary truths are met...The modal framework presupposed by P2 is itself contingent on human logical syst...Therefore, it is impossible for an agent to bring about either a necessary or an...

    Similar

    Divine omnipotence can be characterized as God's ability to bring abou...85%Divine omnipotence is equivalent to God's ability to bring about anyth...84%An omnipotent agent is not required to be able to bring about impossib...84%God's omnipotence is properly defined as the ability to do anything th...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: omnipotence
    View source passageHide passage
    One sense of ‘omnipotence’ is, literally, that of having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible states of affairs. Descartes seems to have had such a notion (Meditations, Section 1). Yet, Aquinas and Maimonides held the view that this sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Their view can be defended as follows. It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs (e.g., that there is a shapeless cube), since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction (see A...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit