Abstract
In this paper, I argue that the supposition of divine omnipotence entails a contradiction: omnipotence both must and must not be intrinsic to God. Hence, traditional theism must be rejected. To begin, I separate out some theoretical distinctions needed to inform the discussion. I then advance two different arguments for the conclusion that omnipotence must be intrinsic to God; these utilise the notions of essence and aseity. Next, I argue that some necessary conditions on being omnipotent are extrinsic, and that this means omnipotence cannot be intrinsic to God. I consider three different ways of resolving this conflict, but contend that each is unsuccessful. Before concluding, I explain why the type of strategy used to resolve the traditional paradoxes of omnipotence cannot be successfully employed against the paradox presented here.
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Notes
More on this in “The Argument” section in An Argument From Essence and “The Argument” section in An Argument From Aseity.
I take these terms (i.e., the ‘global’ and ‘local’ notions of intrinsic) from I. L. Humberstone (1996).
More contentious examples involve disjunctive properties such as being female or an uncle (which is intrinsic to all females but extrinsic to all uncles). I say these examples are contentious since one may reasonably deny that there really are disjunctive properties corresponding to disjunctive predicates.
I take this example from Ross Cameron (2009).
Here’s another reason why duplication may not be the best way to understand intrinsicness: duplicates are defined as individuals who have all their intrinsic properties in common. One might try to patch up the duplication criterion by explicating duplication in terms of the sharing of perfectly natural properties (as Langton and Lewis (1998) do), or in terms of the sharing of qualitative properties. However, it might be difficult to articulate these notions without appealing to intrinsicness.
Though, it may be true that all intrinsic properties are compatible with loneliness.
In places, philosophers of religion have employed Kim’s loneliness criterion as a test for intrinsicness, and have therefore been too quick to infer that certain properties are intrinsic to God. For example, Leftow (2012a: 176) claims that we can infer that deity is intrinsic from the simple fact that God could possess it while existing unaccompanied: ‘Deity is intrinsic, if the West has its content roughly right, for the West holds that God could have been divine even if he had created nothing at all, and so nothing outside Him is necessary for His being divine.’
I use the word ‘surroundings’ here quite loosely, and for want of a better term. I do not mean ‘surroundings’ to be understood in a purely spatiotemporal sense. For the purposes of the discussion, I will stipulate that something’s surroundings, or environment, includes all (and only) the conditions that hold true of things distinct from it or any of its parts. Thus, if God exists, or if there are, e.g., Platonic Forms, or abstract laws of nature, these will be classed as part of my environment.
I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for this journal for prompting me to make the points made in this section more explicit. Thanks also to one of the reviewers for making the suggestions expressed in (4) and (5) below.
A counter-possible is a counterfactual conditional whose antecedent clause involves an impossible state of affairs.
Two facts, F1 and F2 may be intensionally equivalent (any metaphysically possible world in which F1 obtains may be a world in which F2 obtains, and vice versa), but ‘F1 metaphysically depends upon F2’ may be true while ‘F2 metaphysically depends upon F1’ may be false, and vice-versa. For example, the fact that Socrates exists is intensionally equivalent to the fact that {Socrates} exists, but while the fact that {Socrates} exists metaphysically depends upon the fact that Socrates exists, the converse is not true. More on this below.
A hyperintensional account of intrinsicality is also given in Cameron (2009).
Historically, it’s been most common to understand the doctrine of divine immutability as covering all and only God’s intrinsic properties. Traditionally, immutability requires that God undergoes no intrinsic (real, non-Cambridge) change (but does not require that God undergoes no extrinsic change). (See, e.g., Gale (1986) and Leftow (2012b).) The view that immutability covers God’s perfections has also been common. Those who endorse these two traditional views implicitly accept that God’s perfections are intrinsic.
It’s important to add the ‘if it exists’ qualification so as to allow that contingent beings can have essential properties.
Indeed, Fine argues that the converse is in fact true: (metaphysical) necessity is reducible to essence.
As an exception to this see Geach (1973). Geach suggests that we refrain from ascribing to God the property of omnipotence (where omnipotence is taken to be the ability to do everything-simpliciter or everything-subject-to-certain-restrictions). Instead, Geach advocates ascribing to God the property of being almighty (which is the property of having power over all things).
Whatever the number 6 ends up being. I don’t mean to endorse Platonism about numbers.
In contrast, the relationist about spacetime believes that spacetime is nothing over and above the relations that hold between objects and events.
This is one of Sider’s own examples.
By categorical I mean ‘not-dispositional’. The distinction between categorical and dispositional properties is hard to define but, roughly, a dispositional property is one the having of which implies certain subjunctive truths, whereas a categorical property does not. No part of the discussion in this paper hinges on our drawing this distinction in a particular way. In the “Powers, Bases & Necessary Connections” section I discuss dispositions and their relation to categorical properties further.
While many pre-modern theologians endorsed DDS, and while some thus consider it a key part of traditional theism, the doctrine has come under much philosophical scrutiny in more recent times; see, e.g., Plantinga (1980). See also Brower (2008 and 2009) and Leftow (2006) for some recent attempts to make sense of the doctrine.
There’s an assumption, then, that no whole is prior to its parts. This assumption is itself metaphysically contentious; see, e.g., Schaffer (2010).
Indeed, so many are assured that there really would be a threat to God’s aseity here, that the issue of God and abstracta has recently spawned a wide array of literature (see, e.g., the entries in Gould (2014)).
Although, importantly and unlike Brower, Leftow makes sure to restrict the thesis to God’s necessary intrinsic attributes.
I’ve highlighted the phrase ‘This is true even if the circumstances obtain necessarily’ so as to draw the reader’s attention back to the points made in the “Aseity” section regarding the strength of the aseity doctrine.
Explicit endorsements of the view are also littered throughout his (2012a).
We must say ‘overall’ more powerful because some beings may be more powerful than God in some respects—e.g., in respect of their power to sin. (But that’s fine so long as no being exceeds God’s power all things considered.)
Swinburne (1994 and 2008), in advocating social trinitarianism, maintains that the coexistence of multiple omnipotent beings is possible, and each member of the trinity is omnipotent. However, in order to make sense of this, Swinburne concedes that two members of the trinity are dependent, and that all three members are confined to separate spheres of activity—ones delimited by God the Father. Swinburne (2008: 31) himself admits that there could not be two or more independent divine persons. I thus ignore what Swinburne says, since he is clearly working with a different and somewhat restricted notion of omnipotence.
None of the other divine attributes imply uniqueness, so none could fail to be intrinsic for this reason (though I leave open whether they fail for other reasons).
(iv) is needed in addition to (iii) since being overall most powerful might not be sufficient for being omnipotent.
Powers are sometimes called dispositions.
To recap, ‘categorical’ simply means not-dispositional (see note 21).
Some consider this argument unsatisfying. Attributing opium’s sleep-inducing power to its having a dormitive virtue isn’t wholly uninformative, for it does tell us rule out rival causal explanations, e.g., that in every case where opium is ingested, sleep is induced not because opium has in itself some relevant characteristic, but because God so acts to put the individual who ingests the opium to sleep. Nonetheless, even if the explanation isn’t wholly uninformative, the point still stands. The very fact that we’re still left wondering in virtue of what something has a dormitive virtue shows us that the dormitive-virtue explanation does little more than give ‘sleep-inducing-power’ another name, and tells us, in addition, that it’s possessed by opium in itself.
I say ‘ultimately’ so as to cover cases in which dispositions are grounded in other dispositions. The claim, then, is that all dispositional chains must ultimately bottom out in categorical bases.
One plausible way of viewing deity is as something like a conjunctive property that includes all God’s perfections. But as Leftow (2012a: 204–5) says, it would be a contradiction to say that deity is a conjunction including omnipotence, if deity is a base-property for omnipotence.
Leftow provides no such reasons. He merely assumes that it is, when he says ‘being made omnipotent would mean being granted a new intrinsic property in virtue of which one henceforth has that much power…In God’s case, the underlying categorical is deity.’ (2009:173) (Also, he’s assuming, without argument, Categorical Realism.)
John Hick (2006: 75) makes a similar point when addressing the suggestion that the only property essential to God is being divine. Hick says divinity can’t consist merely in being divine, since this flies in the face of the traditional Christian view and robs divinity of its content.
To show just how little attention philosophers have paid to the issues here discussed, I will note that some have even defined omnipotence in purely extrinsic terms. See, e.g., Taliaferro (1983: 99): ‘God’s omnipotence should be analyzed as God being such that it is metaphysically impossible for there to be a being with a greater scope of power.’
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to audiences at the Leeds Centre for Metaphysics and Mind Seminar, the 3rd Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar, and the Religious Studies at 50 Conference for their critical engagement with earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks to Dani Adams, Jonathan Banks, Michael Bench-Capon, Robin Le Poidevin, Robert Pezet, Jon Robson, and Scott Shalkowski for much helpful discussion.
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Adams, S. A New Paradox of Omnipotence. Philosophia 43, 759–785 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9601-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9601-y