Is Omnipotence Possible?

The issue of God's alleged omnipotence is one that can get Christians riled up very quickly.  On one hand, many seem to view a God who is anything less than omnipotent--capable of doing anything--as not being God at all, yet they can have great difficulty answering questions about this alleged omnipotence.  At the point that they realize the indefensibility of the concept of an omnipotent being they may resign hope of understanding God's nature for the afterlife.  Or they may claim that God can never be understood, as if that proposition actually resolves the impossibility of omnipotence as often defined.

Omnipotence, if defined as the ability to do anything, is impossible because it would allow for contradictions to be possible--when contradictions are by their very nature objectively impossible.  What are some things that God cannot do or bring about?  God cannot create a married bachelor or a being that is both conscious and unconscious; he cannot make something exist and not exist simultaneously, nor can he do or be anything other than what his own nature permits.  He cannot both be perfectly holy and engage in or instruct someone to sin.  Likewise, he cannot bring it about that nothing is true.

Defenders of the concept of an omnipotent being
can be rationally refuted with a single question: can
God make a stone so large that he cannot move it?

Can God make a stone so large that he cannot move it?  Regardless of whether the answer is yes or no, there is something that God cannot do!  There is no way for God to be capable of doing anything, as to do so he would have to violate logic, which is inviolable.  For instance, the logical law of non-contradiction says that something cannot be and not be in the same way at the same time.  My shirt cannot be entirely blue and entirely green at the same time; I cannot be asleep and awake at the same time; a door cannot be open and closed at the same time; atheism and Christianity cannot be true at the same time; God cannot want everyone to be saved and not want everyone to be saved at the same time; I cannot be married and unmarried at the same time; I cannot speak and not speak at the same time; I cannot be both biologically alive and biologically dead at the same time.

Indeed, if someone were to say that the law of non-contradiction is false, they are only proving that it is not, for if they are correct in saying that contradictions are possible, then it must by necessity be true that contradictions are not impossible.  This is the inviolable nature of reality and one of multiple examples of how those who argue against reason must use reason to argue against what cannot be false.  And since anything that contradicts reason is by necessity false, and the existence of an omnipotent being contradicts reason, then there can be no such thing as an omnipotent being.

Does it follow, then, that it is impossible for God to exist?  Of course not!  In the Western world people have been largely conditioned to define the word "God" in a certain way, with God being commonly understood to mean a male monotheistic entity who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.  Some of these attributes seem to be taught in Scripture and some of them are not.  In short, people might assume that since what is often meant by the word God includes attributes that are impossible, there can be no way for God to exist.  But just because a certain type of deity cannot exist does not mean that no other types can.  There is a god, if by "god" one means an entity which has always existed without a beginning [1].  And so the only rational conclusion, considering the immutable facts which I have presented in this post, is that God is not omnipotent.

For some, this revelation might shatter the core of their theology.  Some may find the idea of a non-omnipotent God repulsive and unworthy of worship.  It remains true that they are basing this theological expectation and belief on an assumption, an assumption which cannot align with reality.  Anyone who asserts that a god who is not omnipotent "can't be God" commits, at the very least, the no true Scotsman fallacy, fallacy of circular reasoning, and fallacy of begging the question.  Such a person, in effect, is saying that God has a certain impossible nature, and when this claim is objectively disproven he or she responds by restating that God just can't not be omnipotent!  This person does not believe in a sound conclusion, but instead clings to a puzzle piece that does not fit the puzzle of reality before him or her.

It's time for Christians to stop presenting a straw man version of Christianity to ideological opponents of Christianity.  Not only is the idea simply incorrect, intelligent people from other philosophies like atheism will see right through the fallacies and irrationality of such a claim.  They may mistake this for actual Christianity and theism and may reject both in rejecting the concept of an omnipotent deity (which is also a fallacious response).  May these errors on both sides never occur again!


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html