Does God’s Omnibenevolence Contradict His Omnipotence?

From guest blogger, TJ.

If God cannot do certain things because he is “all-good” than it seems that he is not all-powerful.  There are a certain number of things that it seems God cannot do.  God cannot sin therefore he is not all-powerful. 

One might argue, God is all powerful therefore he can do all “doable” things.  God is also all-good therefore bad things are not “doable.”  Thus, God’s omnibenevolence does not contradict his omnipotence. 

However, one could now argue that the fact that God cannot do bad things takes away from his free will.  And it seems that a being with free will is somewhat “more good” than a being without free will.  For example, as we discussed a person with a switch in their head that keeps them from doing bad doesn’t seem as good as a person that has no switch but chooses do good over bad.  Why?  Because the person with the choice seems to have more power.  He can do bad things as well as good things (he can do more).  Also, he has the choice and chooses to good.  That seems “more good” than the person that can only do good.

I would argue that God does have free will, and that he is omnibenevolent and omnipotent.  He is capable of doing good things as well bad things therefore God does have free will and he is omnipotent.  And the fact that God chooses to do good things over bad things makes him “more good.”  However, God does sometimes choose to do evil.  This does not make him any less good because these evils are necessary for there to be good.  They are morally justified.  In order fot there to be good there must be bad.  There is always a purpose.  

God's Omnipotence and A Worry in Considering Possible Worlds

From guest blogger, Lindsey.

There are several ways that one can go about trying to prove God’s omnipotence, but with each argument in favor of it, there seems to be a counter-argument as well. In Concerning the Preservation of God’s Omnipotence, Steinberg states that,

The doctrine of God’s omnipotence would appear to imply that God is able to do anything. Numerous attempts to refute this doctrine have been made by offering purported examples of things that God cannot do…

1.      God cannot do what is logically impossible

2.      God cannot do things that are incompatible with being essentially omnipotent

3.      God cannot do things that are incompatible with being essentially omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent” (Steinberg 2007).

One may argue with the third point on a definitional basis. By saying that God cannot do things that are incompatible with these “omni-X” characteristics, it is implying that there is something that God cannot do. This is in tension with the initial statement that God’s omnipotence makes Him able to do anything. If being omnibenevolent means that He cannot sin, it would seem that He cannot be both omnibenevolent and omnipotent.

God does not sin in this world but does this mean that He does not or He cannot? Those wishing to argue the point say that they cannot imagine a possible world where God would, for example, commit a murder—something that could be said to be a sin across the board. They would argue that there is no possible world in which God would do this act because it is so bad that it would always constitute a sin. Again, if God were to sin He would not be considered omnibenevolent which is thought to be a necessary characteristic of His. Because there is no possible world that one can imagine, the argument says that He must not be able to sin.

I argue that this ‘possible worlds’ scenario can get out of hand. By saying “I can imagine a possible world where X” or “I cannot imagine a possible world where X” one lets their imagination—which is seemingly limitless—do all the work rather than actual logic. Does it not seem possible that one imagines a possible world where our logic does not apply and 2+2 could equal 7? It does not make sense in our world but a world where this is so could feasibly be imagined. Similarly, perhaps we can imagine a possible world where God commits a murder but it is not a sin. I think that rather than trying to imagine possible worlds where something may or may not happen we ought to look to this world to form arguments for God’s existence. We are not attempting to prove His existence in another world but in this one. By getting caught up in thinking about what could be the case in possible worlds and using these conceptions (often without any grounding in reality) the usage of logic and experiences to prove the existence of God falls by the wayside. The possible worlds objection may be helpful in some cases, but one ought not get carried away with using it because there is always a possible world that could be imagined to disprove an argument—but does it really do any work if such a world does not exist anywhere but in one’s imagination? 

Incompatibility of Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence

From guest blogger, Timothy.

Since our discussion in lecture last Thursday, I’ve been considering how one might reconcile traditional theology with the potential incompatibility between God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence. No answer I can think of succeeds in making these two concepts compatible. The problem stems from God being all powerful, and thus having the capacity to do evil things, and God being all good, and not ever actually doing anything evil. If we take these two attributes to necessary to God being God, then we run into the modal issues we discussed.

We might say that God is able to do evil, he simply never chooses the evil action. But if God is free to choose the evil action, there must be some possible world where God does take the evil action. However, if God’s omnibenevolence is a necessary property, it must be the case that God never does anything evil in all possible worlds. This creates a contradiction suggests that it cannot be the case that both omnipotence and omnibenevolence are necessary properties of God. Either God is all powerful and can perform evil actions, or God is all good and lacks the capacity to perform evil actions.

Another move that was suggested in lecture was to adopt a Divine Command Theory of morality. I’m not as familiar with modern conceptions of Divine Command Theory, but the basic theory runs into problems of moral arbitrariness, which is what allows it to potentially reconcile the problem of omnipotence and omnibenevolence. However, I feel most religious believers would want to resist a claim that morality is arbitrary. Again, we can either accept that whatever God does in any possible world is what is morally right and there is no necessary moral truths, or we accept that omnipotence and omnibenevolence is not compatible.

One final move we might take is to say that God is not the type of being that can perform evil actions. This seems to be in line with the view of omnipotence that says a being can do anything that is in its power to do. This doesn’t seem to diminish God’s power with regard to any other being. Consider the heavy stone or, as I prefer, a more absurd example: can God cook a chili so spicy that He can’t eat it? It’s relatively uncontroversial that God isn’t the type of being that eats chili. And I think creating a universe makes God a more powerful being than one that cooks chili or lifts heavy stones. However, the problem here is it already seems to remove omnibenevolence as a property of God. If we say God is not the type of being that performs evil actions, it seems we would also be saying that God is not the type of being that performs moral actions. Thus, God we cannot say that God always performs good actions, just as we could not say God never performs evil actions. In this case, God’s actions would be morally neutral. Here we avoid the problem by accepting a conclusion that is not compatible with traditional theology.