On The Omnipotent Dance of Philosophy, and the Usefulness of the Claims of the Believing Community

Philosophers and thinkers have been contemplating, theorizing, arguing and pontificating on “God’s omnipotence” for centuries.  According to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, omnipotence speaks of maximal greatness or maximal power (Hoffman, 1). Morris begins his reasoning in A Modern Discussion of Divine Omnipotence with Jeremiah 32:27 (Morris, 402).  The passage was intended to be an expression, of God, to Jeremiah, for comfort; comfort for Jeremiah concerning God’s ability to handle whatever Jeremiah had to face.  The passage is a passage of comfort based on competence; it is not a passage intended to elucidate the extent to which God is with, or without limit in his acts, or power.  Morris observes that the passage makes the claim that God is “all powerful” or “almighty,” (Morris, 402) but that notion is abstract and lacks precision.  In an effort to find clarity and resolution on the matter, philosophers have tried to find universal definitions that work.  Early on, Aquinas, for example, attempted to reconcile Aristotelian perspectives of the universe with scriptural claims, in the hopes of creating an elegant rendering of scriptural truths which satisfied philosophic inquiries.  He, in a sense, attempted to reframe the claims of scripture to satisfy the form of reasoning required by the philosophy with which he was familiar. Such reframing is the approach most philosophers have taken on the matter; the reframing of claims to satisfy the question.  While God, through Jeremiah, queried: “…is anything too difficult for me,” (Jer. 32:27) in an effort to bring comfort concerning his ability to intervene, philosophy begged the question, what is anything?  To satisfy the question, philosophers pondered what was possibly, or impossibly “anything” and tried to make rulings on it with the use of various forms of logic.  Simply put: scripture presented comfort; philosophy called for precision; and philosophers answered with syncretism. 

My position is: though I find the arguments of omnipotence interesting, I find them to be unnecessary and I will explain why I believe that throughout this paper.  Should I find myself pinned down to side with a view which has already been offered by someone more credible than I am, I tend to side with much of what Richard Swinburne says in his Miracles and Laws of Nature.  I do not, however, completely agree with him since I can see several problems with his position. 

Much of the apologetics concerned with the substantiation of God’s omnipotence are involved with defining and redefining terms like, “all,” “every,” “everything,” “infinite,” …etc.   By tweaking the rubric or schematic of what is feasible, various individuals have hoped to come up with a solution which satisfies: the claims of scripture, the believing community’s proclivities for orthodoxy, philosophic queries, and the naysayers.  If one starts by defining God’s omnipotence by saying that God can do anything, meaning there exists nothing that he can’t do, one runs into the difficulties of God being incapable of not doing the impossible.  In such a case contradictions arise, and we are left with a silly portrait of a God who can’t make a rock that is too great to lift, but who must make such a rock if he is omnipotent, or who can’t produce a bachelor who is married, or some other absurd paradox.  Intuitively, at that point, we either want to conclude that God is not omnipotent, or we search for some other resolution.  As I stated earlier, such resolution is typically broached through a shift in the rules or schematic.  For example, Morris describes Kenny’s account which limits omnipotence to that which is: “…logically possible.” (Morris, 411)  Such a notion is helpful in that it seemingly removes the problem of dealing with the inconvenient difficulties of incoherent paradoxes.  What is gained, however, comes with a price. 

Morris points out that: “…it is logically possible to sin.” (Morris, 411)  In doing away with absurdity by shifting the paradigm, we have to face questions that actually matter such as God’s ability/inability to sin.  There is a dance of sorts that takes place on these matters.  The philosophic community maintains an ongoing dialogue wherein opposing sides compete to have final resolution.  So the next dance step, as it were, would be to reframe, yet again, what “all powerful” can mean without violating rules of logic. Such a reframing would be a development in the area of what is “logically possible.” People like Aquinas and Swinburne have weighed in on the debate.  Swinburne, in particular, has made some insightful contributions, taking the conversation into the realm of miracles.  In the next paragraph I will discuss Swinburne’s view to a certain extent.  First, it should be mentioned that the cost of the “philosophic dance” is a divergence from the original intent of either the text or the original intent of the topic.  Take the above example for instance; we go from God reaching out in a statement of comfort, and end up in a discussion of miracles.  The dance takes us from comfort, to miracles, with omnipotence in the middle. 

Richard Swinburne brought the idea of miracles to the discussion of omnipotence.  Assuming that the definition of a miracle is a “violation of the law of nature,” (Swinburne, 424) Swinburne attempted to reframe the notion.  He observes that miracles are perhaps not a violation of laws of nature, but rather, are the fulfillment of greater, less observed laws.  Swinburne put it like this: “When an event apparently violates such laws, the appearance may arise simply because no one has thought of the true law which could explain the event, or, while they have thought of it, it is so complex relative to the data as rightly to be dismissed before even being tested, or too complex to be adopted without further testing and the tests too difficult in practice to carry out.” (Swinburne, 428)  What Swinburne was getting at can be exemplified with the concept of flight.  Imagine that one had never witnessed an airplane in flight nor heard of a flying machine.  That person, upon witnessing, for the first time, an airplane in flight, might think him/herself to be witnessing a violation of the laws of gravity and consider the event to be a miracle.  Swinburne would argue that the airplane was not violating the laws of nature at all, it was, rather, adhering to other, less familiar laws, such as thrust and lift.  He would also claim that it is mankind’s proclivity to settle with the easiest reasonable answer.  Not ever having been introduced to thrust and lift, one would likely assume a miracle had taken place before he or she considered looking for those laws with which to explain the phenomenon. 

Swinburne would argue that God’s omnipotence should not be framed by what God can or can’t do in theory, but rather, to what he can and actually does do, or at least, what the claims of the believing community insist he has done and will do.  Further, he would claim that what God does do is plausible because it is always in accordance with the laws of nature whether or not we realize it. It is on this point which I gravitate toward Swinburne’s position.  It is also upon this point that his position becomes vulnerable. 

It is convenient to hold the stance that there is an unknown, reasonable explanation for everything to which we don’t have a ready explanation, but there is no way to test such a notion.  It can be said that the resurrection of Christ was a miracle, and that there is an explanation to which we are not privy.  One can postulate that Christ suffered from a temporary condition which gave all appearance of death but was not death.  One can also theorize some other explanation. The problem, however, with Swinburne’s method is threefold.  First, in the case in which Christ actually rose from the dead, in a miraculous way, which is in accordance with the claims of the believing community for centuries, and which can’t be proven or disproven, Swinburne is simply wrong.  Secondly, in a case where Swinburne would be correct; where some condition mimicked death and resurrection, there is no way to prove his position to be true; there would be no satisfactory resolution.  We are left with convenient speculation.  Thirdly, Swinburne’s position requires the same kind of faith he tried to circumvent by giving natural answers.  He would have us always believing that what we see and can’t explain has a natural answer even if we can’t know it, and even if we don’t have sufficient precedence to reasonably believe it.   

Earlier I stated that I gravitated toward Swinburne’s position.  Where I find common ground with him is at the point at which he seeks to keep things in the realm of what God actually does, and away from senseless theoreticals about what he may or may not be able to do.  Admittedly, we can’t say with certitude that God has done anything, however, I propose that we stick to what has been claimed of him by the believing community.  Though I respect the elegance with which Swinburne attempts to reframe the matter, I see its vulnerability.  Swinburne’s vulnerability, however, is not the biggest problem.  The discussion, at large, is a bigger problem.

Consider for a moment that the traditional renderings of the believing community are true.  In such a case, all of the hypotheticals are useless and gain us no ground in understanding the world around us, nor are they helpful in substantiating the need for philosophic discourse.  In such a case, God’s action in space time history does not need the assistance of theory.  Furthermore, should such the case be true, there would be greater gain from gleaning from what has actually taken place than there would be from speculating about that which could or could not happen.  It would be sufficient to say that God’s omnipotence included whatever has been claimed.  Perhaps, from this, we could take away some kind of comfort as was intended by such claims in the first place. 

Now consider that there is no God, and subsequently, there are no miracles; there is no omnipotence.  In such a case, it is useless to theorize about what  “is not” except to get a better grasp of what “is” from an antithetical form.  Since, however, one would only be theorizing about what something that doesn’t exist was capable or incapable of, what actually “is” would benefit little.  Such theorizing would be akin to two schoolchildren arguing over the precise speed at which Wonder Woman’s invisible jet could find its maximum. 

I maintain that more often than not, we have a zero sum gain from the philosophic dance which takes us away from what was claimed by the believing community in the first place.  Whether or not there is a God, the believing community seems to gain inspiration from their belief(s). The syncretism of claim plus philosophy takes away the magic of the claim and replaces it with implausible postulations. I understand that my stance is bold and on the fringe.  I understand that the weakness of such a stance is that it is banked on the goodness of the believing community, and the trust that they are getting the story straight.  Earlier I criticized Swinburne for requiring the same kind of faith he tried to circumvent.  In turn, my stance requires the same kind of faith with which I accused Swinburne.  On the other hand, all stances end with the need for faith, for even evidential claims must establish their believers’ trust before they are accepted.  Swinburne’s issue wasn’t the matter of faith itself, but rather, landing back at faith after having tried to escape it.  Swinburne at least attempts to keep the dance in the realm of what is real and explainable rather than into the realm of the absurd. 

 

 

 

Works Cited Page

Hoffman, Joshua. "Omnipotence." Stanford University. Stanford University, 21 May         2002. Web. 13 May 2015. .

Morris, Thomas V. "Chapter 39: A Modern Discussion of Divine Omnipotence.”   Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.     4014. Print.

Swinburne, Richard “Chapter 41: Miracles and Laws of Nature.” Philosophy of Religion:  A Guide and Anthology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.           4014. Print.