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The Paradox of Omnipotence Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

J. L. Cowan
J. L. Cowan*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Extract

  • A. (1) Either God can create a stone which He cannot lift, or He cannot create a stone which He cannot lift.

  • (2) If God can create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent (since He cannot lift the stone in question).

  • (3) If God cannot create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent (since He cannot create the stone in question).

  • (4) Therefore, God is not omnipotent.

In a paper published in Analysis I tried to show (a) that any attempt to find something wrong with all arguments of the general form of A above, any attempt to resolve the “paradox,” must fail, (b) that the reason these attempts must fail is that at least some arguments of this form are essentially sound, and (c) that the only thing which makes these arguments seem paradoxical, their conclusion to the effect that God is not omnipotent, is, like at least some versions of the arguments to this conclusion, quite correct.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , March 1974 , pp. 435 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1974

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References

1 “The Paradox of Omnipotence,” Analysis, Vol. 25 (Supplement), No. 3 (January 1965), pp. 102-108.

2 “The Paradox of the Stone,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXVI, No. 1 (January 1967), pp. 74-79.

3 “Omnipotence,” Canadian journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1, No. 2 (December, 1971), pp. 245-247.

4 “Mr. Keene on Omnipotence,” Mind, Vol. LXX, No. 278 (April, 1961), pp. 249-250.

5 “Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXII, No. 2 (April, 1963), pp. 221-223.

6 Summa Theologia, Part, I, Q. 25, Art. 3.

7 For references see Murphy, W. P. “Educational Freedom in the Courts,” A.A.U.P. Bulletin,Vol. XLIX, No.4 (December, 1963), pp. 309–327.Google Scholar