Abstract
In ‘The Power of God’ (Gleeson 2010) I elaborate and defend an argument by the late D.Z. Phillips against definitions of omnipotence in terms of logical possibility. In ‘Which God? What Power? A Response to Andrew Gleeson’ (Hasker 2010), William Hasker criticizes my defense of Phillips’ argument. Here I contend his criticisms do not succeed. I distinguish three definitions of omnipotence in terms of logical possibility. Hasker agrees that the first fails. The second fails because negative properties (like disembodiedment and simplicity) do not amount to a nature that licenses the attribution of causal powers. The third fails because it does not identify actions that can be performed without a body. It cannot be saved by appeal to the idea of purely mental acts.
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Notes
This is surely the unavoidable consequence of his saying that:
God is not a natural being whose ‘relevant constitution’ together with the ‘nomological generalizations governing it’ can be elucidated in scientific terms – or in any other terms, for that matter. God is the Creator who is sovereign over all such material structures (and over immaterial structures as well, if such there be) [original emphasis].
God does not have a natural constitution or an immaterial (presumably supernatural) one, elucidatable in scientific terms or any other. I do not see what possibilities for a constitution remain.
Similarly, if instead of saying God cannot do evil, we say he is perfectly good, this is a causal claim only in so far as we treat it as the claim he is a perfectly good agent, one with this or that power to act, which power he always uses for good. But then the power of God has to be attributed independently of his goodness.
Perhaps there are ingenious exceptions to my line of argument here: cases of causal agency within the world that do not require a constitution. But as in Section The Second Definition, I do not need to insist absolutely on the need for constitution. It is enough for my argument here that in the vast majority of cases we have no idea of what action is meant without supposing an agent with a constitution. Notice that this does not mean we have to know the details of the constitution, so I am not contradicting my disavowal of the principle – ‘[w]e are able to understand the claim that one event causes another only if we are able to specify the nature of the process by which this causation occurs’ – that Hasker attributes to me.
Thought does not have to involve language of course. A sculptor engrossed in his work may be said to be concentrating all his thought on it, though not a single word may pass through his head. We say an animal is thinking about what to do next, and so on. But tellingly, all these sorts of cases involve a body. Equally, one can sub-vocalize words, or vocalize them publicly for that matter, without thinking anything.
References
Gleeson, A. (2009). ‘My Kingdom is Not of This World’: Reflections on Archbishop Jensen’s Jesus’. Modern Believing, 50(2), 51–63.
Gleeson, A. (2010). ‘The Power of God’. Sophia, 49(4).
Gleeson, A. (2011). A frightening love: Recasting the problem of evil, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
Hasker, W. (2008). The triumph of God over evil: Theodicy for a world of suffering. Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press.
Hasker, W. (2010). ‘Which God? What Power? A response to Andrew Gleeson’. Sophia, 49(3), 433–445.
Johnson, M. (2009). Saving God: Religion after idolatry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Phillips, D. Z. (2005). The problem of evil and the problem of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
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Gleeson, A. More on the Power of God: A Rejoinder to William Hasker. SOPHIA 49, 617–629 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0225-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0225-1