In ST I, q. 25, St. Thomas discusses God's power.

What does it mean to say God can do

anything?

Inshal Chenet
Essay C.5
Dr. Robert J. Matava

In the words of Homer Simpson “Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself

could not eat it?” Although humorous, this illustrates the fundamental problem of divine

Omnipotence. We as finite beings have a hard time picturing what it means to be All-Powerful,

and immediately there appears contradictions and paradoxes that even Homer Simpson can

notice. So how do we understand this Omnipotence? It fundamentally has to do with how we

understand “all.”

To understand how God’s power works, we must first understand why God is all-

powerful. God is the first cause of all things, through him all act is sustained. But God’s power

extends beyond even that of the material world, for God is infinite and the world is only finite.

Now the more perfect, the greater, a thing is the more power it has. Fire has power, but greater

fires have more power. God, being infinite, has infinite power. Having this infinite power is

often called Omnipotence.

Now we run into the problem of the contradictions and paradoxes. If God can do

anything he could make something so heavy he could not lift it, right? But if he is all powerful he

can lift anything. To untangle the root of this problem we must look at what we mean when we

say “all.” There are three ways we could mean God can do “all” things. First we could mean God

can do all things that any other created power can do. Second we could mean God can do all

logically possible things. Third we could mean God can do all things, the possible or the

impossible. So what do we mean?

 It must be remembered that any agent produces something proper to itself. Fire produces

heat, man produces craft, cows produce milk. Now the essence of God is existence, so what is

proper to it? Most obvious, God as first cause can do anything any created power can do, as he

holds in existence all created things and all motions of created things. But can he do more?

God is being Himself, and his power is infinite so he must be able to do all things in the

greatest way. This would seem to imply the third understanding of “all” things. But because God

is being Himself, he cannot do non-being as it is contrary to himself. “For such cannot come

under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has

not the nature of a feasible or possible thing.” So although God can do all things, there are some

things (those logically impossible things) that cannot be done. Accordingly when we say “God is

all powerful” we mean it under the second way “God can do all logically possible things” or

“God can do all things that can be done.”

Onto the various paradoxes: Can God commit a sin? To sin is to do evil, that is a lack of a

thing. This seems to fly in the face of Omnipotence itself, the question in essence is “can God

fail to do a thing?” As St. Thomas Aquinas said “[such a things is] repugnant to omnipotence.”

All the paradoxes fall in line the same way, God cannot make a bolder he could not lift, as to be

a paradox itself is a lack of being. God can do all things that can be done, not those that cannot.

So to answer the question of Mr. Simpson: “Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he

himself could not eat it?” Such a thing could not be done, and God, being perfect, cannot do that

which cannot.