PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

14/3/2021

Lecture 4

The Nature of God

GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE

• What is Omnipotence?
o All powerful. → God can do whatever He wants (‫)ﻓﻌﺎل ﻟﻤﺎ ﯾﺮﯾﺪ‬.

• Why the question: “Can God make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it?” means
God is not omnipotent?
o Because Either God cannot make the stone, or He can’t lift it.

• Difference between square circle and heavy stone

• Response of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274)
o He said that tasks cannot be self-contradictory or intrinsically impossible
‘mustahil dhati’. So, something that is logically incoherent like a ‘square-
circle’.
§ If I can’t draw a circle, it means that I don’t have the skills to draw a
circle.
§ But if I can’t draw a ‘square-circle’, it is not because I don’t have the
skill, it’s because it’s impossible anyway. → logically incoherent.
o Therefore, it is not because there is a thing that God cannot do, it is because
that something is not a thing.
§ Is it the same with saying that God cannot make a stone so heavy
He cannot lift it?
• For example, I can build a boat so heavy that I cannot lift it. So,
is this intrinsically impossible?
• Thomas Aquinas said that, my “building a boat so heavy that I
cannot lift it” is not self-contradictory because me and God are
different.
• I can easily build a boat that I cannot lift. But God is different
because He is omnipotent, He has the power to do anything.

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PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

o When we say that God is omnipotent, essentially what

we are saying is that the statement “can God make a
stone so heavy that he cannot lift it”, we are saying that
the stone is too heavy for God to lift, which means “a
stone that cannot be lifted by He who has the power to
lift anything”. → this is clearly a self-contradictory
statement.
o It is God’s omnipotence that makes the statement self-
contradictory, whereas it is not self-contradictory for me
because I am not omnipotent.
• René Descartes: Can we tie God to logic?
o Aquinas’ response is revealed the inherent self-contradictory of the question
(logically incoherent), which is why it cannot apply to God.
o We cannot tie God to logic because God is fundamentally beyond our
understanding.
o Making an unliftable stone for someone who can lift anything is contradiction.
§ If we allow this contradiction because God is beyond our
understanding (God is not subject to our laws of logic), why can’t we
make 2 contradictions possible?
• 1st contradiction → God can make an unliftable stone.
• 2nd contradiction → God can lift it.
• Harry Frankfurt → “Logic of Omnipotence”
o He said that essentially, God is not bound to our laws of logic. So, we can pile
one contradiction on top of another contradiction and it still would not be a
problem.
§ This is why a lot of Muslim philosophers say that Allah is numinous
(He is beyond our understanding ‘super rational’).
• Not only He is not bound to our laws of physics, He is also not
bound to our laws of logic.
• Difference of opinion between Mu’tazila and Athari:
o Mu’taziala → it has to be logically coherent (similar to Aquinas)
§ Allah operates within the law of logic; it has to make sense to us.

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PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

o Athari → Allah is absolutely ‘‫’ﻓﻌﺎل ﻟﻤﺎ ﯾﺮﯾﺪ‬, which means even the laws of logic
cannot hold Him back.

o We understand ‘‫ ’وﺣﻲ‬and we know that it is correct and true from our intellect.
If you’re saying that we can’t apply our intellect to Allah, then how can we
say anything.
§ Our understanding about God, which we get from the Quran, which we
think it’s correct because we used our mind. If you’re saying that your
mind cannot be trusted when you’re applying it to God, then you’re
saying we cannot trust his ‘‫ ’وﺣﻲ‬in the first place. And his ‘‫ ’وﺣﻲ‬is the
first thing that you use to say that Allah is the one true God. Then
everything falls apart.
• Mu’tazila → This is why they’re saying that you have to use
your mind.
• Athari → They disagree with Mu’tazila by saying it only
applies to us.

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