Aquinas, in ST I, q. 25, offers a kind of philosophical grammar for the biblical and dogmatic truth of divine omnipotence.
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26)
Q. What precisely does it mean to say that he can do all things?
Active power: Active potency or power in this context signifies the capacity to act upon another, to do something that is perfect, like the power of the architect to design a safe and functional bridge, or in God’s case, the power of creation, that is, the capacity to effect the production in being of a vast and intellectually ordered cosmos, out of nothing.
Infinite power: His operational “active power” then, is not limited. Whence follows Aquinas’s conclusion in q. 25, a. 2, that “it is [of] necessity that the active power in God should be infinite.”
God’s law of justice: “Since good as perceived by intellect is the object of the will, it is impossible for God to will anything but what His wisdom approves.”
- God acts only in accordance with the measure his wisdom provides.
No contradictions: God’s omnipotence, precisely because it extends to all that either exists or might exist, extends to all realities that do not imply a contradiction in terms.
- Such contradictions imply a literally incoherent conceptual mixture of being and non-being.
- Thus, to take a trivial example, God cannot make a square circle.
- It is literally non-sense.
- They are derived from contradictions of human thinking grounded in abstract ideas that have no direct foundation in what is metaphysically real.
It is also reasonable to believe that he who is the very source of this natural order can, should he so wish, act in virtue of his transcendent wisdom, love, and omnipotence in a way that transcends the limits and potentialities of nature, precisely so as to reveal himself personally to human beings in an intimate way, and also so as to save and redeem the very order of nature, which he sustains in being, by the power of his grace.
In this chapter, we have considered God’s power to act “transitively,” that is to say, “outside” of himself or in distinction from himself in his creation. The power of God is infinite and extends to all beings. Furthermore, the omnipotence or “all-powerfulness” of God refers not only to all that exists in creation, but also to all that is merely possible. This includes all things that are not inherently contradictory. God does not employ his power arbitrarily, but always in subordination to and as a dimension of his divine wisdom and love. In this respect his power undergirds and safeguards the natural order but also can be at the origin of new initiatives that restore, perfect or re-create the natural order in virtue of God’s grace. The appeal to the reality of divine omnipotence can aid in apologetic efforts to show that Christian belief in supernatural mysteries is in no way irrational. At the very least, Christian claims are lacking in inherent contradiction and so are possible for divine power, and if they are real, they are indications of the inner life of God, precisely because only he who is omnipotent could manifest or realize such mysteries. Even so, their inner truth and historical factuality reposes on the testimony of revelation, and the acceptance of their truth by the individual in the act of faith depends upon the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Prodigal Catholic 