God's Power, or "Powers?"
Does He have different kinds, or levels, of ability?
August, 2020
The exact nature of God has been debated by believers for thousands of years. That's not a surprise, since we're limited beings trying to understand an infallible Creator. We're never going to understand Him with absolute perfection, and that means people will always disagree on some details. One of those details is the question of God's omnipotence and what it truly means. This month's spotlight verse mentions that "all things are possible with God." That statement has been misinterpreted by critics for centuries. Even well-meaning Christians have sometimes taken that phrase out of context.
Theologians of prior generations suggested God could do "anything" in a sense which included logical contradictions. For instance, they would have argued God had the power to sin, to cease to exist, to draw a square circle, and so forth. They argued such power was part of potentia Dei absoluta, whereas God's actual choices were possible under His potentia Dei ordinata. Those phrases refer to God's "absolute" power, and His "ordered" power, respectively.
To clarify, these earlier thinkers did not claim God actually did sin, or violate logic, only that He could if He wanted to. In most cases, this distinction was driven by a desire not to artificially limit God. It was not a universal view, however, and it is not common today.
Most Christian theologians, philosophers, and Bible teachers reject the distinction between God's "absolute power" and His "ordered power." There is a legitimate difference between that which God is able to do, and that which He chooses to do. In other words, God could have done differently. His sovereignty includes the power to make alternative choices (Jeremiah 32:27; Matthew 3:9; 26:53; Romans 9:21). But this is not the same thing as what the potentia / ordinata concept implies.
God is absolutely sovereign, and there is nothing which can override or overpower His will. However, that does not mean God can make self-contradictory or logically absurd choices. God's omnipotence is tied to His divine nature and attributes, all of which act in harmony. That means phrases such as "God sinning," "God ceasing to exist," "God drawing a square circle," or "God making a rock so big He cannot lift it" are not "impossible," they are simply "nonsensical." They self-contradict. They fail to connect in the same way as "skew" lines in a three-dimensional space which never intersect each other (Numbers 23:19; 2 Timothy 2:13; James 1:13, 17).
So far as the potentia / ordinata distinction goes, there is no meaningful way to split those into entirely separate categories. God has the unlimited power to do anything which can be done. If God cannot do something, it's because that concept is self-contradictory or absurd, and would be just as irrational for any being, regardless of their power. A better distinction is between God's sovereign will and revealed will, or His dispositional will.
All things are possible with God; that means what it means. All things which can be, which could actually exist, or could actually occur, are within His power. Anything "beyond" God's power is simply not a "thing," at all.
-- Editor
