Are God’s Omnipotence, His Goodness And His Free-Will Incompatible?

I had an interesting question posed to me by a friend recently who asked whether God’s goodness and his omnipotence were somehow incompatible. In essence, my friend was asking that if God could only act in ways that were ‘good’, did this somehow erode God’s freely exercised omnipotence?

His question:

“I’ve been reading your website – certainly a fascinating area of thought and discussion.

I particularly like the Euthyphro’s Dilemma. It bears remarkable similarity to my favourite paradox (1] God exists 2] God is all powerful and 3] God is just) where only two of the three can be true.

I wonder though if there is a flaw in the escape clause argument? If we are to argue that God’s fundamental character is goodness and that his decrees of goodness stem from this internal higher power are we not also arguing that God is not all powerful? If He can only act in accordance with His character then is He indeed omnipotent? Further, why is his character only goodness and how did this come to be? Are we suggesting that God does not in fact have the power of ‘choice’?

I don’t know my bible studies well but wasn’t the whole “eat the apple” thing about us obtaining knowledge about the nature of Good and Evil. Wasn’t our ability to ‘choose’ part of what made us “God-like”. If God can only act in accordance with his character that is all good then surely He Himself lacks the power to choose.

To draw the discussion in a new direction, if God is only able to act according to a set character or charter does this not create a more deterministic view of His actions. Does God get to choose His actions? If not, is this perhaps a weakness?

A penny for your thoughts.”

 

My response:

Good questions. Firstly, I respectfully disagree that there is any contradiction between the three premises 1) God exists 2) God is all powerful 3) God is just. I don’t see why all three of these premises can’t be true at the same time.

Your question relates to the complex question of exactly what constitutes ‘free will’ You, I think, are thinking of free will in terms of ‘libertarian free will’, meaning that in every situation we (and I guess God) are able to equally choose to do something or not do something with equal power and likelihood.

I would suggest that a more accurate definition of free will is the power and opportunity to choose that which is most likely as determined by your own traits, atributes and preferences. For instance, if you are at a restaurant, free will doesn’t mean that you are likely to choose anything on the menu with equal likelihood. You will choose something on the menu that most reflects your personal preferences and traits – but you still have chosen freely. The same at ‘Cold Rock’ – free will does not mean that there is equal chance that you will choose any one of the 20 or so flavours of icecream available. You will choose a flavour subconsciously that best reflects you tastes, preferences and internal traits. But you have still chosen free and have still exercised free will.

Regarding you final question, I think I understand where your coming from, about whether the fact the God only acts within his nature is in someway restrictive of his free will and therefore in some way deterministic.

First of all, I believe strongly that God cannot in his omnipotence transgress normal rules of logic – God cannot make a square circle or a 4-sided triangle for instance because these things just can’t logically exist by definition. In the same way God can’t create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift – a common mind experiment that tries to argue that God cannot be omnipotent in all ways. For the latter, this is erroneous because it is a theoretical word picture that is logically fallacious. God is a God of order, not disorder.

From the point of view of God’s nature, I feel confident that Scripture makes God’s attributes quite clear, including his omnipotence, omniscience, his goodness, his justice, etc and that these are immutable aspects of his nature. So as John Frame stated (below), God cannot act in a manner that is outside his nature and immutable attributes. But this doesn’t prevent him from acting in a completely free and sovereign manner within his nature, and as such is not deterministic. What is does do for us though, is gives us some predictability about how God acts so that we have something to trust and have faith in. You can imagine that if God was completely random and arbitrary (like the gods of ancient Greece), a believer would be quite confused and no better off than a non-believer.

Through the magic of Facebook, I was also able to garner a number of interesting and helpful responses from other Christian thinkers, Theologians and Philosophers.

 

Dr John Frame (Prominent American Philosopher/Theologian)

“There are a number of things that God cannot do. He cannot lie (Tit. 1:2). He cannot fail. He cannot die, etc. To sum this up, he can’t be what he is not. He can’t be evil, or ignorant, or impotent. This fact is not contrary to his omnipotence, because omnipotence does not mean that God can “do everything” without limit. It means that he can do anything consistent with his character.

I don’t know what is meant by saying that God’s character is “only goodness.” He is good, and perfectly so. But he is also righteous, true, wise, omniscient, omnipotent, etc. Scripture does not elevate any of these attributes above the others.

God certainly can choice, but he’s like us in that his choices are constrained by his character. He can choose to create or not to create. But he cannot choose to lie.

For more discussion, see my Doctrine of God, 131-135, 230-36, 515-25.”

Dr Paul Copan (American Professor of Philosophy, Author, Speaker)

“God’s actions will have God’s good nature as their “context.” God’s goodness means that he will not sin (being intrinsically good); however, if he could sin, this would suggest that something outside of God could potentially overpower God. Furthermore, God is free, say, to create or not to create, to redeem or not to redeem, to create certain persons and not others, etc”

Dave Sterrett (Apologist, Probe Ministries)

“Let’s take the first question. I do not see the necessarily logical conclusion, that If God’s character is goodness, then God is not all powerful. This first sentence seems to almost commit the fallacy of assuming what it is questioning or trying to prove.

To answer the second question, there is not a logical contraction between the proposition  “God acts in accordance to his character” and “He is omnipotent.” Perhaps, the person is not understanding a correct understanding of “Omnipotent.” God’s nature of all-powerful does not mean he can do ANYTHING. God can do anything that is possible, but God cannot do anything that is impossible. It is impossible for God to lie. It is impossible for God to make a square circle. It is impossible for God to be multiple Gods.

Also, God does have choices, but once again God doesn’t have the choice to do things that are impossible or contrary to his nature. Let me give a human analogy… I have the choice to go to multiple schools, but just because I don’t have the choice to go to a school that doesn’t exist in the real world (a.k.a Fundamentalist Baptist Ivy League Harvard of the South University) this doesn’t mean that I lack freedom to make choices. Analogously God makes decisions upon that which is possible, not impossible.”