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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Omnipotence</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11251c.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="The power of God to effect whatever is not intrinsically impossible"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="11251c.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/o.htm">O</a> > Omnipotence</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Omnipotence</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(Latin <em>omnipotentia</em>, from <em>omnia</em> and <em>potens</em>, able to do all things).</p> <p>Omnipotence is the power of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to effect whatever is not intrinsically impossible. These last words of the definition do not imply any imperfection, since a power that extends to every possibility must be perfect. The universality of the object of the Divine power is not merely relative but absolute, so that the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> nature of omnipotence is not clearly expressed by saying that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> can do all things that are possible to Him; it requires the further statement that all things are possible to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. The intrinsically impossible is the self-contradictory, and its mutually exclusive elements could result only in nothingness. "Hence," says Thomas (Summa I, Q. xxv, a. 3), "it is more exact to say that the intrinsically impossible is incapable of production, than to say that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> cannot produce it." To include the contradictory within the range of omnipotence, as does the <a href="../cathen/03198a.htm">Calvinist</a> Vorstius, is to acknowledge the absurd as an object of the Divine <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>, and nothingness as an object of the Divine will and power. "God can do all things the accomplishment of which is a manifestation of power," says <a href="../cathen/07521c.htm">Hugh of St. Victor</a>, "and He is almighty because He cannot be powerless" (De sacram., I, ii, 22).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>As intrinsically impossible must be classed:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ol><li>Any action on the part of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> which would be out of harmony with His nature and attributes;</li><li>Any action that would simultaneously connote mutually repellent elements, e.g. a square circle, an <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> creature, etc. </li></ol></div> <h2 id="section1">Actions out of harmony with God's nature and attributes</h2> <p><em>(a) It is impossible for God to sin</em></p> <p>Man's power of preferring <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> to good is a sign not of strength, but of infirmity, since it involves the liability to be overcome by unworthy motives; not the exercise but the restraint of that power adds to the freedom and vigour of the will. "To <a href="../cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>," says <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a>, "is to be capable of failure in one's actions, which is incompatible with omnipotence" (Summa, I, Q, xxv, a. 3).</p> <p><em>(b) The decrees of God cannot be reversed</em></p> <p>From <a href="../cathen/05551b.htm">eternity</a> the production of creatures, their successive changes, and the manner in which these would occur were determined by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> <a href="../cathen/06259a.htm">free will</a>. If these decrees were not irrevocable, it would follow either that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> wisdom was variable or that His decisions sprang from caprice. Hence <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> distinguish between the <em>absolute</em> and the <em>ordinary</em>, or <em>regulated</em>, power of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (<em>potentia absoluta; potentia ordinaria</em>). The absolute power of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> extends to all that is not intrinsically impossible, while the ordinary power is regulated by the Divine decrees. Thus by His absolute power <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> could preserve man from death; but in the present order this is impossible, since He has decreed otherwise.</p> <p><em>(c) The creation of an absolutely best creature or of an absolutely greatest number of creatures is impossible, because the Divine power is inexhaustible</em></p> <p>It is sometimes objected that this aspect of omnipotence involves the contradiction that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> cannot do all that He can do; but the argument is sophistical; it is no contradiction to assert that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> can realize whatever is possible, but that no number of actualized possibilities exhausts His power.</p> <h2 id="section2">Mutually exclusive elements</h2> <p>Another class of intrinsic impossibilities includes all that would simultaneously connote mutually repellent elements, e.g. a square circle, an <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> creature, etc. <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> cannot effect the non-existence of actual events of the past, for it contradictory that the same thing that has happened should also not have happened.</p> <p>Omnipotence is perfect power, free from all mere potentiality. Hence, although <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> does not bring into external being all that He is able to accomplish, His power must not be understood as passing through successive stages before its effect is accomplished. The activity of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is simple and eternal, without evolution or change. The transition from possibility to actuality or from act to potentiality, occurs only in creatures. When it is said that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> can or could do a thing, the terms are not to be understood in the sense in which they are applied to created causes, but as conveying the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of a Being possessed of <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> unchangeable power, the range of Whose activity is limited only by His sovereign Will. "Power," says <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a>, "is not attributed to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> as a thing really different from His Knowledge and Will, but as something expressed by a different concept, since power means that which executes the command of the will and the advice of the <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>. These three (viz., <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>, will, power), coincide with one another in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>" (Summa, I, Q. xxv, a. 1, ad 4). Omnipotence is all-sufficient power. The adaptation of means to ends in the <a href="../cathen/15183a.htm">universe</a> does not argue, as J.S. Mill would have it, that the power of the designer is limited, but only that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> has willed to manifest His glory by a world so constituted rather than by another. Indeed the production of secondary causes, capable of accomplishing certain effects, requires greater power than the direct accomplishment of these same effects. On the other hand even though no creature existed, <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> power not be barren, for creatures are not an end to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>.</p> <p>The omnipotence of God is a <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, contained in all the creeds and defined by various councils (cf. <a href="../cathen/04736b.htm">Denzinger-Bannwart</a>. "Enchiridion", 428, 1790). In the <a href="../cathen/14526a.htm">Old Testament</a> there are more than seventy passages I which <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is called <em>Shaddai</em>, i.e. omnipotent. The Scriptures represent this attribute as <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> power (<a href="../bible/job042.htm#vrs2">Job 42:2</a>; <a href="../bible/mar010.htm#vrs27">Mark 10:27</a>; <a href="../bible/luk001.htm#vrs37">Luke 1:37</a>); <a href="../bible/mat019.htm#vrs26">Matthew 19:26</a>, etc.) which <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> alone possesses (<a href="../bible/tob013.htm#vrs4">Tobit 13:4</a>; Ecclus. I, 8; etc.). The Greek and <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">Latin</a> <a href="../cathen/06001a.htm">Fathers</a> unanimously teach the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of Divine omnipotence. <a href="../cathen/11306b.htm">Origen</a> testifies to this <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> when he infers the amplitude of <a href="../cathen/12510a.htm">Divine providence</a> from God's omnipotence: "Just as we hold that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is incorporeal and <em>omnipotent</em> and invisible, so likewise do we confess as a certain and immovable <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> that His providence extends to all things" (Genesis, Hom. 3). <a href="../cathen/02084a.htm">St. Augustine</a> defends omnipotence against the <a href="../cathen/09591a.htm">Manichæans</a>, who taught that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is unable to overcome <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> (Haeres, xlvi and Enchir., c. 100); and he speaks of this <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> as a <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> recognized even by <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagans</a>, and which no reasonable <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a> can question (Serm. 240, de temp., c. ii). Reason itself proves the omnipotence of God. "Since every agent produces an effect similar to itself," says <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> (Summa, I, Q. xxv, a. 3), "to every active power there must correspond as proper object, a category of possibilities proportioned to the cause possessing that power, e.g. the power of heating has for its proper object that which can be heated. Now Divine Being, which is the basis of Divine power, is <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a>, not being limited to any category of being but containing within itself the perfection of all being. Consequently all that can be considered as being is contained among the absolute possibilities with respect to which <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is omnipotent." (See <a href="../cathen/04470a.htm">CREATION</a>; <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">GOD</a>; INFINITE; <a href="../cathen/10338a.htm">MIRACLES</a>.)</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">The question of omnipotence is discussed by philosophers in works on natural theology and by theologians in the treatise on One God (De Deo Uno). Se especially ST. THOMAS, Summa, I, Q. xxv; IDEM, Contra Gentes, II, vii sq.; SUAREZ, De Deo, III, ix; HURTER, Compendium theologiae dogmaticae, II (Innsbruck, 1885), 79 sq.; POHLE, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, I (Paderborn, 1908), 143. sq.</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">McHugh, J.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Omnipotence.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11251c.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">McHugh, John.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Omnipotence."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 11.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11251c.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Veronica Jarski.</span> <span id="dedication"></span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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