Omniscience and Omnipotence: Are They Compatible?

A Query into the Nature of God

Mattheus von Guttenberg

April 5th, 2010 – 10 AM
When discussing the traditional Judeo-Christian view of divinity, there are typically
two chief traits that are given to God: those of omniscience and omnipotence. God is,
they tell us, all-knowing and all-mighty. Among other attributes, it is these two that
make up the predominant picture of God. He is viewed as a being with Supreme
power and supreme wisdom – a child prodigy with a chemistry set, so to speak. I
will discuss the likelihood of this scenario, some possible contradictions, and the
viewpoint in general.

The medieval scholastics, like St. Anselm and St. Aquinas, were not as concerned
with the specific make-up of the Original Creator as they were with constructing
arguments for his existence. To the scholastics, it was not a question of God’s
wisdom or strength; if they could prove he existed, these aspects were inherent. 1 I
depart from this view. I do not intend to enter into an argument for a general
existence of God, but rather how untenable it is to hold the position that God is both
omniscient and omnipotent.

In the first place, we are told from collected Biblical works that God gives human
beings free will to act as we see fit. Free will from all coercive elements means
specifically that God has no power over our behavior or our outcomes, for to assume
power would place some limits on our will and it would cease to be free. Thus, the
first objection is raised. If God is omnipotent, he is capable of exercising all his
power instantaneously for a specific end. If that end is to alter the decisions of
human choice, however, suddenly his omnipotence shatters the notion of free will.
Free will cannot exist where a supreme arbiter has final say in the outcomes of
decisions. Either we have free will, or God is omnipotent. To presume both are true
is contradictory.

Furthermore, free will runs contrary to the notion of omniscience as well. If we

suppose that God is infinitely wise, then clearly it is within His power to foresee the
results of our actions – it is possible to see the future. And so lies the problem with
so many time-travel sci-fi movies – if it were possible to predict the future, would
not the current course of events be altered? If God were to be completely sure of a
specific event in the future, on account of his omniscience, would that not likewise
shatter our notions of free will? Free will suddenly seems more like Fate when
compared with the idea of omniscience. Either God is omniscient and can foresee
what we will decide in the future, or we have free will to make our own choices and
the future is always unpredictable.

Further objections are raised without including the concept of free will. Simply by
examining the compatibility of omniscience with omnipotence, we arrive at startling
conclusions. The two traits are described as God having perfect wisdom and
foresight, and having absolute strength and ability. In the traditional Theistic view,
we are told that God has intervened multiple times through the course of Mankind
(the Flood, the Plagues of Egypt, Jesus, etc.). Presumably, these interventions were
for benign purposes (to purge the earth, free slaves, and save humanity).
1
Kolak, Daniel, & Martin, Raymond. (2005). The Experience of philosophy. Oxford University Press,
USA.
Unfortunately, to accept God’s hand in all of these would instantly undermine our
faith in his capacity for perfect judgment.

My argument follows:

1) If God has perfect foresight, He will be able to predict the problematic areas in
which future intervention would be needed.

2) If God has absolute ability, He will be able to rectify the problems when He
created the Universe.

3) He will thus have no need to intervene multiple times. He has acted at most once.

If we reject either of the initial premises, then our faith in God as an omnipotent and
omniscient being is discarded instantly. Either God can predict the times when He
will have to re-enter the scene, but lacks the initial power to do so, or He has the
power to fix problems in Earth but lacks the ability to predict when they will occur.
In any case, God is certainly turning out to be somewhat of a paradox. The most we
can infer from this argument is that if God had ever used his power to act, he could
only have done it once, to remove all future ailments once and for all. This is what
makes Deism so attractive – it is immune to the above criticism because it effectively
neuters God’s powers to enter into the physical world and interfere. It accepts the
logical impermissibility of combining omniscience and omnipotence.
The final death knell for the omnipotent God rests with the argument from action.
As Ludwig von Mises puts it so eloquently in Human Action:
“Scholastic philosophers and theologians and likewise Theists and Deists of the Age of Reason
conceived an absolute and perfect being, unchangeable, omnipotent, and omniscient, and yet planning and
acting, aiming at ends and employing means for the attainment of these ends. But action can only be
imputed to a discontented being, and repeated action only to a being who lacks the power to remove his
uneasiness once and for all at one stroke.
An acting being is discontented and therefore not almighty. If he were contented, he would not act,
and if he were almighty, he would have long since radically removed his discontent. For an all-powerful
being there is no pressure to choose between various states of uneasiness; he is not under the necessity of
acquiescing in the lesser evil. Omnipotence would mean the power to achieve everything and to enjoy full
satisfaction without being restrained by any limitations. But this is incompatible with the very concept of
action. For an almighty being the categories of ends and means do not exist. He is above all human
comprehension, concepts, and understanding.
For the almighty being every “means” renders unlimited services, he can apply every “means” for
the attainment of any ends, he can achieve every end without the employment of any means. It is beyond
the faculties of the human mind to think the concept of almightiness consistently to its ultimate logical
consequences. The paradoxes are insoluble.
Has the almighty being the power to achieve something, which is immune to his later interference?
If he has this power, then there are limits to his might and he is no longer almighty; if he lacks this power,
he is by virtue of this fact alone not almighty.
Are omnipotence and omniscience compatible? Omniscience presupposes that all future happenings
are already unalterably determined. If there is omniscience, omnipotence is inconceivable. Impotence to
change anything in the predetermined course of events would restrict the power of any agent.”2

2
Mises, Ludwig, & Greaves, Bettina. (2010). Human action. Liberty Fund Inc..
The idea of acting presupposes certain conditions, namely, scarcity, environmental
limitations, and the application of reason. Any type of behavior that does not meet
all of the criteria is not action. Animal behavior does not exhibit application of logic
or reason, and so it cannot be purposeful behavior. Likewise, the supposed “action”
done by God is no action at all. He cannot act. God is not inhibited by a scarcity of
means; He is not forced to set aside one goal in order to pursue another. These are
quintessential features of action. The paradox of omnipotence is that God may have
his cake and eat it too.

After fully realizing the logical conclusions of what is attributed to God, the results
are startling. If God has omniscience, he surely cannot have omnipotence – for the
combination of the two lead to contradictory conclusions. In addition, even if God
does not exhibit omniscience, the concept of action is entirely illusory. Omnipotence
is impossible in the sense that we understand because God is never circumscribed
by a lack of means – in this sense, he can never act. Frankly, I find the whole theistic
paradigm so riddled with inner paradoxes and contradictions that I relegate my God
to that of Jeffersonian Deism. A clockmaker who pulled the weight down once and
took a nap for billions of years seems the least objectionable to the clear-headed.