The Paradox of the Stone and Two Concepts of Omnipotence
Abstract
The Paradox of the Stone and Two Concepts of Omnipotence
In the article I present the paradox of the stone and two main ways of its solution. The first of them presupposes that God can bring about only possible states of affairs. In turn, according to the second one God can cause literally all states of affairs which He wants to do. As a result, I claim that both the ways out of the paradox are connected with two different — possibilist and voluntarist — conceptions of God and His omnipotence. Maybe both the approaches can be reconciled by B. Leftow’s principle that ‘what states of affairs are possible is not independent of an omnipotent God’. Finally, I note that being fully aware of our cognitive limits, let us not expect to arrive at undisputable solutions in philosophical theory of Divine attributes.
Keywords: the paradox of the stone, Divine attributes, omnipotence, philosophical theology.
In the article I present the paradox of the stone and two main ways of its solution. The first of them presupposes that God can bring about only possible states of affairs. In turn, according to the second one God can cause literally all states of affairs which He wants to do. As a result, I claim that both the ways out of the paradox are connected with two different — possibilist and voluntarist — conceptions of God and His omnipotence. Maybe both the approaches can be reconciled by B. Leftow’s principle that ‘what states of affairs are possible is not independent of an omnipotent God’. Finally, I note that being fully aware of our cognitive limits, let us not expect to arrive at undisputable solutions in philosophical theory of Divine attributes.
Keywords: the paradox of the stone, Divine attributes, omnipotence, philosophical theology.
Pełny tekst:
PDFAdministracja Cytowania | Strony czasopism