Omnipotence - Meanings

Meanings

The term omnipotent has been used to connote a number of different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. A deity is able to do absolutely anything, even the logically impossible, i.e., pure agency.
  2. A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do.
  3. A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie).
  4. Hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.
  5. A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan.

Under many philosophical definitions of the term "deity", senses 2, 3 and 4 can be shown to be equivalent. However, on all understandings of omnipotence, it is generally held that a deity is able to intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics, since they are not part of its nature, but the principles on which it has created the physical world. However many modern scholars (such as John Polkinghorne) hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for a deity to go against its own laws unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so.

The word "Omnipotence" derives from the Latin term "Omni Potens", meaning "All-Powerful" instead of "Infinite Power" implied by its English counterpart. The term could be applied to both deities and Roman Emperors. Being the one with "All the power", it was not uncommon for nobles to attempt to prove their Emperor's "Omni Potens" to the people, by demonstrating his effectiveness at leading the Empire.

Read more about this topic:  Omnipotence

Famous quotes containing the word meanings:

    “Man cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book, but time and like-minded men will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine, had he? What secret can he conceal from the eyes of Bacon? of Montaigne? of Kant? Therefore, Aristotle said of his works, “They are published and not published.””
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love—and its partner, hate. Our father—our “second other”Melaborates on them. Offering us an alternative to the mother-baby relationship . . . presenting a masculine model which can supplement and contrast with the feminine. And providing us with further and perhaps quite different meanings of lovable and loving and being loved.”
    —Judith Viorst (20th century)

    “You can’t write about people out of textbooks, and you can’t use jargon. You have to speak clearly and simply and purely in a language that a six-year-old child can understand; and yet have the meanings and the overtones of language, and the implications, that appeal to the highest intelligence.”
    —Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)