Monday, April 27, 2015

"Limits" on God's Omnipotence

Is this [the omnipotence of God] suggest[ing] that God is capable of anything and everything? No! Power exercised in the name of power alone is sheer and unqualified power, arbitrary and capricious power, the power of terrorists and despots. Such may befit Satan, but certainly not God. Consequently, confessing God’s omnipotence does not preclude the confession that there are some things Go simply cannot do. For instance, God is unable to lie or be unfaithful, because God does who he is, and is unable to do who he is not (2 Tim. 2:13; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). In other words, God’s purposes and his power to accomplish them are informed, qualified, and determined by his character, which neither his purposes nor power contradict. Thus, God’s omnipotence is not about the exertion of indiscriminate force, but about his unfettered ability to actualise his altogether magnificent intentions. (John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology [Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2015], 92; comment in square brackets added for clarification).

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