Theists give too little credit to their deity’s omnipotence
Theists often describe their deities as being tri-omni: omniscient - all-knowing, omnibenevolent - all-loving, and omnipotent - all-powerful. In this post, I will focus on the last quality, and why theists give too little credit to their deity.
Omnipotence is generally defined as the ability to do anything - or alternatively, to bring about any state of affairs - that is logically possible. Yet, when defending their beliefs, theists repeatedly (and often unknowingly) place artificial constraints on what their god can do. I want to highlight this contradiction by looking at two common arguments: the fine-tuning argument for creation and the free will defense to the problems of evil and original sin.
Part 1: Fine-Tuning
The Fine-Tuning argument posits that the physical constants of our universe (the strength of gravity, the cosmological constant, the mass of electrons, etc.) are precisely tuned such that any changes would ensure that life as we know it would not exist. Therefore, a designer must have "fine-tuned" the dials of the universe specifically to accommodate us.
The glaring issue here is that this argument treats god like a cosmic tinkerer working with stubborn, preexisting materials, rather than an omnipotent creator.
If god is truly omnipotent, he is the author of physics, not its subject. The idea that life requires a specific set of physical constants imposes an external constraint on an unconstrained being. An omnipotent god could easily create conscious minds in a universe composed entirely of plasma, or in a universe with weaker gravity or a less massive electron.
Further, when we examine god itself, it is an unembodied mind existing prior to, and entirely independent of, the physical universe. Then, by the theist's own admission, it is logically possible for a conscious mind to exist without being composed of matter. If an unembodied mind is a logical possibility, an omnipotent being could have simply instantiated a universe consisting entirely of unembodied minds.
Why would an all-powerful creator bind consciousness to fragile, carbon-based biology that requires an impossibly narrow set of gravitational and cosmological constants just to survive in an extremely tiny subset of his creation? The necessity of "fine-tuning" only exists if we assume the creator was forced to use physical matter with a fixed set of dials to house minds, a stark contradiction of omnipotence.
A common theistic counter to this is that god chose to use these specific physical laws for aesthetic reasons, or because an elegant, orderly universe reflects his nature. However, this defence neutralises the fine-tuning argument entirely. If the physical constants are merely an aesthetic choice rather than a strict necessity for life to exist, then the "improbability" of our universe is a manufactured crisis. God essentially created a problem (biology requires exact physical constants) and then solved it (setting the constants exactly). This makes the fine-tuning a self-imposed limitation.
By arguing that god had to set the dials perfectly for life to emerge, theists are stripping god of his omnipotence. If god could bring about conscious life without fine-tuning anything, then the precise arrangement of our universe's physical constants is not evidence of necessary design; it is merely an arbitrary choice.
Part 2: The Problem of Evil
The classical logical formulation, often attributed to Epicurus, poses this dilemma: If god is willing to prevent evil, but not able, then he is not omnipotent. If he is able, but not willing, then he is malevolent. If he is both able and willing, whence cometh evil?
Theists often argue that this evil cometh from free will - that god allows evil and suffering because he values free will, and a world populated by truly free agents necessarily includes the possibility of those agents making evil choices.
This defence falls apart when we apply the rigorous definition of omnipotence to the concept of heaven. Consider the following argument:
An omniscient being is capable of knowing the future of any possible world.
An omnipotent being is capable of actualising any logically possible world.
An omnibenevolent being desires for every being to go to heaven and not hell.
The theistic god is described as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.
Heaven is a possible world actualised by this god where there is no separation from him (and presumably, no evil, sin, or suffering).
God is thus capable of and willing to actualise a world where there is no separation from him.
We are in a world where presumably some people, such as Hitler, do not go to heaven.
This is a contradiction, so one of the previous premises must be false.
To expand on this: theists generally maintain that in heaven, souls retain their free will, yet they do not commit evil. If humans can possess free will in heaven without sinning, then a world containing both "free will" and "zero evil" is a logically possible world. An omnipotent god can actualise any logically possible world. If a sinless world with free will is logically possible, an omnipotent god could have just actualised that world from the very beginning.
Some theists appeal to "soul-making" theodicies, arguing that a sinless heaven is only logically possible for beings who have first freely chosen god and developed their moral character through the trials of Earth. But once again, this limits omnipotence by subjugating god to a psychological process. If a mature, morally perfected soul freely choosing good in heaven is a logically possible state of affairs, an omnipotent god could actualise a world containing beings created directly with that fully formed, perfected character. Claiming god requires a temporal process of suffering, sin, and testing to forge such souls implies he lacks the power to instantiate the end result directly.
There is no logical necessity to actualise a flawed, intermediate testing ground (Earth) filled with horrors such as genocide, paediatric cancer, natural disasters, and horrific moral evils, where countless souls are ultimately condemned to eternal separation. Claiming that god had to actualise this current, suffering world order to achieve his ultimate goals implies he would lack the power to actualise those goals directly.
Conclusion
There seem to be quite a few arguments where pointing out that the theistic god is omnipotent would cause a fair bit of trouble to the theist. In both the Fine-Tuning argument and the Free Will defense, theists attempt to solve philosophical hurdles by quietly shrinking god’s power. A truly omnipotent god wouldn't need to tweak physical dials to keep unembodied minds alive, nor would he need to rely on a trial phase with evil and suffering to populate a sinless heaven.
There are several other arguments that can be dismissed just as easily. For example, take the challenge of irreducible complexity from intelligent design proponents - theists frequently point to the complexity of biological systems, such as the human eye, to advocate for a designer god. However, an all-powerful being does not need to engineer a fragile, complex Rube Goldberg machine of retinas, optic nerves, and visual cortexes just to grant a creature sight. An omnipotent god could simply actualise a universe where a completely solid, homogenous cube of biological matter can see perfectly. Complexity is a result of constraints, not omnipotence.
If we take divine omnipotence seriously, the popular theistic justifications for the actualisation of our universe simply do not hold up.