Forty Second Distinction

Single Question. Whether it can be Proved by Natural Reason that God is Omnipotent

1. About the forty second distinction I ask whether it can be proved by natural reason that God is omnipotent.

That it can be:

Richard [of St. Victor] On the Trinity I ch.4: “For everything we hold by faith [sc. there are probable, even necessary arguments].”

2. Besides, it is proved by reason that God is of infinite power (as is proved in Physics 8.10.266a10-24 and Metaphysics 12.7.1073a3-13); but infinite power is known to be omnipotence;     therefore etc     .

3. Proof of the minor, because it is known that no greater power than infinite power can be thought of without contradiction; but a greater power than any power that is not omnipotence can be thought of without contradiction (proof: one can without contradiction think of omnipotence under the idea of omnipotence; but it is thought of as greater than any other power that would not be omnipotence).

4. If you say that it is not possible to prove naturally that omnipotence is thinkable without contradiction - on the contrary: that omnipotence exists among beings is true, therefore any reason proving the impossibility of omnipotence is sophistical; every sophistical reason can be solved by the intellect through purely natural means; therefore such an intellect can through purely natural means know that nothing impossible follows from omnipotence, and knows that that is possible on which nothing impossible follows;     therefore it knows that the omnipotence of God is possible.

5. But from this a reason per se can be given, because if it can naturally be proved that omnipotence is possible (because it is not impossible [n.4]), then it can naturally be proved that it is necessary, because it cannot be unless it could be necessary; and what can be necessary, is necessary; therefore etc     .

6. On the contrary:

No philosopher by the use of natural reason, however perfectly he would consider God under the idea of efficient cause, has conceded that he is omnipotent according to the Catholic sense [nn.9-13].

7. There is also a confirmation, because there is an article of faith, in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God, the Father almighty etc.”

I. To the Question

8. One can respond here by drawing a distinction that in one way the ‘omnipotent’ can be said to be an agent that has power for everything possible, mediately or immediately - and in this way the active power of the first efficient cause is omnipotence, insofar as it extends itself to every effect in idea of proximate or remote cause; and thus, since it can be naturally concluded that there is a first efficient cause (as was shown above in distinction 2 [nn.43-59]), it can be naturally concluded that it is omnipotent, in this way of speaking.

9. In another way ‘omnipotent’ is taken in a properly theological sense, insofar as he is called omnipotent who has power for all effects and for everything possible (that is, for everything that is not per se necessary or does not include a contradiction), and thus immediately - I say - because without the co-operation of any other agent cause; and in this way it seems that omnipotence is a thing believed about the first efficient cause, and not something demonstrated, because although the first efficient cause has in itself a more eminent efficient power than the power of any other efficient cause, it also has in itself eminently the effective power of any other cause whatever (as was proved in distinction 2 [nn.117-120] and is proved by the fact that it has infinite power), and this is as it were the ultimate that natural reason can attain to as to be known about God, although from this it does not seem one can prove omnipotence according to the second sense, because although it is true, yet it is not manifest by natural reason that what has a more eminent causality in itself - and even the causality of a second cause more eminently than that cause has with respect to its own effect - has power immediately for the immediate effect of a second cause; for the order of inferior and superior causes does not allow this, because although the sun has in itself a more eminent causality than an ox (or than any animal), yet the sun is not conceded to be able immediately to generate an ox the way it can do so through the medium of an ox-cause.

10. And this above all would philosophers posit, because they did not posit the second - necessarily concurrent - cause on account of adding some perfection to the effect, but on account of adding some imperfection; but further, the causality of the first cause is immediately perfect, and so they posited that it could not immediately be the cause of any imperfect effect. And therefore some other agent cause (a more imperfect one) had to concur, so that the first cause would not produce according to the utmost of its power but would, along with that second agent cause, produce a diminished and imperfect effect - that is, it would not produce as perfect an effect by means of an imperfect second cause as it would if it produced it immediately.

11. In addition, the philosophers were not able by natural reason to conclude that God is able to cause contingently, how much more could they not conclude that it had power immediately for any effect at all or for anything that can be produced by means of other second causes?

12. Further, if they had for principle as it were that ‘nothing comes from nothing’ (at any rate in generable and corruptible things), it does not seem that God was so omnipotent that he could totally produce any effect without any other joint causing cause.

13. Besides, if the philosophers posited that God acted necessarily (as many of them seem to have thought and posited), and if along with this they posited that he was omnipotent according to the second sense [n.9], they would have to deny all causality to every second cause (which is especially unacceptable for them); for a cause that ‘necessarily causes’, in whatever instant it is compared to its effect, necessarily in that instant ‘causes and acts necessarily’; therefore since the superior cause is compared to its effect before an inferior cause is, and since in that case it is for you [sc. someone who thinks omnipotence can be proved by natural reason] necessarily omnipotent, then in that instant it produces every effect; then in the second instant, in which the second cause is compared to the same effect, nothing is then understood as causing, - and so a second cause or a second agent can cause nothing

14. And from this is plain that this proposition ‘whatever the first efficient cause can cause along with a second cause, it can per se cause immediately’ is not known from the terms, nor known by natural reason, but is only a thing believed; because if omnipotence itself - on which the proposition depends - were known by natural reason, it would be easy for those philosophers to prove many truths and propositions that they deny, and easy for them to prove at least the possibility of many things that we believe and that they deny.

15. Omnipotence, however, taken in this way [sc. the second way], although it not be sufficiently proved, can however be proved probably as true and necessary - and more probably than certain other believed things, because it is not unacceptable for some ‘believed things’ to be more evident than others.

II. To the Principal Arguments

16. To the authority of Richard [n.1] I say that although there are necessary reasons for proving omnipotence, and any other believed things, they are not however evidently necessary and true; just as is true of the reason that proves the Trinity, because of the double production inwardly in divine reality [d.2 nn.300-303, 353-358, 370]) -because although the reason is from necessary things, yet the premises are not necessarily evident, because they are not known to us from the terms; nor is it possible from things immediately known to us to infer this, as was said in d.2 nn.26-29.

17. To the second [n.2] I say that the infinite power of God, although it can be concluded about God by natural reason, is yet not omnipotence in the way it is properly taken.

18. And when you say that ‘no power can be thought of greater than infinite power’ [n.3], this is true intensively; but there seems no contradiction in thinking of a greater power that extends itself to more things extensively. Or one might say that although it is not a contradiction for an omnipotence to be thought of, which - as such -in some way exceeds infinite power ‘not understood as omnipotent’, yet it is not naturally known that a power so understood is omnipotent.

19. And when you say [n.3] it is known that omnipotence properly taken can be thought of without contradiction, this is denied.

20. And when proof is given ‘any reason proving the impossibility of omnipotence is sophistical’ [n.3], - to this the response is it is indeed sophistical; but it cannot be solved by natural reason, because insofar as it is sophistical it errs in the matter and has a false premise; and it cannot be solved save by taking away that premise, which however cannot be known by natural reason as needing to be taken away, just as it cannot be known to be true by natural reason.

21. But against these points I argue thus:

The proposition that appears true, and does not from natural reason appear that it should be taken away, either appears to be true from the terms as if immediate, or appears to be deduced from immediate premises. If in the first way then our intellect cannot be certain about the immediate propositions, which are true and which not; for things appear to them to be true as immediate propositions which however are simply false, and so there will not be any propositions as certain ‘as doors in a house’ (against the Philosopher and the Commentator Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5, Averroes ad loc.), about which it is not possible to err. If it appear true in the second way (that is as deduced from immediate terms), then I argue about this syllogism as about the former one, - either it errs in matter or in form; if in matter then it can be solved, because the false premise, ‘erring in matter’, can be taken away; if in form, still it can be solved by the art of logic. But if it be said that it errs in form and yet cannot be solved by natural reason, - this seems absurd, because as the intellect ‘contained in its natural conditions’ hands on the whole art about apparent syllogism, unformed and defective, thus could the argument be solved by the art for dissolving every such syllogism, by applying that art to that paralogism.

22. Therefore I say in another way that although any paralogism, which apparently concludes to something impossible from a premise signifying that God is omnipotent, can be solved by the intellect and natural reason (whether it errs in matter or in form), and the intellect can know that any such paralogism ‘stated divisively’ is soluble, yet the conclusion does not follow that the intellect knows it to be impossible; for the opposite stands, namely either because the intellect doubts it to be a primary opposite from the repugnance of the terms (from which however something manifestly impossible cannot follow), or because it doubts whether something else impossible can be inferred from whatever is inferred, and the argument ‘entailing that impossible thing’ is insoluble, although it not be of any things that are done about which the intellect knows ‘one must solve them’.

23. Or generally one can reply to the argument [n.4] (and this can be done generally for any believed thing) that it is necessary for anything possible or believable.