035. V. Divine Omnipotence.

V. Divine Omnipotence. As previously noted, we use the term omnipotence in preference to personal will for this attribute, because it better expresses the plenitude of the divine power. However, we shall not thus be led away from the true nature of this attribute.

1. Power of Personal Will.—As God is a purely spiritual being his power must be purely spiritual. This, however, does not deny to him power over physical nature. As he is both a spiritual and personal being his power must be that of a personal will. This is at once the logic of the relative facts and the sense of Scripture. This sense will clearly appear in treating the omnipotence of the divine will.

Nothing is more real in one’s consciousness than the exertion of energy. The energizing is of the personal self through the personal will, with power over the mental faculties and the physical organism. How there is a voluntary self-energizing, with power over the physical organism, and through it over exterior physical nature, is for us an insoluble mystery. The facts, however, are most real, and the mystery cannot in the least discredit them. There is an equal mystery in the power of the divine will, but it can no more discredit the reality of this power than in the case of the human will. If for any power over exterior physical nature the human will is now dependent upon a physical organism, this may be simply the result of a present conditioning relation of such an organism to the personal mind, and not an original or intrinsic limitation. Indeed, there must be an intrinsic power of the will, else there could be no voluntary self-energizing with power over the physical organism. There must be an immediate power of the will over the physical organism; or, at most, the contrary is mere assumption so long as we cannot show either the reality or the necessity of any mediation. Even with the necessity of such mediation for the human will, it would not follow that the divine will is so conditioned. Omnipotence is self-sufficient.

2. Modes of Voluntary Agency.—As God is a personal being, he must possess the power and freedom of personal agency. The freedom of personal agency is the freedom of choice. In complete personal agency there must be a distinction between the elective volition in the choice of ends and the executive volition in giving effect to the choices. There must be this distinction in the modes of the divine agency.

If personality and personal agency be realities in God, he must freely choose his own ends and determine his own acts. Any sense of his absoluteness preclusive of specific choices and definite acts in time is contradictory to his personal agency, and therefore to his personality. The assumption that knowledge in God must be causally efficient and immediately creative or executive is utterly groundless. With omniscience as an immediate and eternal knowing in God and immediately creative or executive, there could be no personal agency. The two are in contradictory opposition. With the” truth of the former, all predication of personal agency would be false. For God there could be no rational ends, no eligibility or choice of ends, no purpose or plan. Then the universe must be a necessary evolution, but without divine teleology or one act of divine personal agency. By the supposition of knowledge in God, he might passively know the ongoing of the evolution, but could have no active part in the process. There could be no divine providence. These inevitable implications are false to reason and the sense of Scripture. As a personal being God must freely elect his own ends and determine his own acts. His personal will completes the power of such agency.

We must also distinguish between the elective and executive agency of the divine will. The choice of an end is not its producing cause. If such a cause, the effect must be instant upon the choice. In this case there could be for God no plan or method of his agency, no futurition of his own deeds. But God has chosen ends, and plans for their effectuation through future deeds. This is the requirement of a divine teleology and a divine providence. The truth of such a mode of personal agency is in the Scriptures. Promise and prophecy, so far-reaching in their scope, are full of such facts. The futurities of promise and prophecy, so far as dependent upon the immediate agency of God, must have their future effectuation by the causal energy of his personal will. There is thus determined for the divine will an executive office in distinction from its elective office.

3. Omnipotence of the Divine Will.—Will as a personal attribute is an infinite potency in God. As a voluntary power it is operative at his pleasure. The contradictory or absolutely impossible is in no proper sense contrary to the omnipotence of his will. These statements are in full accord with the Scriptures. God is the Almighty (Genesis 17:1). God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased (Psalms 115:3). His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure (Isaiah 46:10). He has made the heavens and the earth by his great power, and there is nothing too hard for him (Jeremiah 32:17). He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth (Daniel 4:35). With God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). The omnipotence of God is manifest in his works of creation and providence. The concentration of all finite forces into a single point of energy would be infinitely insufficient for the creation of a single atom. In the sublime words, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” there is the agency of an omnipotent personal will. Only such a will is equal to the creation of the universe, and to the divine providence which rules in the universal physical and moral realms.