Bartricks,

In asking, “Can an omnipotent being do anything?” you side with Descartes’ view and argue that an omnipotent being can truly do anything at all, regardless of logical possibility. I have outlined your argument below:

If God is omnipotent, then He can do anything at all without regard to logical possibility.
God is omnipotent.
God can do anything at all without regard to logical possibility.

Although I do agree that omnipotence grants God a wide range of power that is otherwise unattainable to other beings, I would disagree with the argument that an omnipotent being can do anything, namely disagreeing with the first Premise of the outlined argument. I would argue that logical possibility is the greatest, and only, limit on the omnipotence of God.

For example, many incompatibilities exist within aspects of our world, such as the creation of a square circle or a married bachelor. Based on their definitions, a circle cannot have corners like a square and a bachelor cannot be married. These examples are simply things that God cannot create because they are logically impossible. Now you may argue that these definitions are merely constructs we have developed as a society to help us perceive the world around us and that God, being omnipotent, may have the power to create what, in our minds, would be impossible. To this, I would argue that God, also being omnibenevolent, would create a world we could comprehend, one that does not contain impossibilities by definition like that of a square circle. For, if God created a world like that, we would have a much harder time understanding the world we live in and an even greater struggle conceptualizing God. God’s creation of a world we can understand allows us to spend more time discussing the relevance of its creation.

Cases like God creating a stone heavier than He can lift also poses a logical impossibility. God’s omnipotence cannot be tested against two infinitives. To create a stone that has infinite weight and for God to have infinite strength cannot be compared as different amounts of infinity cannot be compared. It’s wrong to say that a being could be “able to create stones too heavy for him to lift, and then lift them” because if God created a stone that was too heavy for Him to lift, then He would not be able to lift it. As a result, comparisons of infinite value pose a logical impossibility of the omnipotence of God yet do not devalue His omnipotence.

Finally, regarding God’s creation of himself, I think it is safe to say that this is not a question of omnipotence. I would like to say that God has existed limitlessly throughout time, never requiring the necessity to be created, to begin with. This, as a result, would not require any omnipotent powers to lend to His creation although, this may be a personal preference in questioning how God has existed throughout time.

As a result, I do not believe God's omnipotence can do the logically impossible. This is based on impossibilities such as incompatible definitions we have created and the comparison of infinite values.

You have attributed to me claims I never made.

My argument was that a being who is not constrained by the laws of logic is more powerful than one who is. As there can be no one morepowerful than an omnipotent being, an omnipotent being is not going to be constrained by the laws of logic. Thus, an omnipotent being can do absolutely anything and not just the logically possible.

Again, a being who can do the impossible and the possible is more powerful than one who can do only the latter. The latter is constrained, the former is not.

You then say I said that logic is a social construction. No, that is absolutely not my view and you won't find it expressed in anything I have said.

Logic is robustly external in that there is nothing we can do to alter it.

Logic must be determined by an omnipotent being for that is the only way a being would not be constrained by it. Logic, then, is internal to them.

So far from being a social construction, logic is a divine construction. What is or is not possible is determined not by me or you or some group of us, but by a person, Reason, who by dint of this is omnipotent.

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I should add that it strikes me as human hubris to put limits on what an omnipotent being can do.

And as for God creating himself - well, it is more impressive to have created oneself than not done so. Thus God has created himself. And if God existed of necessity - as you are claiming - then God would not be omnipotent for he would lack the power not to exist. God is omnipotent and thus has the power not to exist which in turn entails that he exists contingently.