Argument #4: The Omnipotence Delima

    The following argument, which is partly sound and partly not (like the
others, based on a misunderstanding of the Christian position), is an
interesting tid-bit usually brought up in any Philosophy-101 class.  It
runs as follows:

    God is understood as omnipotent, meaning that He may do anything.  However,
omnipotence is itself an absurdity.  Can God create a rock which He can not
lift?  If He can, then his omnipotence is discounted from his inability to
lift the rock. If He can not, then his omnipotence is discounted from his
inability to create such a thing.  Since, as in the case of square circles,
nothing exists which is contradictory, we must conclude that God, understood
as omnipotent, does not exist.

   Unlike the other arguments, this one actually needs improvement to get to the
heart of the matter more quickly.  As for this version, it need only be pointed
out that God is incorporeal, while the argument seems to suggest otherwise in 
its implication of a limit to God's lifting power.  Moreover, it suggests a 
certain necessity in the existence of gravity.  With this in mind, the 
argument can be much better stated as follows:

   God is understood as omnipotent, meaning that He may do anything.  However,
omnipotence implies an absurdity.  If God may do anything, then He may also
be other than God.  However, this would mean that God may both be and not be
God, which is an absurdity.  Therefore, since nothing exists which implies
an absurdity, we must conclude that God, understood as omnipotent, does not
exist.

   This version of the argument is, clearly, completely sound.  The answer to
it points back again to the Christian understanding of omnipotence, as 
described by St. Thomas Aquinas in his metaphysical discourses and other works.
The omnipotence of God is implied from his nature as the most simple substance,
being, or existence.  This existence then is without regard for all other
properties, meaning that the simple substance may take any complex form which
may exist at all.  Notice that the subject itself, that of existence, has a 
"powerful" nature then, but is still limited by that nature.  God is limited
by his ability to grant existence to any essences or properties, so long as
they can exist.  God's omnipotence then can be said to be limited in two
ways: One, since nothing can exist which is absurd, God may not grant existence
to absurdities.  Second, since existence has itself a nature (which
incidentally is nearly unlimited), God may not be other than God.  This would 
then directly clarify the understanding of omnipotence as it applies to God, 
and would answer the argument as it was improved.

   Regarding the first form, you'll find that were those properties attributable
to God (corporeality and the pull of gravity), we would no longer be talking
about God at all, but attacking a straw man.  Further, since God can not be 
other than God, and can not grant existence to absurdities, the argument in 
the first form falls under the considerable weight of its presuppositions.