We live in a world obsessed with power yet constantly frustrated by its limitations. In creaturely life, power is always fragile, finite, and contested. An earthly empire amasses legions and battleships, only to collapse from economic decay or internal corruption. A brilliant surgeon exhausts all her skill, only to lose the patient on the operating table. The most powerful human monarchs, executives, and institutions are ultimately held hostage by time, physical exhaustion, unforeseen accidents, and death. To be a creature is to possess power in measured, precarious installments that can be resisted, eroded, and broken.
Tragically, contemporary religion routinely projects this creaturely impotence onto the Almighty.
In the popular Christian consciousness, God is frequently imagined as a well-meaning cosmic sovereign who possesses immense power yet finds Himself perpetually frustrated by the free choices of His creatures, the ravages of evil, or the messy complexities of human history. Under the pervasive influence of Open Theism, process metaphysics, and arminianized evangelicalism, God is depicted as a cosmic lifeguard pacing the pool deck, wishing He could intervene, attempting to persuade free agents, but ultimately standing by helplessly while His sovereign intentions are derailed.
This is a disastrous surrender to idol-making imaginations. A god whose will can be decisively thwarted is a god who lacks true power. A god who tries His best but is constrained by external obstacles is merely a magnified creature among other creatures.
To preserve the majesty of the uncreated God and provide an immovable anchor for the afflicted soul, we must reclaim the classical Christian doctrine of divine omnipotence: the doctrine of the Almighty Sovereign (Omnipotentia Dei).
Because God is simple, self-existent (a se), impassible, and entirely unbound by space and time, He is fully and indivisibly potent at every point in creation and across every moment in history, possessing an unthwartable active power to accomplish whatsoever He eternally pleases in accordance with His holy nature.
Wholly Present, Wholly Potent
In our preceding study on divine infinity, we arrived at an indispensable metaphysical baseline: omnipotence is simply the logical outcome of a God who is not composed of parts.
Creaturely power is quantitative and compartmentalized. A weightlifter has great strength in his biceps, but he can be incapacitated by a microscopic virus in his bloodstream; a statesman wields immense political leverage in the capital but is completely powerless to prevent an earthquake a thousand miles away. Creaturely agents must divide their energy, distribute their attention, and exert effort against opposing resistance.
Because God is simple (Simplicitas Dei), He has no parts, faculties, or separate reservoirs of energy. His power is not an acquired muscle He flexes, nor is it an abstract property distinct from His essence. God’s power is His simple essence acting outward (virtus divina est ipsa divina essentia ad extra operativa).
Furthermore, because God’s essence is unbound by space (immensity/omnipresence) and unbound by time (eternity):
- He does not need to travel to a location to exert His power.
- He does not need to wait for a temporal opportunity to act.
- He does not exhaust energy when He creates galaxies, nor does He recharge His strength when He rests.
As the prophet Isaiah writes:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28)
Because God cannot be divided, dispersed, or bounded, He is fully present and fully potent at every place and in every moment. The whole, undivided, uncompounded majesty of the Godhead is immediately and effortlessly present to every atom, every angel, and every historical event. He meets no resistance that can sap His strength, and He encounters no spatial or temporal frontier where His jurisdiction ceases.
What Can God Do? The Object and Definition of Omnipotence
To confess that God is “omnipotent” (omnis + potens, “all-powerful”) does not mean He can do literally anything that human words can string together.
For centuries, skeptics have posed puerile riddles designed to trap the doctrine of omnipotence: “Can God make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it?” or “Can God create a square circle?” Modern sentimentalists often assert that “God can do anything!” without realizing that Scripture itself explicitly denies certain actions to God:
- God cannot lie. (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18)
- God cannot be tempted with evil, nor does He tempt anyone. (James 1:13)
- God cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)
- God cannot die or perish. (1 Timothy 6:16)
Does Scripture contradict divine omnipotence by asserting that God cannot lie or die?
Classical Reformed dogmatics, following the catholic consensus of the ancient church and the medieval doctors, resolves this with razor-sharp precision: God’s inability to do these things is not evidence of weakness, but the supreme proof of His infinite perfection and omnipotent power.
As Francis Turretin asks in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology:
What is the omnipotence of God, and does it extend to those things which imply a contradiction? We deny.[1]
Turretin and the Reformed scholastics establish two essential boundaries governing the true definition of omnipotence:
Contradictions Are Non-Realities (Nihil)
A logical contradiction (such as a square circle, a married bachelor, or a rock that an omnipotent being cannot lift) is not an actual “thing” or potential action. It is a mere collision of incompatible words that cancels itself out into absolute nothingness (nihil).
To say that God cannot create a square circle is not to say that God meets an external limit to His strength; it is to recognize that a square circle is an intrinsic absurdity, a non-entity. As Thomas Aquinas famously observed, it is better to say that such self-contradictory things cannot be done, rather than that God cannot do them.[2] Omnipotence means God has the active power to bring about all things that are intrinsically possible, everything that has the character of being.
Moral and Ontological Impotence vs. Omnipotence
When Scripture states that God cannot lie, sin, or deny Himself, it is not attributing a defect to God.
Sin, deceit, and death are not acts of genuine power; they are acts of impotence, defect, and failure. When a human lies, he does so because he is fearful, vulnerable, or lacking in truth. When a creature dies, it undergoes a passive defeat caused by corruption and mortality.
If God could lie, He would possess a defect in His truthfulness; if God could die, He would possess a defect in His life; if God could sin, He would possess a defect in His holiness. As Augustine beautifully summarized in The City of God, God is called omnipotent precisely because He does what He wills, not because He suffers what He does not will:
For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent.[3]
God’s omnipotence is the supreme perfection of His active power. He can do all things that are consistent with His holy, wise, and simple nature.
Potentia Absoluta vs. Potentia Ordinata
To navigate the relationship between God’s boundless power and His historical actions, classical Reformed orthodoxy utilized the ancient scholastic distinction between God’s absolute power (potentia absoluta) and His ordained power (potentia ordinata).
This distinction does not divide divine power into two competing faculties or separate reservoirs of strength within the Godhead, nor does it imply any inner division in the Deity. Rather, it distinguishes how we conceptualize divine power in ratio, that is, in our human understanding as we contemplate what God could do by His infinite nature versus what He has actually determined to do by His eternal counsel.
On the one hand, absolute power considers the sheer, infinite capacity of the divine essence in itself; on the other hand, ordained power considers that very same omnipotence as it is directed, promised, and realized in the historical theater of creation and redemption.
Potentia Absoluta (Absolute Power)
Potentia absoluta refers to the sheer, infinite capacity of the divine essence viewed in itself, prior to or distinct from His eternal decree.
Could God have created ten thousand galaxies more than exist, or brought into being entirely different orders of creaturely life? Could He have raised up children for Abraham from the stones in the Jordan river (Matthew 3:9), or dispatched twelve legions of angels to deliver Christ from the garden (Matthew 26:53)? Absolutely. God’s active power is infinite; the actual created order does not exhaust His capacity. He has the absolute power to do infinitely more than He has chosen to do.
Potentia Ordinata (Ordained Power)
Potentia ordinata refers to divine power as it is freely determined, specified, and directed by His eternal decree and covenant promises.
Once God sovereignly decreed the history of the world and revealed His covenant promises in Christ Jesus, His active power operates in accordance with that ordained order. Having promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head and having sworn that those who trust in Christ will never perish, God will not act contrary to that ordained purpose. His ordained power is His absolute power executed in perfect harmony with His eternal wisdom, justice, and faithfulness.
Refuting Nominalist Voluntarism
Reformed orthodoxy was exceptionally careful in employing this distinction to refute the dangerous error of late medieval nominalism (associated with figures like William of Ockham).
The nominalists had abused the concept of potentia absoluta, arguing that God’s absolute power was completely untethered from His justice or wisdom, claiming that by absolute power, God could arbitrarily command hate instead of love, damn the righteous, or save the unrepentant without atonement.
Reformed dogmatics flatly rejected this terrifying voluntarism. As Herman Bavinck points out in his critique of nominalist arbitrariness, God’s power is never an abstract, blind omnipotence detached from His essential perfections. Divine power is not an arbitrary fiat that can act against God’s own being; rather, it is inseparably unified with His nature, meaning that God cannot act foolishly, unjustly, or contrary to His holy character.[4]
There is no dark, hidden caprice in God that threatens to overturn His righteous character. His absolute power is the power of the holy, wise, and faithful God.
Secondary Causes and the Myth of Cosmic Frustration
Because God is omnipotent, His sovereignty over creation is comprehensive, exhaustive, and unshakeable.
When Scripture articulates divine omnipotence, it does not stop at general cosmic maintenance. It asserts that God’s sovereign hand governs the grandest cosmic movements and the smallest creaturely details:
- Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)
- “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)
- He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)
- In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will…. (Ephesians 1:11)
Concurrence Without Pantheism or Fatalism
How does God’s unstoppable power relate to creaturely actions and the genuine decisions of human beings?
Modern critics often accuse classical Reformed theology of fatalism or puppet-master determinism. But historic orthodoxy fiercely guards the integrity of the created order through the doctrine of divine concurrence (concursus).
God is the Primary Cause (Causa Prima) of all reality. But in His sovereign wisdom, He acts through secondary causes (causae secundae). When fire burns wood, the chemical properties of fire are the real, genuine secondary cause of the combustion. Yet the fire has no independent power to burn apart from the continuous, sustaining active power of the primary Cause who upholds every molecule.
Similarly, when human beings make voluntary choices, they are acting as genuine, morally responsible secondary agents. God does not bypass human desires or drag men kicking and screaming against their wills. Rather, God’s sovereign providence is so profound, so intimate, and so omnipotent that He governs secondary causes according to their natural mode, directing necessary agents necessarily, and free agents contingently and voluntarily.
As the Westminster Confession of Faith says:
GOD from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. (WCF 3.1)
God’s omnipotence does not destroy creaturely reality; it establishes and upholds it.
Safe in the Hands of the Unstoppable Lord
Loved ones, this staggering doctrine belongs not only in the high halls of scholastic definition but also in the quiet, trembling corners of our everyday lives.
Why does divine omnipotence matter when you are sitting in the ashes of shattered dreams, watching a loved one waste away from sickness, or agonizing over the moral decay of our culture?
It matters because a weak god is an absolute terror to the human soul.
If God were merely a well-meaning cosmic cheerleader who has wonderful intentions for your life but lacks the unstoppable power to execute them, you would live in chronic, paralyzing dread. You would fear that cancer has more power than God; that the devil has more leverage than God; that the foolish decisions of corrupt politicians can derail God’s promises; or that your own stubborn sin could tear you out of His eternal grip.
A god who lacks sovereign omnipotence cannot guarantee that all things will work together for your good. (Romans 8:28) He can only cross his fingers and hope for the best.
Divine omnipotence shatters that terror forever.
Because God is omnipotent:
Your Trials Are Never Meaningless Accidents
Not a single tear falls from your cheek outside the sovereign ordination of your Heavenly Father. The storms that batter your life are not rogue agents that broke loose from God’s control; they are ministers in the hand of the Almighty, governed by the exact same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. The trials that break your earthly comfort are being sovereignly wielded by infinite love to conform you to the image of His Son.
Your Salvation Is Eternally Invincible
How do you know you will persevere to the end? Is your eternal destiny suspended upon the fragile rope of your creaturely willpower? If it were, you would perish before sundown.
Your eternal life is secure because you are guarded by the unstoppable omnipotence of God. Hear the roaring promise of the Lord Jesus Christ:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:27–30)
No demon in hell, no tyrant on earth, no tragedy in history, and no failure in your past has the power to pry open the omnipotent fist of the Father and the Son. You are kept by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed. (1 Peter 1:5)
The Final Victory Is Already Settled
We look at the darkness of our world, the arrogance of wicked men, and the persecution of the church, and our flesh tempts us to despair. But divine omnipotence reminds us that the nations are merely a drop in the bucket before Him (Isaiah 40:15). The Lord sits in the heavens and laughs at the vain conspiracies of rebellious kings (Psalm 2:4).
The cross appeared to the world as the ultimate defeat of God. Yet at Calvary, the simple, impassible, omnipotent Lord was accomplishing His greatest sovereign victory, dismantling the power of sin, disarming principalities and powers, and redeeming His bride for all eternity.
You do not serve a God who is struggling to win. You serve the Lord of hosts, the King of kings, whose decree cannot be overturned, whose arm cannot be shortened, and whose kingdom will have no end.
Conclusion
God is not a frustrated spectator waiting on the decisions of men. He is the uncreated, unstoppable Lord of heaven and earth.
As we look forward to our next study on The Trinitarian Doctrine of Inseparable Operations, where we will explore how this single, undivided omnipotence is exercised indivisibly by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (opera ad extra indivisa sunt), we anchor our souls to this foundational truth: our God is almighty, and His kingdom rule is absolute.
Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, forgive our small, fearful thoughts of Your sovereignty. Forgive us for trusting in creaturely chariots and horses rather than Your holy name. Silence our anxieties, strengthen our trembling knees, and grant us grace to rest in Your unstoppable, loving power today and forevermore. Amen.
Key Terms
- Divine Omnipotence (Omnipotentia Dei): The classical attribute affirming that God possesses infinite, unthwartable active power to accomplish whatsoever He wills in accordance with His holy, wise, and perfect nature.
- Potentia Absoluta (Absolute Power): The scholastic distinction referring to the infinite power of God considered in itself, capable of performing all possible things that do not imply a logical contradiction, distinct from what He has actually decreed to do.
- Potentia Ordinata (Ordained Power): The power of God as freely determined, specified, and directed by His eternal decree and covenant promises, executing in creation and redemption what He has eternally ordained.
- Intrinsic Impossibility (Contradiction): A state of affairs that implies a simultaneous contradiction in terms (e.g., a square circle). Such things are not objects of divine power because they are non-entities (nihil), devoid of being.
- Primary Cause (Causa Prima): God as the ultimate, uncreated, self-existent source and sustainer of all reality, distinct from the creaturely instruments through which He acts.
- Secondary Causes (Causae Secundae): Created agents and natural processes that genuinely act and produce effects within the historical order, operating under and upheld by the divine primary Cause.
- Concurrence (Concursus): The orthodox doctrine that God continuously cooperates with and upholds created things in every action, directing secondary causes according to their proper nature without destroying their genuine operation or moral responsibility.
[1] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James Jr Dennison, trans. George Giger, vol. 1 (P&R Publishing, 1992), 3.21.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Burns Oats & Washbourne), 1.25.3.
[3] Augustine of Hippo, “City of God,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2 of Series 1 (Christian Literature Company, 1887), 5.10.1.
[4] See Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 248.