Lesson 11 OMNIPOTENCE

1. The attribute of God’s omnipotence is His being almighty and all-powerful. Omnipotence: in Latin “omni” means all, and “potence” means power. The word means "all-powerful" and refers to the fact that God's power is ______and unlimited. God has the power to do all He wills to do. He has both the resources and the ability to work his will in every circumstance in the universe. To say that God is omnipotent doesn’t however mean he has the power to contradict his own nature (e.g. make a rock so big that He can’t lift it).

2. So, how do we describe the power of God? Do we say, “His power is the power of a million supernovas, or a billion, billion supernovas?” God is not at the top of a scale. God has never been on the scale, so He is not even off the scale because He utterly transcends scales. Psalm 62:11 tells us, “… power belongs to God.” That means not that God has more power than anything or anyone else, but that anyone or anything that has even an atom of power has it because God has ______it to them. God has all the power!

3. Omnipotence is identical in meaning with the more familiar word “almighty”. This word occurs often in our English Bible and is never used of anyone but God. God alone is almighty. Rev 11:17 says “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great ______and begun to reign.”

4. As sovereign Ruler over the universe, God controls everything. Sovereign means "possessing supreme, ______, unrestricted power, independent of and unlimited by any other thing". Sovereignty and omnipotence go together. One cannot exist without the other. To reign, God must have power, and to reign sovereignly, He must have all power. And that is what omnipotent means, having all power.

5. The Bible rules out all limitations of God’s Power and sovereignty. God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in such a way that human ______is curtailed, minimized, or mitigated. Remember Compatibilism? “God is sovereign, AND human beings are morally responsible” = the doctrines are compatible. C. H. Spurgeon was once asked if he could reconcile these two truths to each other. “I wouldn’t try,” he replied; “I never reconcile friends.”

6. God’s sovereignty is the attribute by which He rules His entire creation including human______; and to be sovereign God must be all-knowing, all-powerful, and absolutely free. The reasons are these: Were there even one iota of knowledge, however small, un-known to God, His rule would break down at that point. To be Lord over all the creation, He must possess all knowledge. And if God were lacking one infinitesimal modicum of power, that lack would end His reign and undo His kingdom; that one stray atom of power would belong to someone else and God would be a limited ruler and hence not sovereign. Furthermore, His sovereignty requires that He be absolutely free, which means simply that He must be free to do whatever He wills to do anywhere, at any time to carry out His eternal purpose in every single detail without interference. Were He less than free, He would be less than sovereign.

7. We must regard God as the 'determining' sovereign cause of our______, or we can’t regard God as sovereign in all things.

8. Providence says the Heidelberg Catechism (27) “is the almighty and everywhere present ______of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty,—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand”

9. Providence says, “Whatever God ______must be”; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end; providence is the way God works outs His plan, His decree in time and space. God governs His creation intentionally, and meticulously, directing the minutest details of the universe with the highest end in view; His own glory.

10. God sustains all things, directs all things, plans all things, ordains all things, superintends all things, works all things after the counsel of his will. The doctrine of divine providence is the ______of Scripture. It is everywhere present even if at times you are not consciously aware of it.

11. God the Almighty reigns in all the affairs of creation. He rules the affairs of nations (Daniel 2:21) and the flight of birds (Matthew 10:29). He gives rain, and he takes rain (Job 38:26; Psalm 147:8). He gives life, and he takes life (Job 1:21). He governs the roll of dice (Acts 1….Matthias) and the rise of kings (Daniel 2:21). Everything ______(willingly or not) “the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (as Ephesians 1:11 says).

12 Reformed theologian Paul Helm puts it like this: “What is impossible for us to do is to provide an intellectually satisfying answer to the “______” question. For asking such a question can only call for the answer, “Because God willed it to be so.” To the subsequent question, “Why did God will it to be so?” there is no further, illuminating answer. This is one reason that the pattern of divine providence will, in this life at least, always be a mystery. In dealing with the providence of God, therefore, we are dealing with matters of ultimate significance for which there is no further explanation. This does not mean that God is arbitrary or capricious in his dealings with the created universe. And so, unsatisfactory though it may be, we must rest content with the ultimate reference to the will of God.”

13. As we noted earlier, part of God’s providence are His decrees. To DECREE means to ordain, to appoint, to arrange, to prepare. God brings all things to pass according to His eternal plans, His decrees. God’s decrees foreordain, and His providence brings it into______.

14. WCF 5.2: Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. John Calvin said: “God’s providence doesn’t always meet us in its ______form (primary causes), but God clothes it with the means employed (secondary causes used by God to accomplish His will on earth).”

15. Reformed theologians have always made clear there is a difference between the role of God in ordaining what comes to pass and the role of human ______in actually and voluntarily performing the ordained action. God granted us a genuine power to will our actions which is sufficient to secure our moral responsibility. For example, Herod and Pilate conspired against Jesus (a secondary cause) in accordance with divine predestination (the first cause), but their conspiracy was still wicked and culpable (Acts 4:25-28).

16. PREDESTINATION is the decree of God by which He has, from eternity past, unchangeably appointed or determined whatever comes to pass. It is used particularly to denote the ______of humans to everlasting happiness or misery and is a part of the unchangeable plan of an unchangeable God.

17. WCF 3.1 God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeable ordain ______comes to pass; 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.

18. One of the reasons that the problem of evil is considered to be such a strong argument against Christianity is that it has such broad appeal. Unlike strictly metaphysical arguments against God's existence, the problem of evil is one that is more intuitive, understood by virtually anyone, whether or not he or she is a philosopher. When a loved one is going through suffering, it is asked “How could a ______God allow this??”

19. Here is how the Problem of Evil (POE) is typically articulated: a.) If an all-powerful and perfectly good God exists, then evil______. b.) There is evil in the world. c.) Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good God does not exist.

20. The first approach is to argue that premise (a) is false by showing God’s reasons for permitting evil – the way of “theodicy” which means “God’s Justification” (from GK Theo=God, dikaio=justice). A theodicy is an attempt to ______and vindicate God for the presence of evil in the world. Christians have offered countless theodicies over the centuries, but today we will only look at two of them.

21. The first theodicy we will review is known as the Free Will Theodicy, which appeals to human freedom, and places a high premium on self determination. Sound familiar? We looked at this last week in the Arminian view of Libertarian Free will. Arminians hold to two contradictory propositions; God is omniscient and the future is ______(subject to chance). Therefore in this theodicy, God is off the hook, and is not to blame for evil since He knows about the future but does not control or ordain it. We rejected this doctrine last week because preserving libertarian human freedom (to safeguard human responsibility) does not provide a sufficient motive for overturning our Biblical understanding of God's decrees, providence and omnipotence.

22. The second theodicy we will look at is known as the Greater Good Theodicy which argues that the evil, pain and suffering in God’s world play a necessary role in bringing about greater goods that could not be brought about otherwise. That God has promised to work all things for good; that ALL providence is working to a great and beautiful end. That all suffering has a purpose and that there is no pointless and unproductive evil from God’s perspective. This view is thought by many in the Reformed camp to be the only theodicy that is ______based. This is supported by verses such as Gen 50:20 –“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” and Acts 2:23 – where the Apostle Peter says Christ was “delivered over by the predetermined plan of God”. Romans 8:28 - “..all things work together for good..”

23. The second approach is to argue that premise (a) is wrong because God’s ways are “______”; to conclude that God must have a good reason and has chosen not to reveal it to us. That we just cannot grasp God’s knowledge, the complexity of his plans, or the deep nature of the good he aims at in providence, that God Himself is incomprehensible (inscrutable = not subject to scrutiny). There are things that our inscrutable God does that our minds are unable to comprehend.

24. In the end all things come back to the glory of God, we simply don’t know what His reason is for various, specific events or the way they fit into the broader tapestry of the Triune God’s ______for history. We are finite, small, and too sinful to expect to have that kind of comprehensive knowledge. That said, we view all things in light of God’s work in the cross and resurrection.

25. Tim Keller said “If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still don’t know what the answer is. However, we know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that He doesn’t love us. It can’t be that He is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that He was willing to take it on ______. … So, if we embrace the Christian teaching that Jesus is God and that He went to the Cross, then we have deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth.”