OMNIPOTENCE. The noun is not found in the Eng. Bible, nor is there any noun corresponding to it in the original Gr. or Heb. The adjective “omnipotent” (παντοκράτωρ, G4120), with the exception of one usage in 2 Corinthians (6:18), appears only in Revelation (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:6, 15; 21:22), and in the Eng. always is rendered “Almighty.” The concept, however, is a necessary implication from God’s mighty acts which show no limits in prestige (over other gods, for example), power, or extent.

That the Bible does not use the abstract term, is simply characteristic of Biblical language and thought forms, for in the “mighty acts” themselves is explicitly evident, for all who accept such acts as “revelatory,” what might be more calmly or academically expressed in a word like omnipotence. God is described as performing natural wonders (Gen 1:1-3; Isa 44:24; Heb 1:3) and spiritual wonders (2 Cor 4:6; Eph 1:9; 3:20). He even has the power to create new things after His first creation (Matt 3:9; Rom 4:17), according to His pleasure, and nothing is impossible to Him (Gen 18:14).

One may observe, therefore, the definition of omnipotence by its manifestations. It is known in concrete acts, acts indeed of overreaching and overpowering inclusiveness: in creation, nature, history, providence, and redemption. In God resides the power to produce and control everything that comes to pass. Nothing evades God’s omnipotence (Dan 4:35; Amos 9:2, 3) and even the most minute things such as the falling sparrow or the hairs of our head are under His personal control (Matt 10:30; Luke 12:7). There is nothing accidental or incidental, and the thought of “omnipotence” merges easily into “omnipresence” and “omniscience.”

It is well to observe that omnipotence in God does not imply the power to do those things which in no way can be thought of as objects of power. There is no nonsense in the omnipotence as there is no nonsense in God: He cannot do that which is self-contradictory or contradictory to His own nature, because His omnipotence is of His own essence, and He is all-Being out of which all existence must arise. Intellectual tricks, raising questions as to whether God can draw a shorter than a straight line between two points or make a weight so heavy that He Himself cannot lift it, do not belong in any serious discussion of omnipotence. More to the point, and more personally, He can in no way contradict His own nature by sinning or dying. He cannot make wrong right. He cannot pretend that what has happened has not happened. The question as to how sin entered into the world is not a question of His omnipotence as much as it is a means of illustrating how an allpowerful God can create a system in which sin is possible and at the same time, because of His omnipotence, make the wrath of man to serve Him.

The power of God implies the power of self-limitation. God suffers no internal or external compulsion. One cannot hold that He exercises all of His power all the time and in every place (see Omnipresence). God has power over His power which is always under His wise and holy will. It may never be said that He is a slave of His own omnipotence: men live in a personal not a deterministic system, and therefore they have freedom to act as individuals because He has restraint. God’s omnipotence is in no sense a pantheistic attribute; omnipotence is not automatic but willful. Although it is true, as Christ said, that He is able to “raise up children unto Abraham” out of the stones of the street, He has not done so. On the basis that God’s omnipotence is controlled by love, His almighty power becomes a ground for confident trust. The Calvinistic term “irresistible grace” may emphasize “irresistible” only when one understands “grace” which is the constant expression of the love of God toward His creatures. The omnipotence of God is a fearful thing and an awful thing in the strict sense of such words; at the same time it is the ground of blessing and salvation.

Some have found help to the understanding of omnipotence in the names of God, esp. those used in the OT (see Names of God). ’Ēl, or esp. ’Ēlōhĩm, emphasizes the fullness of power in God; ’Ēl Shadday outlines the might of God; ’Abhir is the Strong One. The repeated title, “Lord of Hosts,” meant supremacy of power to the Heb. When God is referred to as Spirit, it is modern usage to think of His invisibility, but to those who thought of Spirit as wind, there was a sense of a penetrating, overpowering force, more like the use of the term “energy” in our day. One may also consider the other attributes of God, holiness, for example, which by their very nature are of the essence of God and therefore necessarily exhibit a positive thrust and negative inviolability, which can be neither resisted nor overcome.

In conclusion, one may note in modern theism a shift from the anthropomorphic manifestations which characterize the Biblical record of omnipotence to an understanding of the living God as an ever-present Energy. Some grasp of modern physics by the modern mind makes it easier for 20th cent. man to understand God’s immanence (cf. the ’elan vital of Bergson, the “ground of being” in Tillich, and the heretical overemphasis of the “God is Dead” theologians, e.g., Altizer and Hamilton). Thus God is the ground of existence, the ground and cause of all creation, and His actions always and everywhere sustain and inbreathe the whole world of things. In spite of the neglect of Almighty God “up there,” there is a true emphasis in modern theology on the God within.

Bibliography I. H. Dorner, Systems of Christian Doctrine (1880-1882); J. Orr, Christian View of God and the World (1893); S. Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All (1897); J. Ward, The Realm of Ends (1911); W. T. Dawson, HERE (1922), vol. 6, 268; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (1947), 286-288; A. B. Davidson, Old Testament Theology, 163ff.; Hodgson, Time and Space, 579, 580; E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 73; Rogers, Superhuman Origins of the Bible, 10; A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 307-310; G. Vos, ISBE, vol. IV, 2188-2190.