The Explanatory Failure of Amipotence
By Robin A. Collins
Oord’s amipotent God lacks explanatory power and his two major objections to omnipotence fail.
In this essay, I will present one of the major reasons I hold to what I call robust theism—the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good, and perfectly free God—instead of Oord’s process theism view in which God only has persuasive power, what he calls amipotence. At the same time, I hold that God typically relates to humans, and perhaps the rest of the created order, using persuasive, not coercive power, along with holding an open and relational God view of God.
Although we might have pragmatic reasons for believing in Oord’s view of God, I think that in contrast to robust theism, there is little reason to believe such a God exists. To begin, apart from religious experience, the only good non-pragmatic reason for thinking some sort of God exists is that God’s existence can provide an ultimate explanation of various features of the world, such as its existence (cosmological argument), its apparent design (teleological argument) such as exemplified by the well-known fine-tuning for life, its moral structure (moral argument), and so forth… find the anthropic fine-tuning related arguments, such as the consistent order of the universe, the most impressive.
Below I focus on showing why the God of process theism cannot plausibly provide an adequate ultimate explanation of the fine-tuning whereas the God of robust theism can, though I think similar points apply for other areas in which God might serve as an ultimate explanation.
Anthropic fine-tuning refers to the fact that the structure of the universe is set to an enormous degree of precision for life to occur, particularly intelligent life. Atheists typically object to this and other teleological arguments by claiming that the order in God’s mind would need just as much fine-tuning as the universe itself. They then invoke what I call the no fine-tuning transfer condition, which is the legitimate condition that an adequate explanation of the fine-tuning, such as God, must not require as much fine-tuning as the universe. If it does, they argue, we might as well just stop with the universe and accept its fine-tuning as an unexplained fact.
Process theism’s God, I believe, either fails to explain the fine-tuning or violates this condition. To explain the fine-tuning, process theists must hypothesize as an unexplained fact some lawlike connection between God’s mental states and matter that allowed God to use persuasion to fine-tune the universe. It seems that such a task would require just the right (fine-tuned) sort of laws—e.g., the laws connecting my mind to matter do not allow me to do this. Further, to avoid the problem of evil –an avoidance they often claim is one of process theism’s main strengths—they would have to hypothesize that as an unexplained fact these laws are fine-tuned to give God the enormous persuasive power to fine-tune the universe, but yet not enough power to manipulate matter to prevent many of the evils in the world.
In contrast, as I argue in more detail elsewhere, plausibly robust theism can explain the fine-tuning without violating the fine-tuning transfer condition.[1] For both traditional Western theism and robust theism, God has no parts to be arranged, and God’s essential properties are claimed to flow from some singular core property, such as that of unbounded being (e.g., Aquinas); maximal perfection (Anselm); or unbounded consciousness (Richard Swinburne and others). This means that under robust theism God does not require a special arrangement of parts or a fine-tuned set of properties to exist as a mind powerful enough to create the universe.
To illustrate, one could argue for the existence of an unbounded, dynamic consciousness (my preferred core conception of God) by reasoning as follows. Either consciousness or the non-conscious (such as unconscious matter), or a combination of the two, is the fundamental core of reality, with that core giving rise to everything else. Let’s suppose consciousness is fundamental. Consciousness appears to require that something be conscious, and consciousness and will seem to go together. Defining a person as a being, or reality, with both consciousness and will, it follows that the fundamental reality is a Person. And being fundamental, there would be nothing outside its consciousness and will that could constrain it, implying its consciousness and will are not bounded by any non-logical external constraints. Lacking such constraints, it’s at least plausible to think that this Person is omniscient (unbounded consciousness), along with being omnipotent and perfectly free (unbounded and unconstrained will).
Moreover, given the existence of objective moral value (goodness), it follows that an omniscient God would recognize what is good. And, given the claim going back to Plato that to recognize something as good gives a person some motive to bring it about, it follows that God would have a desire to do good. Finally, since God’s perfect freedom implies that nothing constrains or counteracts this desire, it follows that God will always desire the good, which means that God is perfectly good.
Now, to create the universe, God would have to have the enormously complex, fine-tuned blueprint of the universe in God’s mind. Would this mean God’s mind needs fine-tuning? No, because God’s omniscience implies that God’s mind contains all possible blueprints, and thus the blueprint for our universe. Given that God’s omniscience flows from consciousness being fundamental, it follows of necessity that the blueprint for our world exists in God’s mind. The only potential coincidence is that God actualized a blueprint for a life-permitting universe instead of some other type of universe. However, as long as we can glimpse some overall good realized by creating a life-permitting universe, it follows that we should not find it highly improbable that a perfectly good God would choose to actualize such a blueprint, thereby eliminating this potential coincidence. Thus, plausibly, the God of robust theism can explain the fine-tuning without violating the no fine-tuning transfer condition.
This brings us to the first major reason Oord rejects omnipotence, the problem of evil. A standard response to this problem is that there are goods (called greater goods) that both outweigh the evils in our world and are such that if God did not allow these evils, it would be much less likely for these greater goods to occur. Although like Oord I think the purported greater good of free will is not sufficient to justify God’s allowing such evils, I think some theodicies do make substantial headway on this issue, one of which is my connection building theodicy, which some have encouraged me to call the “Love Theodicy.”[2] This theodicy hypothesizes that through our acts of love in response to evil, we form particularly deep eternal connections of appreciation, contribution, and intimacy that are intrinsically valuable. Because these connections exist forever, I argue that they plausibly could be considered to outweigh the evils of this world while at the same time giving eternal value to our acts of love.
In any case, for one to show that there are no such greater goods, one would first have to go through all the main theodicies people have proposed and show that taken together they are inadequate. Even if one could perform this Herculean task, one must further assume that because we have been unable to find an adequate reason for God’s allowing many of the evils in the world, there likely isn’t one. Such an assumption is only legitimate for cases in which we would expect to see something if we looked really hard: the fact that I cannot see a rattlesnake in my room after much looking is evidence that there isn’t one, since if there were one, I would expect to find it. In contrast, the fact that I cannot find a rattlesnake in the woods behind my house is not evidence that there isn’t one since even if there were one, I would not expect to find it. Given the severe limitations of our own minds, and the vastness of God’s mind, we are in the latter type of situation, and thus have no reason to think that because we cannot find any adequate greater goods in some cases of evil, there are not any.
Although Oord might object that I am merely playing the “mystery card,” I claim that recognizing such limitations is a sign of humility, wisdom, and spiritual growth. As Blaise Pascal famously said, “The last step of reason is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things beyond it; it is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that. If natural things are beyond it, what are we to say of supernatural things?”[3]
That said, Oord’s “mystery card” objection does apply to those appeals to mystery that attempt to avoid positive evidence or positive intuitions against one’s claim, such as a Young Earth Creationist appealing to mystery in response to fossils dated to be millions of years old or a Calvinist appealing to mystery in response to the apparent incompatibility of theological determinism and human moral responsibility. Unlike the legitimate appeal to mystery I used above, these appeals are not in response to our inability to see something, but to our seeming to see something. They are analogous to one seeming to clearly see a rattlesnake in their yard, yet denying there is one by saying that as far as we know, some mysterious process might be creating an optical illusion. If we allowed these kinds of appeals across the board, our ability to infer anything would be severely compromised.
Implicitly recognizing this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate appeals to mystery, recently atheists have put forward a different objection to an omnipotent God from evil based on the purported moral intuition that it would be wrong for God to allow the suffering of an innocent person—such as a child that is assaulted and raped — for some greater good if they have not consented to such suffering. When filled out, however, this objection is still based on failing to recognize our human limitations, and so in my view has little force.[4] For example, as far as we know, our souls existed before birth and we consented to having an earthly life (though not necessarily the particular one we had) for the realization of some greater good, such as those given by the connection building theodicy.[5] Moreover, even if we did not actually consent, as far as we know, all that is morally required is that we would retroactively consent in the heavenly state once we realized the greater goods resulting from living an early life.[6]
Finally, the other major reason Oord rejects omnipotence is that he claims it needs such extensive qualifications that it becomes essentially meaningless. However, the very fact that he articulates what an omnipotent God can and cannot do near the end of Chapter 2 shows that the concept is meaningful: if it were truly meaningless, we would not be able to draw any conclusions about God’s range of possible actions. What is true, however, is that it is not an attribute that determines God’s range of possible actions apart from God’s other essential attributes: for example, God’s attribute of being essentially perfectly good implies that an omnipotent God cannot do evil.
Bio: Robin A. Collins is Randall Basinger Chair of Philosophy at Messiah University. He has written over fifty essays in philosophy with some of the leading academic presses, spanning the areas of philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and philosophy of mind. He is best known for his work on the fine-tuning argument for theism.
OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE
Robin Collins contends my view fails to ultimately explain fine-tuning. Regrettably, he wrongly assumes I claim that God requires the universe to exist. I affirm instead that God exists necessarily, with all forms and abstract objects residing eternally in God’s mind. I also agree that God is aware of every possible creation blueprint. Collins correctly infers that I consider his appeal to mystery in the face of evil unhelpful. While mystery is justifiable when acknowledging our uncertainty regarding the most plausible solution to the problem of evil, it is unjustified to assert that God possesses inscrutable reasons for permitting preventable evil.
Note: For more on why Oord thinks God exists necessarily, see this essay.
* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.
[1]. See Robin Collins, “From Design to God—What Fine-Tuning Design Arguments Tell Us about the Designer,” in The Metaphysics and History of Design Discourse: Abrahamic Perspectives, Rope Kojonen and Shoaib Malik, editors, Routledge, forthcoming.
[2]. See Robin Collins, “The Connection Building Theodicy.” In The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Dan Howard-Snyder and Justin McBrayer, eds., Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, pp. 222-235
[3]. Pascal Pensees, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, Penguin Classics Reissue edition, 1995, #188.
[4]. I respond to this version of the problem of evil in significant detail in “Major Gaps in Sterba’s New Atheological Argument from Evil.” Special issue of Religions (an online journal) on the Logical Problem of Evil, edited by James Sterba. Religions 2022, 13, 1069. (https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/11/1069/pdf).
[5]. Further, believing in such actual consent need not undercut our motivation for helping people who suffer since such help is what brings about the redemptive greater good, such as the connections hypothesized in the connection building theodicy.
[6]. As an analogy, it is often not wrong for a parent to allow painful surgery to be done on a small child for their greater good without their consent.