Henke 2022v

Lundahl (2022i) Limits God’s Omnipotence

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022a), I gave the following definition of a supernatural act or miracle:

“I define a supernatural act or “magic” as a feat that violates the laws of chemistry and/or physics.”

Mr. Lundahl did not like this definition. In Lundahl (2022a), he references a section out of Lewis (1960, chapter 8,) to argue that miracles “add to” rather than violate the laws of nature.

“This was answered by C. S. Lewis in Miracles - a miracle is not a break away from natural physics, chemistry, or biology, but an addition to them.

A physicist - this is probably from chapter 8, "Miracles and the Laws of Nature" starting on p. 87 in the 2012 edition by William Collins, arguably reproducing C. S. Lewis' second, reworked, original edition - a physicist on a steamer is watching the pool balls roll on a table of pool. He can calculate the rolling period of the steamer to perfection (or simply detect it by a watch with split seconds), he can see the movements already ongoing, he can calculate how this will go on, very easily after some time - but he can't calculate whether someone will take up a queue and hit a ball with it. If someone does, the physicist's calculations have been broken, but the laws of movement haven't.”

In Henke (2022b), I replied to his comments:

“The pool (billiards) analogy from chapter 8 of Lewis (1960) and summarized by Lundahl (2022a) is totally ineffective in defending the existence of the supernatural. It only illustrates that a physicist would have difficulty making predictions about a pool game if a human (not a supernatural being) unexpectedly decided to hit one of the balls in the middle of the game. Although the conditions of the pool game might change, notice that Mr. Lundahl admits that no “laws of movement” were violated in this account. That’s because humans, and not God, demons, angels, or other supernatural agents, were playing in this game. When humans play pool, we’re stuck obeying the laws of physics. Now, if God exists, he, by definition, is not necessarily forced to obey natural laws. He supposedly created natural laws and if he can create natural laws, then supposedly he can make exceptions or undo them. God could play pool by either using his supernatural powers or he might simply restrict himself to using only natural laws. If he exists, he could do anything he wanted to. God could remove the effects of gravity from a pool ball and cause it to pass through the ceiling or allow the atoms of the ball to pass through the table, but humans can’t do these things.” [my emphasis]

Lundahl (2022i) then makes the following vague comment on the bolded sentence from my paragraph in Henke (2022b):

“Yes, and there is no law of movement broken in the former, namely His Omnipotence, it is an agency outside their field of description, but not a result contrary to their essence.”

Here, Lundahl (2022i) seems to be claiming without any evidence whatsoever that God would not break any “law of movement” when he does anything supernatural during a pool game. How does Mr. Lundahl know that? If God exists and is truly omnipotent as Mr. Lundahl claims, why does he have to be limited to obeying the laws of physics during a pool game as Mr. Lundahl demands? Certainly, God, if he exists, is outside of nature by definition, but then why would he necessarily be bound to the laws that control nature? Can’t he violate natural law whenever he wants? Isn’t he powerful enough to do that? Maybe God won’t or actually can’t violate the laws of nature, but if Mr. Lundahl wants to be so bold as to put that limitation on God, he needs to first demonstrate that his god even exists and then demonstrate that his god plays by his “no violation of natural law, but only adding to it” rules.

Reference:

Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2^nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.