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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
In the Christian tradition it has generally been claimed that God, being perfectly good, has the attribute not only of impeccantia (freedom from sin) but also of impeccabilitas (inability to sin). Thus, for example, Aquinas held that ‘God is unable to will anything evil. Hence it is evident that God cannot sin’; and according to the Westminster Confession, ‘God,…being holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin’.
page 203 note 1 Summa contra Gentiles III. 25.
page 203 note 2 Westminster Confession ch. V, sect. IV.
page 204 note 1 Pike, Nelson, ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, in Helm, Paul (ed.), Divine Commands and Morality (Oxford, 1981), p. 68.Google Scholar See also Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness (London, 1970), ch. 2.Google Scholar
page 205 note 1 Aquinas uses a similar argument: ‘Were an engraver's hand itself the rule that should direct his engraving, then he could never engrave other than rightly; but just so far as the rightness of his work is measured by a rule other than the power of his hand, it is always possible that his work be done either well or not well. Now whatever the divine will does has only the divine will for its rule; for that will has no end or measure beyond itself. But each created will only acts aright so far as it conforms to the rule of God's will, which is the ultimate measure … Therefore it is only the divine will that can never go wrong; and every created will…can go wrong.’ Summa Theologise Ia. 63. 1.
page 206 note 1 Pike, ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, p. 80. This point was also raised by Leibniz in § 11 of his Discourse on Metaphysics. Cf. Flew, Antony, An Introduction to Western Philosophy (London, 1971), pp. 28–9.Google Scholar
page 206 note 2 Cf. Pike, , ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, p. 69, for an argument that Aquinas's definition of omnipotence should be interpreted in this way.Google Scholar
page 206 note 3 Cf. Phillips, D. Z., Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (London, 1970), pp. 79 f.Google Scholar and Brown, Patterson, ‘God and the Good’, Religious Studies 11 (1967), 269–76.Google Scholar
page 208 note 1 On the distinction between internal and external standards see my Theology and Philosophical Inquiry (London, 1981), ch. 10.
page 209 note 1 Phillips, , Faith and Philosophical Enquiry, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar
page 209 note 2 Weil, Simone, ‘The love of God and affliction’, in On Science, Necessity and the Love of God (London, 1968).Google Scholar
page 211 note 1 Smart, J. J. C., ‘The Existence of God’, in Flew, and MacIntyre, (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London, 1955), p. 40.Google Scholar
page 212 note 1 Augustine, , De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, ch. 3.Google Scholar See also Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (London, 1961), p. 4.Google Scholar
page 212 note 2 Swinburne, Richard, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford, 1977), p. 82.Google Scholar
page 213 note 1 Pike, , ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, p. 81.Google Scholar
page 214 note 1 Swinburne, , The Coherence of Theism, ch. 8.Google Scholar
page 214 note 2 Ibid. p. 182.
page 214 note 3 Ibid. p. 148. For Hare's view see his Freedom and Reason (London, 1963), ch. 5. For criticism of Hare see Mortimore, G. W. (ed.), Weakness of Will (London, 1971)Google Scholar, especially the contributions of Steven Lukes and Irving Thalberg.
