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Who is almighty?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2019

DANIEL KODAJ*
Affiliation:
Institute of Philosophy, Eotvos Lorand University, Muzeum krt 4, 1088 Budapest, Hungary
*

Abstract

Peter Geach recommended conceiving of God as almighty, not as omnipotent. I argue that Geach's heuristic explanation of almightiness does not provide a workable definition, and I propose one on his behalf. The resulting notion turns out to have precisely those theoretical virtues that Geach advertised: it is immune to the logical puzzles that bedevil omnipotence, and it is better suited to religious contexts than the notion of maximal power that informs typical definitions of omnipotence.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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