Omnipotence

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Omnipotence. A characteristic of God in all theistic religions. It is especially prominent in Islam, where the power of God cannot be frustrated and where everything that is or that happens can only be or do so because he wills it. Theologians have introduced some qualifications in their attempts to define the extent of God's power: nearly all would rule out God's being able to do something self-contradictory, whilst many would say that God not only does not but also cannot do evil. God's omnipotence does not preclude his limiting or abdicating from his power on occasion. The so-called ‘paradoxes of omnipotence’ concern whether God can make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it, can make a creature which he cannot subsequently control, and so on.

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