What is God’s Power?

Work in Progress Series for faculty and graduate students of the department.

Abstract: Theists claim that God can make a causal difference in the world. That is, theists believe that God is causally efficacious, has power. Discussion of divine power has centered on understanding better the metaphysics of creation and sustenance, special intervention, governance, and providing an account of omnipotence consistent with other divine attributes, such as omnibenevolence. But little discussion has centered on what, deep down ontologically, God's power is. I show that a number of prominent accounts of power fail to model what a classical God’s power could be, and then develop an account based on teleological and primitivist accounts of power.