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Full Idea
Omnipotent will cannot make things like or equal one to another, without the natures of likeness and equality.
Gist of Idea
An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't
Source
Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.II.I)
Book Ref
'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.107
A Reaction
This is one of the many classic 'paradoxes of omnipotence'. The best strategy is to define omnipotence as 'being able to do everything which it is possible to do'. Anything beyond that is inviting paradoxical disaster.
| 6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
| 6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
| 6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
| 6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
| 6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
| 6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
| 6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
| 6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
| 6231 | There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth] |