Could God Create Another God? If Not, Why?

             Omnipotence is commonly defined as “all powerful.” God, as a maximally great being (the greatest conceivable being), is omnipotent. In fact, omnipotence is an ontologically necessary attribute of the maximally great being.

            However, God’s omnipotence is, occasionally, characterized fallaciously. One such characterization is this: “If God can do anything, can HE create another God?” The illogical entailment of this characterization is that if God cannot create another God, then God cannot be omnipotent. Thusly, HE cannot be God or there is no God. 

            A brief basic understanding of God’s omnipotence is necessary.

            Although omnipotence is defined as an ability to be all powerful or the most powerful, there are certain things that God cannot and will not do. For instance, God cannot contradict HIS own nature and God will not contradict HIS own Word. E.g. God cannot perform evil acts or God cannot cease to be God.

            In a previous blog, I have detailed a few things God cannot do, here’s an excerpt:¹

            (1) God cannot sin or be evil.

            (2) God cannot be unholy.

            (3) God cannot stop loving us.

            (4) God cannot be partial.

            (5) God will not save everyone.

            (6) God will not heal everyone.

            (7) God cannot abandon us.

            So can God, because HE is all powerful, create another God?

            No, God cannot create another God. In other words, a maximally great being cannot create another maximally great being, for to be able to create another maximally great being is a logical contradiction or a self-defeating assertion.

            There cannot be two maximally great beings!

            Let’s examine this from another vantage point. God, by definition, is uncaused. God did not begin to exist. There is no beginning or an ending to God. HE exists eternally and necessarily.

            If the maximally great being ought to be uncaused, then it entails that a maximally great being cannot be created.

            Let’s now consider a variant of this question: Could God create a morally perfect being?

            Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, in an answer to this question, says that moral perfection is an attribute of God, hence God will not create morally perfect beings: “My reply is based on the idea that moral perfection is a uniquely divine property. To be morally perfect is to embody goodness itself, to be maximally good…the Supreme Good makes a being worthy of worship, then it immediately follows that that being is God. For by definition God is a being worthy of worship. Nothing else but God is worthy of worship (as opposed to just admiration). So if a being is morally perfect and therefore God, it must have all the essential properties of God, including omniscience, omnipotence, eternity, necessity, and so on. My answer implies that a human person cannot be a morally perfect being, or he would be God.”²

Endnotes:

¹http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.com/2015/02/things-god-cannot-do-can-god-do-anything.html

²https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2019/could-god-create-a-morally-perfect-being-revisited

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