Omnipotence

Omnipotence (literally, "all power") is power with no limits or inexhaustible, in other words, unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to God.

In the philosophy of most Western monotheistic religions, omnipotence is listed as one of God's characteristics among many, including omniscience, omnipresence, and benevolence.
 

Meanings of Omnipotence
Between people of different faiths, or indeed even between people of the same faith, the term omnipotent has been used to connote a number of different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:

God is able to do anything, i. e. the answer to "can God do x" is always "yes", regardless of what x may be. However this leads to obvious contradictions and is not a view held by philosophically aware theologians.
God is able to do anything that is logically possible for God to do
God is able to do anything that God chooses to do.
God is able to do anything that is in accord with his own nature (thus for instance if it is a logical consequence of God's nature that what God speaks is truth then God is not able to lie).
Under many philosophical definitions of the term "God" senses 2, 3 and 4 can be shown to be equivalent. However on all understandings of Omniopotence it is generally held that God is able to intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics, since they are not part of his nature, but the principles on which he has created the physical world. However many modern scholars (such as John Polkinghorne hold that it is part of God's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for God to go against His own laws unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so


 Scholastic definition
Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer allows that creaturely acts such as walking can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."

In recent times, C.S. Lewis has adopted a scholastic position in the course of his work the problem of evil. Lewis follows Aquinas' view on contradiction:

His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words 'God can.'... It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.

– Lewis, 18


Rejection or limitation of omnipotence
Some monotheists reject the view that God is or could be omnipotent, or take the view that, by choosing to create creatures with freewill, he has chosen to limit his omnipotence. In Conservative and Reform Judaism, and some movements within Protestant Christianity, including process theology and open theism, God is said to act in the world through persuasion, and not by coercion. God makes himself manifest in the world through inspiration and the creation of possibility, not necessarily by miracles or violations of the laws of nature.