God Is Not Omnipotent

In my notes on Elder D. Todd Christofferson's October 2016 talk, I go off on a mini-tangent about how God is not actually omnipotent. Here are two examples, taken from said talk:

"God will always love us, but He cannot save us in our sins."

"Indeed, God does rain down upon all His children all the blessings He can—all the blessings that love and law and justice and mercy will permit."

It's odd to think that there is anything that God cannot do. I'm so used to thinking of Him as omnipotent that the idea of Him having limitations, inabilities, seems impossible. But I believe that there are laws which govern the universe, much like the laws of physics do, which God literally cannot break.

Heck, I'm not even sure He can break the laws of physics. Whenever He seems to, it could simply be that we don't fully understand the laws of physics and that He's using a special trick we haven't figured out yet. I'm sure that if we went back to the 1700s and told people that we'd figure out a way to keep huge, metal contraptions in the air for hours at a time, they'd tell us that that defies the law of gravity. But this is all beside the point.

There may be Eternal laws, like the law of justice, which God cannot break. Or, it may be that, if God did break such a rule, He would "cease to be God," which possibility is hinted at in Alma 42. It could be that God could break some of those "Eternal laws," like the law of justice, but He would face consequences if He did. Which means, at the very least, that He cannot escape the consequences of doing something that He may or may not be able to do. Any way you look at it, if any of this is true, God's power is limited.

Yet, I think I can be okay with that. It's still true that God has great power, even if He doesn't technically have all power. And His limitations don't detract at all from His other traits. He can still be omniscience, for example. And any reference to God as being "almighty" could be a slight exaggeration, as the few things He may not be able to do are things He probably wouldn't want to do anyway. Besides, in terms of this universe, God is powerful enough that we could consider Him all-powerful, and we'd be close enough to being right, even if it's not technically true. Calling God omniscient may be like saying that pi is equal to 3.14159265359. Technically, the digits go on much longer, so that figure isn't perfectly accurate, but still, it's close enough.

So God may not be omnipotent. There may be some things He can't do. But that's okay. God's supposed omnipotence is not part of His core identity. I don't consider Him any less godly for having a few limitations. And I am sure that God still has all the power He needs to keep His promises and do almost anything else He could ever want to do. It was surprising to realize that God may not be omnipotent, but His non-omnipotence doesn't really matter. God is still God, whether He's omnipotent or not.