A Rational Objection Against Polytheism

We discussed at least five different ways Allah سبحانه وتعالى criticizes polytheism in a previous article: Five Ways Polytheism Is Rationally Critiqued in the Qur’an.

One of the arguments concerns how it is impossible for more than one omnipotent being to exist simultaneously. Even non-Muslim philosophers recognize the force of this argument.

Taken from: Joshua Hoffman & Gary Rosenkrants, “Omnipotence,” In: A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, e.d. Blackwell, 2010, p. 244:

Power should be distinguished from ability. Power is ability plus opportunity: a being having maximal ability who is prevented by circumstances from exercising those abilities would not be omnipotent. Nothing could prevent an omnipotent agent from exercising its powers, were it to endeavor to do so.

In the light of the foregoing, could there be two coexistent omnipotent agents, Dick and Jane? If this were even possible, then possibly, at some time, t, Dick, while retaining his omnipotence, attempts to move a feather, and at t, Jane, while retaining her omnipotence, attempts to keep that feather motionless. Intuitively, in this case, neither Dick nor Jane would affect the feather as to its motion or rest. Thus, in this case, at t, Dick would be powerless to move the feather, and at t, Jane would be powerless to keep the feather motionless! But it is absurd to suppose that an omnipotent agent could lack the power to move a feather or the power to keep it motionless. Therefore, neither Dick nor Jane is omnipotent. Since the idea that there could be two omnipotent beings who are necessarily always in perfect agreement is highly questionable, it seems impossible that there be two coexistent omnipotent agents. However, it might be objected that while neither Dick nor Jane brings about what he or she attempts to bring about, each of them can do so, since each of them has the ability to do so; they fail to bring about what they attempt to bring about only because they lack the opportunity to do so. But our earlier observations about the difference between power and ability and how each of them is related to omnipotence entail that omnipotence should be understood in terms of the ability plus opportunity sense of “ can. ” If those earlier observations of ours are correct, then, since neither Dick nor Jane can (in the ability plus opportunity sense) do what he or she attempts to do, the objection under discussion does not succeed.