Chapter VII.
On the Omnipotence of God.
Concerning the omnipotence of God, according to sacred doctrine these things are to be held: that God is omnipotent, yet in such a way that there are not attributed to Him culpable acts, such as lying and willing evil; nor penal acts, such as fearing and grieving; nor corporeal or material acts, such as sleeping and walking, except perhaps metaphorically; nor unfitting acts, such as being able to make something greater than Himself, or another God equal to Himself, or something actually infinite, and the like: "because, as Anselm says, any unfitting thing, even the least, is impossible for God." Although He cannot do these things, He is nevertheless truly, properly, and perfectly omnipotent.
The understanding and reason of the aforesaid is this: because the first principle is powerful by a power that is power simply; and therefore the distribution added to it distributes for those things which to be able is to be able simply. These, however, are those things which proceed from a complete and ordered power. - By complete power I mean that which cannot fail, nor can it succumb, nor can it be in need. But power in sinning fails, in suffering succumbs, and in corporeal actions involves indigence. But divine power, because it is the highest and most perfect power, is therefore neither from nothing nor under anything nor in need of anything else, and through this it can do neither culpable nor penal nor material things; and this is because omnipotence is complete power.
Ordered power, however, can be spoken of in three ways: either according to act, or according to aptitude on the part of the creature, or according to aptitude on the part of the uncreated power alone. What is possible for power spoken of in the first way is not only possible but also actual: what is possible in the second way and not the first is possible simply, although not actual; what is possible in the third way, but not the first or second, is possible for God, but impossible for the creature. But what is possible in none of the aforesaid ways, such as that which directly conflicts with order according to the primordial and eternal reasons and causes, is simply impossible: such as that God should make something actually infinite, that He should simultaneously make something to be and in no way to be, that He should make what has been not to have been, and other such things; to be able to do which is against the order and completeness of the divine power.
From these things it is clear with respect to what the divine power extends: it is also clear which things ought to be called simply possible, and which simply impossible, and that the impossibility of certain things is consistent with true omnipotence.