OMODEO
252
O'NEILL
preserve man from death; but in the present order
this is impossible, since He has decreed otherwise,
(c) The creation of an absolutely best creature or of
an absolutely greatest number of creatures is im-
fossiblo, because the Divine power is inexhaustible. — t is sometimes objected that this aspect of omnipo- tence involves the contradiction that God cannot do all that He can do; but the argument is sophistical; it is no contradiction to a.ssort that God can realize whatever is possible, but that no number of actualized possibilities exhausts His power. (2) Another class of intrinsic impossibihties includes all that would simultaneously connote mutually repellent elements, e. g. a square circle, an infinite creature, etc. God cannot eflect the non-existence of actual events of the past, for it is contradictory that the same thing that has happened should also not have happened.
Omnipotence is perfect power, free from all mere potentiality. Hence, although God does not bring into external being all that He is able to accomplish, His power must not be undertsood as passing through successive stages before its effect is accomplished. The actiWty of God is simple and eternal, without evolution or change. The transition from possibility to actuality or from act to potentiality, occurs only in creatures. When it is said that God can or could do a thing, the terms are not to be understood in the sense in which they are applied to created causes, but as conveying the idea of a Being possessed of infinite unchangeable power, the range of Whose activity is limited only by His sovereign Will. "Power", says St. Thomas, "is not attributed to God as a thing really different from His Knowledge and Will, but as some- thing expressed by a different concept, since power means that which executes the command of the will and the advice of the intellect. The.se three (viz., intellect, will, power), coincide with one another in God" (Summa, I, Q. x.xv, a. 1, ad 4). Omnipotence is all-sufficient power. The adaptation of means to ends in the universe does not argue, as J. S. Mill would have it, that the power of the designer is limited, but only that God has willed to manifest His glory by a world so constituted rather than by another. Indeed the production of secondary causes, capable of accom- plishing certain effects, requires greater power than the direct accomplishment of these same effects. On the other hand even though no creature existed, God's power would not be barren, for creatures are not an end to God.
The omnipotence of God is a dogma of Catholic faith, contained in all the creeds and defined by var- ious councils (cf. Denziger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion", 428, 1790). In the Old Testament there are more than seventy passages in which God is called Shaddai, i. e., omnipotent. The Scriptures represent this attribute as infinite power (Job, xlii, 2; Mark, x, 27; Luke, i, 37; Matt., xix, 26, etc.) which God alone possesses (Tob., xiii, 4; Ecclus., i, 8; etc.). The Greek and Latin Fathers unanimously teach the doctrine of Divine omnipotence. Origen testifies to this behef when he infers the amplitude of Divine providence from God's omnipotence: "Just as we hold that God is incorporeal and omnipotent and invisible, so likewise do we confess as a certain and immovable dogma that His provi- dence extends to all things" (Genesis, Hom. 3). St. Augustine defends omnipotence against the Mani- chseans, who taught that God is unable to overcome evil (Haires, xlvi and Enchir., c. 100); and he speaks of this dogma as a truth recognized even by pagans, and which no reasonable person can question (Serm. 240, de temp., c. ii). Reason itself proves the omnip- otence of God. " Since every agent produces an effect similar to itself", says St. Thomas (Summa, I, Q. xxv, a. 3), "to every active power there must correspond as proper object, a category of possibilities propor- tioned to the cau.se possessing that power, e. g. the power of heating has for its proper object that which
can be heated. Now Divine Being, which is the basis
of Divine power, is infinite, not being limited to any
category of being but containing within itself the per-
fection of all being. Consequently all that can be
considered as being is contained among the absolute
possibilities with respect to which God is omnipotent."
(See Creation; God; Infinite; Miracles.)
The question of omnipotence is discussed by philosophers in works on natural theology and by theologians in the treatise on One God (De Deo Uno). See especially St. Thomas, Summa, I, Q. xxv; Idem, Contra Genles, II, vii sq.; Suarez, Dc Deo, III, ix; HuRTER, Compendium theologian dogmntica, II (Innsbruck, 1SS5), 79 sq.; Pohle, Lehrbucti der Dogmatik, I (Paderborn, 190S), 143 sq.
J. A. McHuGH.
Omodeo, Giovanni Antonio. See Amadeo.
O'Molloy, Francis. See Molloy, Francis.
O'Mulconry, Farfassa. See Four Masters, Annals of the.
Oneida Cominunity. See Communism.
O'Neill, Henry. See Dromore, Diocese of.
O'Neill, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, b. 1540; d. at Rome, 1616; was the youngest son of Mathew, of ques- tionable parentage, but recognized as heir by Conn, first Earl of Tyrone. As such he was ennobled with the title of Baron of Dungannon. Shane O'Neill contested this arrangement and in the petty wars which fol- lowed both Mathew and his eldest son lost their lives. In 1562 Hugh, the youngest son, became Baron of Dungannon. His early years were spent partly in Ire- land and partly at the English court, where he learned English ways and became more like an English noble than an Irish chief. He did not object even to go to the Protestant church though he was bred as a Catho- lic and died one. Camden describes him as a man "whose industry was great, his mind large and fit for the weightiest businesses ... he had much knowledge in military affairs and a profound, dissembling heart, so as many deemed him born either for the great good or ill of his country ". In his early years he interfered but little in the quarrels and contests of the Irish chiefs, and had no share in the final overthrow of Shane O'Neill, but in 1574, he aided the Earl of Essex to lay waste the territory of O'Neill of Clanaboy, and in 1580 helped the Earl of Ormonde to crush the Geraldines. In 1585 he sat as a peer in Perrot's Parliament, assenting to the attainting of the Earl of Desmond and the con- fiscation of his lands; in the following year he accom- panied Perrot to Ulster to put down the Antrim Scots. His loyalty to England was gratefully recognized both by viceroy and queen who confirmed him in the title of Earl of Tyrone and in possession of all the lands held by his grandfather. On his side, O'Neill undertook to providefor the sons of Shane O'Neill, to lay no "cess" (tax) on the Ulster chiefs, and to build an English fort in Tyrone. His position soon became difficult, and he went to London where he justified himself, undertak- ing at the same time to renounce forever the name of O'Neill, to make Tyrone shireground, with English law and English officials, and to have in it neither nuns nor priests.
At the Irish Council his enemies were the viceroy and Marshal Bagnal, whose sister he had married; but the queen censured Bagnal and recalled Fitzwil- liam, appointing in his jilace Sir William Russell. This was in 1594, when O'Donnell, Maguire, and Mac- Mahon were already in open rebellion. The same year O'Neill's brother joined the rebels, which caused O'Neill himself to be suspected, and when he appeared in Dublin he was charged by Bagnal with favouring the rebels, with being in league with the pope and the King of Spain, and with having assumed the title of The O'Neill. Though these charges could not be proved, the queen ordered him detained; but secretly warned, he hurriedly left Dublin and the next year broke out into rebellion, proving the most formidiabl?
