Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber Regardless whether omnipotence is continuing or self-embracing, therefore, legally permissible self-amendment of some type will be paradoxical or self-contradictory under the inference model. The distinction between continuing and self-embracing omnipotence does not dissolve the paradox of self-amendment, but merely directs our attention two distinct species of omnipotence in each of which the paradox is fully replicated. B. Against self-embracing omnipotence In short, the Hart-Mackie thesis fails because self-embracing omnipotence, whatever its merits in theology, cannot be made plausible under any coherent concept of law. This applies especially to the half of the Hart-Macke thesis that would allow any self-amendment under self-embracing omnipotence to be consistent with its source. Under the inference model or formal logic it is self-contradictory. It is admittedly and essentially a source of norms inconsistent with itself. Under the acceptance model, the contradiction of deriving immutable self-limitations from an unlimited power could easily be tolerated. But as I argued in Sections 8 and 9, any limitations that are thought by one generation to be immutable could justifiably be thought by the next generation to be mutable. Shifts in acceptance can render mutable even the best entrenched clauses. Therefore, an AC thought to have self-embracing omnipotence may still not enact immutable self-limitations except in the estimation of those believing in its self-embracing omnipotence. It is possible that acceptance will never shift, and that what was once imagined immutable will in fact never change, and will be perceived, accepted, and used as if it were immutable. But whether acceptance shifts is contingent. Because there is no preventing such shifts by law, the contingent possibility of them suffices to make all limitations on the amending power revocable in principle, except the limitation against irrevocable limitations. In short, a supreme AC always has continuing omnipotence and cannot deprive itself of the power to validate and invalidate law. Under the inference model as well, no AC can have self-embracing omnipotence because it is self-contradictory, or formal logic cannot quiet its disposition to forbid contradiction wherever it occurs. Self-embracing omnipotence, then, and any allegedly immutable self-limitations depend for their defining characteristics on contingent future events, under the acceptance model. The concept of a power able to limit itself immutably becomes incoherent when the effectiveness of its self- limitation, the essence of its unique power, is made contingent upon a future and external force. This is not true of deities or other entities to which omnipotence might be ascribed, for the acceptance model is not as applicable to them. But in law the idea that a supreme amending power may have self-embracing omnipotence, when acceptance is the ultimate source of legal authority, is incoherent, not merely a violation of democratic values. The acceptance model does not permit any legal power to make legally immutable rules, even if it permits "contingent immutability" ratified by each successive generation for its own reasons (see Section 21.C). Self-embracing omnipotence is hardly omnipotent and hardly self-embracing if it cannot, by its own exertions, limit itself immutably. In short, then, self-embracing omnipotence is self-contradictory for the inference model, and incoherent or unable to live up to its definition under the acceptance model. The distinction between continuing and self-embracing omnipotence is still meaningful, for self-embracing omnipotence may be a meaningful and coherent concept under a different model of law. Indeed, it appears to be coherent under the procedural model. If a power were postulated with self-embracing omnipotence, under the procedural model, then it could limit itself immutably merely by applying the procedures of self- amendment to a proposal to limit the power and to self-entrench the limitation. The contradiction with its antecedents, fatal under the inference model, is immaterial here; the threat of contingent future events repealing or transmuting the immutable limitation, fatal under the acceptance model, is impossible here. If procedures must be followed, then acceptance cannot override or supersede procedures that make no provision for amending a certain rule or that positively forbid it. But while self-embracing omnipotence is coherent for the procedural model, the distinction between continuing and self-embracing omnipotence does not resolve the paradox for this model either. If the paradox is that self-amendment (when the new and old AC's are inconsistent with each other) is a contradiction, then the procedural model, like the acceptance model, can permit self-amendment without removing its paradoxical nature or making it free of contradiction. The only rules inconsistent with self-embracing omnipotence are immutable limitations on its power. At least these are inconsistent by the test of forbidding what was once permitted. Immutable self-limitations are permitted under the procedural model, unlike the acceptance model, but the contradiction is not removed, just ignored. Other models of legal authority and change are undoubtedly possible, but they are much more likely to admit and excuse the paradox than to dissolve it. Dissolution requires the elimination of the contradiction in the self-amendment of an AC to a form inconsistent with its original form. The hope of self-embracing omnipotence was that by authorizing such self-amendments, their inconsistency would disappear. This turned out to be false. In fact, I believe that the attempt to erase inconsistency by appeal to specific authorization is to shift subtly to the procedural model from the inference model, to make authority primary and consistency negligible. In order to make self-amendment legally permissible or legally harmless, it gives up the goal of dissolving the paradox for the inference model or for formal logic generally. Notes 1. J.L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence," Mind, 64 (1955) 200-21, at pp. 211-12. 2. Mackie is explicit throughout his essay that his distinction is a solution. Hart is explicit only in his later essay, "Self-Referring Laws," Festskrift Tillägnad Karl Olivecrona, Stockholm: Kungl. Boktryckeriet. P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1964, pp. 307-16, at p. 315, where he even cites Mackie. 84