The Trilemma of Omnipotence, Omniscience and Temporal Reality

I argue that the classical theistic attributes of absolute omniscience (infallible knowledge of all truths, including future contingents) and absolute omnipotence (unrestricted ability to actualize any logically possible state) cannot be jointly instantiated in a world with genuine temporal succession. Using a branching-time semantics enriched with operators for divine knowledge and causal power, the paper shows that omniscience forces future-tense propositions to be settled at earlier times, while omnipotence requires them to remain open, a direct modal contradiction independent of free will, causation, or creaturely existence. The result is an inescapable trilemma forcing revision of at least one commitment, with significant implications for perfect being theology, the metaphysics of time, and the coherence of divine attributes.