142. Now if, as they suppose, it is the Father alone Who is spoken of, it cannot be that He is at once Omnipotent because all things are of Him, and not Omnipotent because all things are through Him. “You think, perhaps,” St. Ambrose might have said to his Arian opponents, “that this text speaks of God the Father only, as it begins with ‘of Him.’ Very good. But whilst, in dealing with 1 Cor. viii. 6, you acknowledge that the Father is Omnipotent because ‘all things are of Him,’ you deny that the Son is Omnipotent, on the strength of the statement that all things are ‘through’ Him. Now here (Rom. xi. 36) we find that all things are said to be ‘through’ as well as ‘of’ One and the same Person—the Father. On your own showing, then, you must conclude that the Father is both Omnipotent (all things being ‘of’ Him) and not Omnipotent (all things being only ‘through’ Him) at the same time and in the same respect. Which is absurd and impossible. Clearly, then, the inference you want to draw from the difference of the expressions ‘of Him’ and ‘by Him’ will not stand, if you make Rom. xi. 36 a declaration regarding the Father only. But if you make it a declaration concerning the Son, or even including the Son in its reference, you upset your own position.” On their own showing, then, they will declare the Father lacking in Power, and not Omnipotent, or at the least they will be confessing with their own mouth, all against their will though it be, the Omnipotence of the Son as well as of the Father.