By William Yarchin
Is covenant theology is salvageable?
Yes, and on the Bible’s own terms.
The failure of transactional dynamics in covenant theology is exposed in some biblical compositions such as Psalm 44, not to mention the Book of Job. The contradictions of life’s experiences eventually erode the foundations of covenant theology if those foundations are transactional. Its moral failure, and thus its injustice, is inevitable.
When covenant theology is maintained according to restorative justice instead of retributive justice, divine power is most naturally conceived of as amipotent rather than omnipotent. Virtually all OT covenants are self-consciously rooted in ḥesed, which is a covenant expectation of relational restoration rather than contract-based retribution. This covenant expectation of relational restoration is not an add-on to the biblical notion of covenant. It is baked in, and observable in the overarching narrative of Israel’s covenant history as well as in particular prophetic declarations to God’s covenant people—which are crafted for the very purpose of making restoration possible.
So, in an amipotence frame, covenant theology need not be jettisoned because of the contradictions that life’s experiences bring up against it due to any imputed transactional dynamic. Rather, in an amipotence frame, covenant theology integrates divine mercy, not as a discretionary divine override of a default stance of retributive judgment, but as itself —i.e., as everlasting lovingkindness. This is the default divine stance vis-à-vis creatures in an amipotence frame.
In an amipotence frame, covenant theology is salvageable as a theory of divine relational faithfulness to God’s creatures. Here, lament moves from complaint of divine disregard (the failure of covenant theology) to an expression of openness to divine amipotence helping the pray-er find deliverance in the circumstances that unfold (the focus of lament). Here, deliverance is possible because the unfolding circumstances are not predetermined by an omnipotent God.
The basis of deliverance lies in the creature’s experience of those circumstances, experience which can be influenced by an amipotent God—because God too experiences the circumstances. Such divine amipotent influence upon the creature’s experience of circumstances infuses possibilities into the creature’s experience, possibilities for redemption and deliverance that would not necessarily have emerged from the raw circumstances themselves.
Thus a cry to God, lament, is meaningful within an amipotence frame. Here, the logic of lament rejects the morally bankrupt omnipotence frame, where God could prevent or relieve suffering but chooses not to. Amipotence-based lament operates from a more penetrating and expansive relational truth, where creatures, longing for relief from creaturely resistance to God’s loving purposes, clear psychic space for God’s amipotent resolve to win creaturely resistance over to creaturely cooperation (metanoia), even through the unfolding circumstances themselves. Out of this sort of lament, conversion is possible.
All this is true also for understanding the New Covenant. It is not structured for the self-defeating relational dynamics of transaction, but for reception of God’s reckless saving generosity, as Jesus taught in his parables and Paul preached in his gospel of God’s free gift and the Acts 15 church confirmed in their reception of Gentiles into the ecclesia without Torah requirements. In an amipotence frame there is no need to toss covenant theology.