A Beautiful Hope

By Michael M. Rose

The Amipotent God is good and trustworthy, lovingly working in and through creation moment by moment towards a resilient present and future hope.

The Classical Western views of God hold that God is omnipotent – all-powerful, all-controlling and can do anything, which has been a comfort for many. Yet, despite the theological, ethical, and logical gymnastics, the classical theological idea of an omnipotent God has some big problems.

In addition to omnipotence being at home in the Greek philosophical tradition instead of scripture, words often translated as all-powerful/controlling, like El Shaddai, Sabaoth, and Pantokrator, express might and strength but not all-powerful/controlling power. Even with the theological lipstick of addendums and nuances, omnipotence loses its credibility.

A good and all-powerful/controlling God and the reality of suffering and evil is a significant challenge to overcome. The attempts to vindicate an omnipotent god’s guilt/responsibility ring hollow with clichés like “God has a plan,” “God is in control,” or strangely, “God gives us free will, so God deliberately limits God’s power.” It is deeply troubling to suggest evil and suffering is somehow a part of an all-powerful/controlling, and loving God’s plan.

Even the idea that God self-limits doesn’t absolve the omnipotent god of complicity in evil and suffering. Surely a truly loving, omnipotent (all-powerful/controlling) God would intervene to stop instances of rape, genocide, disease, famine, and exploitation. What does it say about the character and the goodness of this God who causes/allows suffering and evil as a part of a divine plan or won’t intervene to stop it? Where, then, do we find confidence in the character of an omnipotent God for a future hope?

So, where does this leave us? If God isn’t omnipotent, then must we conclude God is impotent? Or perhaps there is some bandwidth between all-powerful/controlling and impotent.

The Amipotent God’s power is faithful, unrelenting love. God acts relationally, persuasively, and cooperatively within creation without unilaterally controlling it. God acts by loving in ways that foster more love, being genuinely receptive but never overwhelmed, engaging without dominating, being generous without quid pro quo obligation, relationally generous without being fickle, and providing genuine possibilities while not being overbearing. God is constantly present in all situations and circumstances, advocating, calling, reasoning, weeping, pleading, commanding, and coaxing creation to cooperate with the work of love toward the most well-being possible.

This rests upon the idea that by nature, God is self-giving love. God cannot help but love. The God-who-is-love is always active and at work without coercion. God’s tremendous and unsearchable power is demonstrated through self-giving, uncontrolling love. This is the Amipotent God.

Hope is found in a God whose essence is steadfast, uncontrolling love. The good news is God is not a fickle monster—God isn’t the cause of or complicit in evil and suffering. The Amipotent God doesn’t cause or allow disasters to punish us or build our character. Jesus rejects the idea of natural disasters as a punishment from God for sin. (MT 5:46) Sin has its own consequences. The Amipotent God is always lovingly present in suffering and pain. He suffers with us while faithfully working to squeeze the most well-being possible out of every tragic event. An Amipotent God is genuinely good.

Hope is found in the realization that our choices and actions matter. It has been said that God has no hands or feet but ours. While an uncontrolling God can’t stop evil and suffering single-handedly, people can participate in the Divine nature (2 Pe. 1:4b) and are invited, inspired, and empowered as active participants and co-creators with God. This is empowering individually and collectively. We are not passive victims. We can co-create our individual and collective futures with God in some very profound ways. Moreover, this hope rescues us from cultural nihilism while empowering a genuine sense of meaning and significance, even while enduring suffering and fear.

We live in an unfinished cosmos and on a planet still in process. Natural evil, like earthquakes, viruses, volcanos, hurricanes, floods, etc., is not a deliberate, malicious act of God or the earth. The earth is not malicious; just in process. The human species can cooperate with God and the world to reduce the impact of natural evil through sound, sustainable stewardship, innovative engineering technology, and thoughtful planning.

Likewise, humans are an unfinished species, still very much learning and evolving in response to the lure of Love. We learn from the consequences of our failures to love well. Humans can cooperate with God to reduce suffering and foster more well-being.

Death has long been the dark shadow cast over life. Our inherited Christian stories suggest that the original humans were intended to live a physical existence with God forever and suggest that death is a direct consequence of the original transgression by the original couple. It is essential to recognize that suffering, entropy, and death predate an original couple and their transgression.

While not negating death anxiety and the pain of loss, perhaps new stories of faith acknowledge the place of death as being as much a part of the human experience as being born. This posture changes the sense of indignation to death. It opens new opportunities to learn to live and die well, while creating a culture that supports those who grieve. In the loving hands of an Amipotent God, death doesn’t have the last word. The rhythm of creation is birth, growth, decline, and eventual passing, with death being a transitional moment leading to new life through resurrection in some way. Nothing precious is ever lost in Love.

Some wonder what hope for the future defeat of evil an Amipotent God offers. They wonder if the uncontrolling way love structures the universe assures ongoing entropy, suffering, and death. Some argue if God has been working non-coercively since the beginning, and we still experience death, grief and horrendous evils, it seems that the Amipotent God has failed. Some assert that for things to be made right, God would have to employ a decisive, coercive act to overturn the law-like regularities of the universe.

The best of science tells us the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, with the Earth 4.5 billion years old and simple life beginning 3.5 billion years ago. Relatively recently, hominins appeared about 7 million B.C.E., with homo genus arriving approximately 1.5 million B.C.E. and homo sapiens making the scene only about 190,000 B.C.E.

With its law-like regularities, the planet has evolved from a hostile, molten, unstable mass to a planet supporting a spectrum of biological novelty, including the emergence of reflective consciousness. The storied history of homo sapiens is rife with extraordinary biological, social, and technological evolution that has significantly contributed to human flourishing–including reducing human violence and poverty and making massive strides in human health, life expectancy, food security, equitable justice, education, and communication.

Pausing here, from an evolutionary perspective, the novelty and progress that has occurred is simply astounding. An Amipotent (non-coercive) God fits well with the long evolutionary history of the cosmos–with its regressions and dead ends and its novelty, beauty, and complexity.

There is undoubtedly a long way to go; however, the evidence does not support the assertion that an Amipotent God means we are destined to an unending loop of suffering and futility. Creation, specifically humans, as we continue to mature as a species, are awakening to the sense that we can contribute to our well-being and the well-being of others and the planet. This too is the fruit of the God who loves us into greater maturity and wholeness. An Amipotent God fits well with science, evolution, and the ongoing story of becoming.

Could God have done it differently? This question assumes an all-powerful/controlling God. Perhaps this is a better question for advocates of omnipotence. If an omnipotent God could act coercively, one could rightly assert that God should have done better. If God is genuinely good and could set things right, what is this God waiting for? The charge of the absence of an eschatological hope seems to cut deeper against the omnipotent, controlling God of Amipotence’s critics.

At the heart of a genuine and robust hope is the character of God. Is God love? Is God even good? Amipotence robustly affirms both. God is not our enemy nor the cause of suffering or death. Amipotence fits well with what we know to be true about the world through the best of science and our own experience. It fits well with the nature and disposition of God revealed in the person of Jesus. It affirms that God is indeed loving and, by nature of love, is uncontrolling. As such, God cannot single-handedly stop evil. Instead, God invites creation to cooperate through acts of love to resist evil and reduce suffering. An Amipotent God affirms we are never alone. God is always with us and actively loving moment by moment towards the most well-being possible. God never stops loving us, especially in our suffering. God is relentlessly loving creation into the fullness and differentiating unity of Love. The Amipotent God is indeed a robust source of hope for this life and the one to come.

Bio: Michael Rose serves as a spiritual care specialist in Alberta, Canada. He earned his M.Min. (Spiritual Formation) and an M.A. (Theology and Culture) from St. Stephen’s University, New Brunswick, Canada. Rose authored Becoming Love: Avoiding Common Forms of Christian Insanity (2012) and contributed to Partnering with God: Exploring Collaboration in Open and Relational Theology (2021).

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Michael Rose offers a beautiful summary of the amipotence position. He rightly emphasizes that the alternative to omnipotence is not impotence. Instead, hope emerges from an amipotent God who invites us as participants and co-creators. Living in an unfinished cosmos and evolving planet, our choices truly matter. Even death lacks the final word, for God eternally and lovingly receives what we contribute. I also agree with Michael that the heart of robust hope lies in God’s character. We can trust an immanent God who never ceases loving and who relentlessly creates in light of that steadfast, unsurpassable love.

For more on Oord’s view of hope and the afterlife, see this article.

* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.