Amipotence and Atonement

By Nichole Torbitzky

Atonement remains central to understanding God as amipotent.

Understanding God as amipotent, intimately involved in every moment of existence, and suscipotent (capable of being influenced by this world) solves many problems that have plagued Christian doctrine from the beginning. If the relationship between God and humanity can never be breached, it appears to eliminate the need for atonement. This article corrects the common assumption that using an amipotent model of God eliminates the need for at-one-ment. Indeed, at-one-ment is still a priority in a relational understanding of God. Jesus remains at the center of atonement, but for entirely different reasons than those advanced when using a classical model of an omnipotent Divine. Given an understanding of how God’s amipotence is more consistent with the Biblical witness and moral instructions offered by Jesus, we can approach the Christian doctrine of the action of Jesus as salvific in a way that makes more sense and is more consistent with Jesus’s own life and teachings.

The Biblical witness offers multiple options for interpreting how Jesus affects atonement. Similarly, the early church notably refrained from establishing orthodoxy for the how of atonement. A wide variety of theories about the how of atonement, aptly called atonement theory, developed early on. These theories included Recapitulation Theory, advanced by Irenaeus in the second century CE, Ransom Theory, which was the dominant atonement theory for the first thousand years of church history and supported by the early Greek theologians (and remains the dominant theory in the Orthodox Church today), and Christus Victor, the theory of choice among the Latin theologians in the Patristic period, including St. Augustine. Satisfaction theory (which differs from penal substitution theory), best articulated by Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century, soon replaced the Ransom and Christus Victor theories as the most popular theory of atonement in the Roman Catholic church and the subsequent Protestant churches. Moral influence theory, advanced by Peter Abelard in the eleventh century CE, never gained widespread acceptance but has remained an important theory.

The atonement theory that most Christians today understand as the orthodox theory is Penal Substitutionary Theory. Its most thorough and influential articulation comes from the works of Charles Hodge, an American theologian working at Princeton Theological Seminary in the eighteen hundreds. This theory, often wrongly attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, argues that Jesus took the punishment God justly requires—and that humanity deserves—in our stead. However, he is the only human who does not deserve punishment. Jesus’ undeserved, sacrificial suffering sets each believer free from the demand of God’s just wrath by taking their punishment for them. While this theory enjoys widespread popularity today, it creates as many problems as it solves, most with questions of theodicy and inconsistency with Jesus’ witness to the nature of the Divine.

In the amipotent model, God offers grace to each passing moment as it comes into existence, proposes a way forward, and invites us to turn toward the best possible for that moment. Regardless of the choices we make, God works with those decisions as they are, offering a vision of the best possible and inviting us to enact that best possible in the world with endless, loving patience. This eternal, patient, loving guidance and invitation would seem, perhaps at first, to preclude the need for atonement. If God is lovingly, persistently, and unfailingly involved in every one of our moments, working with and responding to our choices, then God will not fail to be present in our worst moments as in our best. Even if a choice is not for the best possible (as often, our choices are not), God will not fail to meet us in the next moment with fresh opportunity for the best. When we understand God as amipotent, it may appear as if God has no need for at-one-ment because God will not fail to be close to us and always with us. Yet, God’s unfailing presence is not the same as being at one with God. God’s presence in each of our moments is guaranteed, but our ability or willingness to accept the invitation to the best possible is not.

Even when using an amipotent model of God, evil and sin, brokenness and aimlessness, are still realities. Those using an amipotent model of God often respond to these realities with the assurance that even while these will continue, one is not alone nor abandoned to them. God, who is all-loving, will be present in suffering (as in joy). This certainly is assuring and true. God’s persistence in faithfulness need not be limited exclusively to invitations toward the best possible. If the events of the world affect God and God has God’s own aims for the good of the world, then it is in God’s best interest (and ours) to act in the world for the good of the world toward God’s own ends. God can act in the world in a second way. In collaboration with Jesus, who can and does act perfectly according to God’s vision for the best possible, God adds to the truth of existence the goodness God intends for us. In the person of Jesus, who had to have willingly collaborated with God (because God cannot coerce), God’s own intentions for the world perfectly become part of the world. This addition to the nature of the created world adds to the truth and goodness of this world. Ironically, perhaps, God does not change God’s mind about the world in this collaboration with Jesus, unlike penal substitutionary theory, where God does indeed change–going from wrathful to placated. Instead, God adds to this world the kind of goodness necessary to help us better grasp God’s ever-responsive invitations to the best possible.

This means that God works in the world in a two-fold way—both through the invitation to each of us in each moment of our lives to act for the best possible and through the concrete addition of God’s own aims with the willing collaboration of Jesus. Each avenue of influence is God’s attempt at at-one-ment with us. This second way adds to the world in the events of Jesus’ life, God’s own action for the good. More than revelation (as if that were not enough), in Jesus, God gets to act in the world for the good of the world. In Jesus, God acts to influence the world in another way toward the best possible. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus add to the truth of this world God’s consistent and persistent call to right relations among people and among humans and the rest of creation.

God persists not only in offering the best possible to each moment individually but also influences the world through the actions of Jesus—adding goodness to the world that influences those who are willing—toward God’s best possible. More than a moral example—God influences the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God cannot coerce, but God can influence. Jesus’s influence adds God’s best possible to the world as a second and powerful avenue of influence toward the best possible. By inserting the Divine will perfectly into the world, God reinforces the individual invitations offered to each of us in each of our moments toward the best possible.

In contrast to a penal substitutionary theory, where the cross is not just necessary but functions as the exclusive location of salvation, atonement in an amipotent model does not locate salvation in the cross. The cross does not seem very good, let alone the best possible. An amipotent God could not and would not orchestrate the death of an innocent person. While God would certainly foresee the possibility, in this instance, as in every other, God works with even the wreckage of the created world toward the best possible. While God does not orchestrate evil, God cannot help but work with our choices, inviting us to the next best possible, even in response to the death of Jesus. This is the faithfulness of God. God’s refusal to let us go or abandon us is God’s love for us, never failing us even when we fail. God’s answer to our failures is unending grace to meet us where we are and refuse to let us go.

At-one-ment, then, is an action of God. God’s two-fold action of persistent faithfulness calls us to the best possible. At-one-ment, refusing estrangement and the resulting violence, evil, and sin is God’s modus operandi. Humans can only respond to God’s overtures to at-one-ment. At-one-ment cannot, therefore, be located exclusively in the cross. Nor even exclusively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is a continuous action by God to be at-one with us. Jesus is a necessary part of God’s action for at-one-ment. Jesus adds God’s at-oneing will to this world as direct, objective, fact. This fact influences the world toward the best possible and is a powerful influence toward the good, priming individuals to choose the best possible.

This is not penal substitutionary atonement, where salvation is located in the death of Jesus, and then God changes. When we understand God as amipotent, God does not change God’s mind about humanity or decide that divine wrath has been placated through undeserved suffering. Rather, God works to help us choose the good and, therefore choose God, and that is at-one-ment.

Bio: Rev. Dr. Torbitzky received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. She earned her Master of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s degree from Truman State University. She served congregations in Pittsburgh, PA; Ontario, CA; and De Soto, MO, before taking up the Chaplaincy at Lindenwood University where she serves as faculty in the Philosophy and Religion Department. She co-edited Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God and serves as editor of the Process and Faith Lectionary Commentary series.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Nichole Torbitzky offers powerful insights by connecting amipotence to atonement. I fully agree with her view that atonement is best understood through a relational lens on God. After clearly outlining the flaws in traditional atonement models, Nichole draws on amipotence to propose a grace-centered alternative. In this view, God’s atoning work involves continually inviting us to choose the best possible path while adding divine promptings along the way. In Jesus, we see transformative ways of living that we’re called to follow. God influences the world through such actions, and true at-one-ment comes as humans respond. Nichole’s essay is deeply enriching.

For more on Oord’s rejection of some classic views of atonement, see this review article.

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