Amipotence and the Hope of Redemption

By Wm. Curtis Holtzen

Can amipotence support the Christian hope for the redemption of all creation including a bodily resurrection?

In his latest work, Thomas Jay Oord continues his more than two-decade-long mission to marry evangelical and process theologies. In The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence (DOBA), Oord does not mention their marriage, but he does announce the birth of amipotence, which looks a lot like their love child.

There is much to applaud and appreciate in DOBA. Oord’s move to shift the understanding of power from its quantity (omnipotence) to its quality (amipotence) is important and deserves serious attention. I, however, will address one key question: Can amipotence bear the burden of the Christian hope? Can we rationally appeal to amipotence when asked to give an account of the hope in us (1 Pet 3:15)? I have my doubts.

It is difficult to determine just what is driving what in the relationship between eschatological hope and divine power, especially when each is fueled by love. Is my picture of the final hope managed by my conception of divine power? Or is my understanding of divine power formed or clipped by what I dramatically or modestly hope for? Perhaps, like jumping rope, neither the rhythm of the feet nor the timing of the hands can be determined as the driving factor and so each must be considered in light of the other.

Can Amipotence Shoulder the Problem?

In June of 2021, I went in for a minor shoulder procedure that ended up being rather extensive rotator cuff surgery. A few days into recovery my bicep ruptured. My doctor explained that given the nature of the tendon it could not be repaired. I was shocked and confused. Over the next couple years, I bounced between blaming myself and blaming the doctor. After seeing several other surgeons, I finally came to accept that neither my doctor nor I were to blame. Seemingly, there was nothing either of us could have done to stop that rupture. While this resolved one issue and brought some closure, it was hardly a solution to my problem. There was still the loss of hope that the bicep could be repaired.

My story pales in comparison to the horrendous evils and injustices of this world, but the anecdote fits. Understanding that neither God nor the victim is to blame is a formidable step in constructing a plausible theodicy. However, a theodicy, I suggest, not only needs to justify God’s goodness considering horrendous evil and injustices but also provide a reason to hope that these evils will not have the final say but will one day be redeemed. Given the nature of the Christian promise, would it be reasonable for us to hope that an amipotent God will redeem and restore creation?

It’s the Hope that Kills You.

The full and final Christian hope, as I understand the promise, will be universal in scope and bodily in nature. We trust that God is both desirous and determined to save all persons. The hope for a universal redemption should not be limited to persons, however, since all of creation “groans and suffers” (Rom 8:22). Our hope is for the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the calf (Is 11:6), the sparrow and the human (Matt 10:29). Our hope is not to escape this world but to see its restoration and redemption.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ further reveals that our hope is bodily. The NT writers declare that Jesus’s body was raised from the dead, and that gives us hope for our own bodily resurrection. This hope is echoed in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds which proclaim belief in “the resurrection of the body” and “the resurrection of the dead.” In 1 Corinthians 15:44 Paul is quite clear, though translations are not, that this “soul-body” (σῶμα ψυχικόν) will be raised a “spirit-body” (σῶμα πνευματικόν). The promise is that this present decaying, weak, corruptible, and inglorious soul-body will “put on” immortality, will become a spirit-body, and death shall be no more. This is not an escape from physicality but its redemption. This is what N.T. Wright calls “transphysicality.” To state it succinctly, “We are physical now, we shall be physical then.”

There is further hope in that the resurrected Jesus bore the marks of his crucifixion (John 20:27). This imagery invites us to consider the eschaton not as a time or place in which our wounds are simply forgotten but healed. The suffering and trauma so many endure significantly shapes the person they are. This is not to say that suffering or evil are good, they are not, but that the self cannot be neatly extracted from its experiences, good or bad. The continuity between this life and the next leads me to hope that God can transform trauma, and even torture, both physical and emotional, into something beautiful. I am not suggesting I know the meaning of evil, but another way of taking it seriously is hoping that the evil we experience and fight against will one day be thoroughly redeemed.

My hope is that the “scope of redemption will be universal because a universal redemption is required by the ubiquitous love of God.” My hope is that there will be continuity between this world and the next, for the promise is not to make “all new things” but to make “all things new” (Rev 21:5). Once again, I wonder, can a God of amipotence redeem this world?

The Power of Love is a Curious Thing

Oord is quite right, there is much that an omnipotent God cannot do. God cannot do what is logically contradictory or what is counter to God’s own nature. God cannot even “microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it.” (45) These “restrictions” on omnipotence are familiar enough, going back in intellectual history at least as far as Aquinas. More unusually, and, frankly, at the edge of believability, he insists that, “God can’t lift a pebble.” (65) Because God is spirit and therefore lacks a localized body, Oord concludes that God cannot lift (or seemingly even move) any physical object.

While other “divine can’ts” are supported by logic, reason, and scripture, I struggle to see a compelling reason to affirm that a divine spirit cannot lift a pebble. There is nothing logically contradictory in the claim “the divine spirit can lift a pebble.” There is no biblical witness to suggest that God, a divine spirit, cannot lift a pebble. And while I have no empirical evidence that a spirit can lift a pebble, I have no evidence that a divine spirit cannot lift a pebble. This is not merely an exercise in modal metaphysics but, as we will see, applies to what we can rightly hope for.

Oord argues that “Divine love is literally the most powerful force in the universe” but that that power “pertains to God’s influence.” (123) “The effectiveness of God’s immense power” however, “rests, in part, upon how creatures respond.: (139) Oord does not explain the metaphysics of influence or how it skirts Humean problems of causation, but he suggests that God’s influence is limited to other minds. For Oord, all reality is comprised of entities “with both materiality and mentality…all that exists—top to bottom, simple to complex, animate or inanimate—has material and mental aspects.” (133) Even God, as “an invisible Spirit has a material dimension.” (133) One caveat should be added, Oord says in God Can’t Q&A, “I don’t think inanimate objects can respond [to God]…inanimate aggregates like rocks, water, and metal don’t respond like organisms can. Rocks don’t have agency…:” (49)

Here are two concerns. First, if God, humans, and all nature have both materiality and mentality, why can my mind, seemingly, causally affect matter but God’s mind cannot? Especially if God has a material dimension. Second, and more pressing for this essay, if God’s power is limited to influence and God has not been holding back, is there any hope that things can get better? Is there any reason to think God can turn up the influence to eleven? Furthermore, do I have any reason to hope God can make this world new, can raise bodies in the resurrection, if God cannot cause or even influence inanimate matter?

A Modest Hope

The process side of Oord’s theology dominates his conception of divine power, but his salvific hope is quite evangelical, though, by my lights, neither biblical nor traditional. For Oord, salvation is not the resurrection and restoration of our physical bodies, but freedom found in the soul’s break from the body. In God Can’t Tom says, “There is a future life free from our current bodies and physical conditions that resist God’s work.” (97) He adds that the resurrection of Jesus does not serve as hope for our own bodily resurrection but, “is primary evidence that we continue existing after our bodies die.” (98)

As proposed above, a biblical hope entails the restoration of all creation—animate and inanimate. Amipotence, however, entails that God “everlastingly and necessarily creates,” but also that no creation can or will ever be made whole. Oord writes, “While no single universe exists everlastingly, a succession of chaotic elements, entities, creatures, or universes has always existed…. Every creature and universe is temporary, however; all creaturely others have a beginning. Consequently, neither our universe nor any other is eternal.”

I agree, every creature and universe are temporary; that is what it means to be anything other than God. The hope, however, is that God will clothe the mortal with immortality. God invites that which is not divine to share in the divine nature (2 Pet 1.4). It seems that a God of love would not give us a false hope to one day see entropy and decay redeemed for the final defeat of death. Unfortunately, there seems to be little hope for a defeat, in this creation or any other, because “[t]he possibilities for good and evil are inherent in the creaturely order, they’re baked into what it means to be a creature or creation.” (112)

Oord presents to us a modest hope, and this makes sense given what an amipotent God can do. “It’s beyond my ken what the afterlife is like exactly,” Oord writes in God Can’t. “None of us knows. But there are good reasons to believe it can be better than the present.” (99) I agree, much of what the afterlife will look like is a mystery. A hope, however, that merely says the next life “can be better” is entirely too anemic. I need reason to hope that it will, not merely can—hope for the best, not simply better.

Conclusion

I thank Oord for this provocative book and encourage him and likeminded thinkers to keep exploring ways in which amipotence might secure our hope, not rattle it. There may be metaphysical and moral reasons God cannot control the evils of this present world. My hope, however, does not stop at this world. As Martin Luther King. Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

Bio: Wm. Curtis Holtzen (DTh, University of South Africa) is professor of philosophy and theology at Hope International University in Fullerton, CA. He is the author of The God Who Trusts (IVP Academic, 2019) and has edited or contributed to books on open and relational theology, faith and science, philosophy and liturgy, as well as philosophy and pop culture.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Curtis Holtzen raises a key question in his essay: can amipotence provide hope? He doubts it can. I disagree, as I’ve argued in several publications. Curtis raises concerns, including whether God’s mind can affect inanimate creation. I believe it does, though he misunderstands me as saying otherwise. God influences without controlling. Without a body, however, God doesn’t manipulate inanimate matter like embodied creatures sometimes can. Curtis also wants more than the hope that the next life can be better. I’ve offered that it will be—partly because we will have different kinds of bodies. Curtis’s desire for a world without the possibility of evil seems to eliminate real freedom.

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

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