Amipotence with Added Anarchy
By Graham Adams
Love as amipotent is also anarchic (turning upside-down), agape/eros (desiring mutual flourishing), and chaotic (weak but transformative).
Yes to Amipotence
I begin by affirming Thomas Jay Oord’s notion of amipotence. It is a very helpful way of expressing what goes to the very heart of God’s nature: the power of love, a power which is necessarily uncontrolling.
I certainly recognize what drives this idea: the horror of so much abject pain and injustice in the world, which raises piercing questions about traditional ideas of God’s omnipotence. How can a God supposedly capable of doing anything, and apparently all-loving by character, leave our freedom intact to such an extent that cruelty and suffering go so deeply unchecked? I have not heard a convincing argument for the continuing dominance of ‘omnipotence.’ It is a story that is dying.
In contrast, I celebrate what Oord celebrates: that uncontrolling love is deeply intrinsic to who God is. I note that he describes amipotence as ‘the priority of love over power in God,’[1] which I understand but would revise slightly because God’s power is love, a different kind of power from controlling or coercive power, but it is still power—and I shall develop this further below. I affirm, too, that this love which is definitive, is empathetic—it feels the pain and struggle of creation; it is affected by it all, such that God moves in response to it. This sense of being affected, of being receptive to creation, and therefore of movement forwards, towards a future that is different from God’s past, is something that deeply resonates with me—and again, I shall develop this a little.
I also appreciate the point that God works with us; that the centrality of love is not about the divine superhero standing alone against the world, but is about relationship-building, fostering in us a desire and a capacity to join lovingly as neighbors with one another and with God. Such ‘synergy’ is inherent to divine energy: a connective tissue between us, ‘integrating’ in the midst of a world that is so often ‘disintegrating.’
And finally, I affirm Oord’s insistence that we can know something of God’s nature and love analogously through a deeper understanding of our own. It is not that we are identical, but our sense of what is best in human nature—our capacity to connect, and not to coerce but to engender relationships of solidarity and compassion—gives us at least a meaningful insight into the nature of God.
Love as anarchic power
I do not want to challenge the idea of amipotence at all, but I start somewhere different, so offer another angle on it. Specifically, I begin with the question of God’s will. This is certainly related to Oord’s point that we live in a world in which God’s will is so often, and so painfully, not done—a world marked by suffering and injustice. In addition, the new world we’re called to pray for and seek, which Jesus called ‘the kingdom of God,’ remains elusive—even if we’re encouraged to see it is ‘close at hand.’ It’s as though it only manifests in small pockets, or perhaps fleetingly. A horizon which beckons but is not quite in our grasp. Something glimpsed but out of our control. Perhaps this is why Jesus’ parables of the kingdom are often about smallness. Like tiny seeds that grow unnoticed, or imperceptible yeast at work within dough, or indeed like children who show us the way into it, so this new kingdom begins in small ways—almost under the radar, not quite as visible or prevalent as we hope, but still meaningfully present and active.[2]
This kingdom, where God’s will is done, has been described using many different terms—the reign of God, the commonwealth of God, the kin-dom of God—each seeking to convey something of its contrast with the ways of the world. However, it’s not simply different from other kingdoms; it also disrupts them—it turns them on their head; it turns things inside-out. After all, in this new kingdom, the last shall be first and the first shall be last; it’s where the poor and those who mourn are blessed; it’s good news for the oppressed and release for the captives—and the rich and proud are humbled; it’s where wolves and lambs feed together in peace; it’s where the groans of creation lead to new birth, new creation.
In other words, since this new kingdom is so unlike the systems of the world, it has been argued that, as a kingdom of disruption and reversals, it’s better understood as ‘an anti-kingdom.’[3] As such, it has been called ‘sacred anarchy’[4]—or ‘holy anarchy’[5]—because anarchy is technically where there is no longer domination, control or coercion, but instead people live in freedom which is genuinely mutual. The power dynamics are transformed and there is meaningful room for ‘the little ones’ to thrive.
This is what the world looks like when God’s will is done: a great transformation, a turning upside-down, where the giants of power no longer hold sway and the multitudes who have suffered are free at last. A world without coercion by the powerful—either human or divine. But the question is—what kind of power makes such a world possible? And the answer is that it’s not merely a matter of one coercive power replacing another, but is a genuinely different power, a transforming and anarchic love.
Love as ‘agapeic/erotic’ power
While ‘ami-potent’ comes from Latin roots, it can help to understand this non-coercive or uncontrolling love by its Greek roots, too: both agape and eros. Christians are more familiar with conceiving of God’s love as agape, which is selfless love—love not interested in its own wellbeing, but freely giving of itself. It is love that shows its generosity by allowing for the Other, creating space in which it’s possible for the Other to flourish.
However, if we think of God only as pure agape, God cannot be affected by whatever results. Even if the making of possibilities leads to us experiencing joy or pain, when our flourishing is enabled or impeded, agape in itself remains unaffected. It’s only love-as-eros that conceives of giving and receiving in this dynamic. Eros is more ‘mutual.’ Its desire for the flourishing of the Other is also affected by the experience of the Other; it asserts itself but is also impacted by the Other. So a different picture forms:
God, as eros-love, does indeed assert Godself within creation—but not in a controlling way, because this would not be true to God’s nature. Rather, God as eros asserts this: ‘I am the one who is generously open to all of creation.’ That is to say, God’s eros is a declaration, a self-revelation, of God’s agape, which creates space for the Other in all creation, such that the Other may truly thrive[6]—not just an abstract Other, but every other part of creation.
However, the fact is that the experience of creation is not one of simply thriving. It is also surviving, struggling, dying, groaning—and all of these experiences are encountered, not only by God’s selfless agape love, but by God’s eros, receiving them deeply and genuinely being affected by them. These experiences of our struggles touch God, shaping how God as love moves in creation and towards the future. It affects in God an ever-renewed yearning for the new kingdom to come. Not that this future is ever imposed, but God-as-eros constantly asserts the possibility of it. That is to say, God asserts the possibility of a world in which we too are each open to the Other, by virtue of agape, while also receiving the Other, their pain and potential, and giving freely of ourselves, in mutual freedom, by virtue of eros. This interplay is Holy Anarchy on earth as in heaven.
So this dynamic of eros-agape affects us: it evokes in us a similar desire to assert ourselves as ones who are open to others. This is what it means to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. It is to love the one who is different from us, receiving them for who they are—whether God or a fellow creature—such that we desire their mutual thriving. And it stands in contrast to the systems of the world, shaped by coercive power, in which those with greater power are disproportionately free to assert themselves, leaving less room for the little ones to flourish. Instead, this new kingdom is one in which divine power enables the self-assertion and the mutual flourishing of the multitudes—the little, the last, the least, the lost.
This is, in fact, a distinctly political vision—as all visions are, when applied to relationships. We see this, too, in Monica Coleman’s vision of God as the maker of possibilities, which create room for our participation, in commitment to transforming systems that impede our mutual flourishing.[7] So it’s never a static politics, but constantly seeks to correct itself whenever new giants emerge from the crowd and try to assert themselves disproportionately. The politics of the kingdom, like Christian anarchy itself, is one in which the last must perpetually be re-cast as the first. Again and again; in process, like the very dynamic of God’s eros-agape love amongst us.
Love as chaotic power
As a final note, to hold these things together, ‘chaos theory’ tells us that a small event, something as small as a butterfly fluttering its wings, can be the first cause of something ultimately much greater, such as a hurricane in another part of the world. I have argued elsewhere that, while Christian faith often supposes God has hurricane-power, as though capable of imposing itself forcefully in creation, it actually makes more sense to see God as the butterfly wing:[8] the ‘chaos-event’ capable of evoking transformation through networks of relationships, fostering surprisingly diverse coalitions of kingdom-seekers. Jesus, after all, points to the seed, the yeast, the child—small events, which I also call ‘awesome weakness.’[9] This is the kind of power which God exercises.
It’s the power of divine love, an eros-love which asserts itself through self-revelation, declaring ‘I am hospitably open to all of creation, whatever you throw at me, your joys and your struggles, your pain and your potential. My eros-love receives it all and desires mutual flourishing.’ It’s a seemingly ‘weak’ power, though awesomely weak, which nevertheless evokes in us a delight in such generosity-of-spirit, a delight because God, the maker of possibilities, is yearning to be in relationship with the whole of us. This yearning also fosters in us a comparable desire to assert within creation our own neighborly openness to each other. It is this spirit of neighborliness that transforms the existing dynamics of power: so those with little room for others may learn to receive, and ‘the little ones’ are able to assert their stories, until there is an ultimate mutual flourishing of all life. And the kingdom, or holy anarchy, whose love/power is amipotent, will have come.
Bio: Graham Adams is Tutor of Mission Studies, World Christianity and Religious Diversity, and program leader of the postgraduate degrees, at Luther King Centre for Theology and Ministry, in Manchester, UK. He is author of Holy Anarchy: Dismantling Domination, Embodying Community, Loving Strangeness (2022), and God the Child: small, weak and curious subversions (2024), blogs occasionally at graham.adams.substack.com and writes hymns.
OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE
I appreciate Graham Adams’s use of the term anarchy, defined as the absence of domination and control. While I sometimes associate anarchy with a lack of structure, Graham gives it a more nuanced meaning. He connects anarchy to love, which I find compelling. Graham describes love as chaotic power, capable of initiating greater beauty and well-being. As I read his essay, I realized we likely share a critique of Paul Tillich. Tillich defined love as the reunion of the separated, but Graham and I believe love must also sometimes separate the united. The world needs more holy love anarchy!
For more on Oord’s view of a loving civilization, see this article.
* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.
[1]. Thomas Jay Oord, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence (SacraSage Press, 2023),120
[2]. I develop the theme of ‘smallness’ in Graham Adams, God the Child: Small, Weak and Curious Subversions (London: SCM Press, 2024)
[3]. Joerg Rieger and Kwok Pui-lan, Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude (Washington DC: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 74
[4]. John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 14.
[5]. Andrew Shanks, Hegel versus ‘Inter-Faith Dialogue’: A General Theory of True Xenophilia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 162; and Graham Adams, Holy Anarchy: Dismantling Domination, Embodying Community, Loving Strangeness (London: SCM Press, 2022).
[6]. For more on this agape/eros dynamic, see Andrew Shanks, Hegel and Religious Faith: Divided Brain, Atoning Spirit (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2011), 6; and Graham Adams, Theology of Religions: Through the Lens of ‘Truth-as-Openness’ (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 69-70
[7]. Monica A. Coleman, Making a Way out of No Way: A Womanist Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008)
[8]. Adams, Holy Anarchy, 109
[9]. Adams, Holy Anarchy, 82