God Isn’t Waiting for Your Cry for Help

By Jeremy Jernigan

Exploring amipotence through the practical application of prayer allows us to clarify God’s active involvement against evil.

During a recent dinner date with my wife and another couple, the topic of their church community came up. In addition to telling us how they enjoyed it, they mentioned something that struck them as odd. Their pastor was fond of a phrase he seemed able to weave into the message week after week. The phrase alluded to a theology that felt a bit strange to them.

My curiosity peaked; I leaned in to hear what phrase was this important to the pastor.

“God either caused it, or He allowed it.”

I suspect hearing that phrase for one week would exceed my tolerance for such a theology, and I cannot imagine working through the pain in my life through that filter. Yet it speaks to popular ways Christians often attempt to make sense of God’s role in our lives.

The first part of the phrase—that God would cause pain or evil in our lives—is likely not entertained seriously by most people reading this particular book. So we can move on from that. But that second phrase—that God would allow it—gets to the heart of what Dr. Oord explores with his idea of amipotence. How much pain and suffering does God allow, which God could also alleviate?

In The Death of Omnipotence, Oord submits, “A benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it.” While Oord primarily uses this as a rebuttal against the view of God as a benevolent dictator, I’d like to park on this idea for a moment as it carries the logic to envision God’s role in the world. It offers a way to make sense of our reality much better than a flippant notion of God causing it or allowing it.

I develop this argument in three parts.

1.   God is a benevolent being.

2.   A benevolent being is naturally in opposition to evil.

3.   God uses God’s power to work against evil.

First, God (as revealed in Jesus) is a benevolent being. I arrive at this conclusion as the person of Jesus is the most tangible portrayal of love the world has ever seen. When I had Dr. Oord on an episode of my podcast—Cabernet and Pray—he made the statement that “Jesus of Nazareth is not God.” It should come as little surprise I received a disproportionate amount of feedback on this section of the episode! But he also explained that “Jesus gives us the clearest revelation of who God is and God’s nature.” I would say that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact God, but we have enough agreement on the revelation of God in Jesus to move on.

Second, a benevolent being is naturally opposed to evil. This point gets muddied by many Christians who read the Old Testament and try to imagine how a Jesus-looking God could do and say the things we find there. I consider Numbers 31 my least favorite chapter in the entire Bible. Hopefully, swapping the name Jesus for every mention of God in that chapter would break the boundaries of one’s imagination to make sense of it. There must be something else going on; Jesus isn’t like that.

It does not logically make sense for Jesus to be mad that Moses didn’t kill all the women (v.15). It does not logically make sense for Jesus to tell them to kill the boys and the women who have had sex with a man (vv. 17-18). It does not logically make sense for Jesus to divide up the virgins as spoils of war and then to keep thirty-two of them for Himself (vv. 28,40). Jesus is inherently in contrast to evil.

Instead, we begin with ideas like God is love (1 John 4:16) and all the Scriptures point to Jesus (John 5:39-40) and then work backward on texts like Numbers 31. As the pastor Brian Zahnd explains, “God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We have not always known what God is like—But now we do.”

Third, God uses God’s power to work against evil. And this is where things get a bit tricky. I concur with Dr. Oord that the traditional view of omnipotence makes little sense when applied to a Jesus-looking God. We also agree that just because God is not all-powerful does not imply that God is powerless. The question then becomes, what does a benevolent God inherently opposed to evil do with God’s power?

We return to Dr. Oord’s statement, which we began with. “A benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it.” We are now ready for it to be used as a framework to navigate practical applications of how God interacts in the world. I will use the topic of prayer as one application.

Christians ask God to do a lot, especially when we see tangible signs of evil in the world. Even within the ORT community, I often feel we hesitate to assume God will intervene without our direct request. After all, we are a community that highly values noncoercive love. Yet our hesitation, rather than God’s impotence, leads us to conclude God may not be as active in working against evil (unless, of course, we get involved). We can inadvertently create a disengaged version of God, not because of our views on omnipotence but because of our views on consent.

Biblical writers often use the parent/child metaphor to explain God, and here is another excellent opportunity. Let’s consider one of my five children (I’m raising a basketball lineup) swims out too far in the ocean. If the conditions become concerning, I will immediately act. It may start with verbal instruction, but I will escalate it quickly if needed. Jumping in after them would be a natural extension of this.

At no point in this scenario am I wondering what they want me to do. That’s because as a dad I will automatically do whatever I can to keep my kids from harm. Waiting for them to cry for help in this scenario is ludicrous.

Am I unique in this parenting approach? Are my parenting skills beyond most? Hardly.

We expect this from a parent, just as we should expect “a benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it” from God. Our prayers for God to work against evil then start to feel a bit like my child asking for me to save them from drowning. If they have the time and breath to make that request, there’s no reason not to offer it. But it is redundant for someone actively working for their good. I hope they’d know it wasn’t needed in the first place, as their dad would already do that.

But if they felt they had to ask me for help for me to act, it was because they assumed either I wasn’t paying attention to them (and was unaware of their danger) or I might force them to save themselves. Their view of me could be deduced from their need to ask for help. And so it is with us and God. To whatever degree we feel the need to ask God to work against evil, we may show the degree to which we think God isn’t already doing it.

There may be reasons why I could not save one of my children in a life-threatening situation even if I tried. I am not all-powerful. This is a reality I have had to accept, especially as one committed to the way of Jesus through nonviolence. So, too, God tries to work against evil and does not have the omnipotent power to stop all of it. However, the issue is how much we need to ask in the first place.

One might counter that in praying this way, we align our hearts to God’s heart. One might say we invite God into our lives and open possibilities for God to intervene in new ways. This is undoubtedly much of prayer.

Yet, I appeal to practice. As a preacher’s kid who has spent nearly my entire life in and around church ministry, I’ve found that much of what Christians actually pray is an appeal for God to work against evil, something I’m arguing God is doing by default. If you don’t believe me, keep a mental log of what people pray for the next time you’re in a small group or a context to pray with other Christians. Much of it sounds like the kid asking God to save them from drowning. Are we not sure God would save us otherwise? And what does this reveal about how we view God?

We are better served by considering God’s active role against evil as a starting point and then looking for ways to partner with God in making that happen. I wonder how our prayer life would change if we started a prayer like this: “God, since we know you are actively working to stop evil, we pray for…”

At least God wouldn’t be as confused about what we think God is up to. God is a benevolent being against evil who always uses God’s power for good. Let us pray with this in mind.

Perhaps my friends at dinner would resonate more deeply if their pastor told them, “A benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it,” each week. At least I’d be able to attend a church like that.

Bio: Jeremy Jernigan is a second-generation preacher passionate about communicating a Jesus-looking God without the fear and control people often expect. He hosts a podcast called Cabernet and Pray and teaches regularly in different churches. He is an adjunct professor at a Christian University and has published two books. Jeremy married his high school sweetheart, Michelle, and they have five kids.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Jeremy Jernigan examines how amipotence reshapes our understanding of pain and suffering. I appreciate his clear, three-part structure. First, he affirms the deep relief in knowing that God is always benevolent, and that this is most clearly revealed in Jesus. Second, this benevolence stands in natural opposition to evil—meaning God neither causes nor permits evil as if it could be stopped alone. Third, God is not passive; rather, God invites us to join in resisting evil. Jeremy’s parent-child analogy powerfully illustrates this partnership. God needs our cooperation, and we, in turn, need divine empowerment to overcome evil with good.

For more on Oord’s view of evil and the parent-child relationship, see this article.

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