Hell and Amipotence
By David Anzalone
Amipotence is compatible with multiple versions of hell and the afterlife.
In this essay, I explore some implications of amipotence for the afterlife.[1] Amipotence excludes the traditional doctrine of hell and classic universalism. Oord believes it also excludes annihilationism. In this essay, however, I argue that amipotence is compatible with both certain forms of annihilationism and everlasting hell. Nevertheless, I also propose a combination of both kinds of models, which might be more appealing for those who hold to amipotence.
Amipotence
In a collective volume on amipotence, I don’t need to go into much detail to explain what it amounts to. Simply put, amipotence prioritizes God’s love over His power. God’s power is governed by His love. Whatever God does, He does out of love. He cannot fail to love, and most importantly, He cannot choose not to be loving. For Oord, God’s love is uncontrolling. He does not control everything. He can’t control everything. This is where Oord departs from some other versions of open and relational theology. God, he argues, is not voluntarily self-limited but is essentially self-limited. God does not choose to impart libertarian freedom to human beings. He simply cannot do otherwise. This helps when confronting the problem of evil. A loving God that has the power to override creaturely freedom to protect the innocent but fails to do so is not really loving. It makes more sense to say that God simply cannot override creaturely freedom. Belief in amipotence also has implications for the afterlife. It excludes the traditional view of hell, as well as classic universalism.
Differing views on Hell and the Afterlife
According to the traditional doctrine of hell, hell is retributive. The unrepentant sinner is not just ending up in hell. He is being punished. It cannot be otherwise because then God would not be just. In the Divine Comedy, Dante writes that it was justice that moved God to create hell (Inferno, Canto III, 4-6). In that passage, Dante does not see a contrast between God’s love and justice. Hell was created by divine authority, the highest wisdom, and primal love (Inferno, Canto III, 7-9). But I think a retributive conception of hell requires a tension between God’s love and his justice, as William Lane Craig recognizes.[2] Furthermore, hell, in this view, is everlasting. It endures forever and is inescapable. Hell is an irrevocable and irreducible eternal life sentence. No one can reform and go to heaven. Those who enter hell should abandon all hope, as Dante warned (Inferno, Canto III, 9). Hell involves conscious suffering or torment. Hence the popular name of this model: ‘eternal conscious torment.’
There are other ways of conceiving hell. On the other side of the spectrum, opposing the traditional view of hell is classic universalism, as Oord calls it. Classic universalists believe that all creation will be reconciled to God. This doesn’t mean everyone gets a pass for everything they do. At least some sinners would have to repent and reform before getting to heaven. But at some point, everyone will finally get to heaven.
Annihilationists believe that unrepentant sinners will simply go out of existence. This view is sometimes held to oppose both the traditional view and universalism. Christians cannot simply dismiss Scripture’s warnings of a dreadful end for those who do not repent. But a loving God could not condemn anyone to an eternity of suffering and torment. To preserve both of these intuitions, some annihilationists believe that sinners ultimately condemn themselves to annihilation by refusing to repent.
There is another view, sometimes called hopeful universalism. Universal salvation is something we should hope for. But it is not a certainty like plain universalists believe. The possibility that some people will get to hell is as real as the possibility that everyone will be saved. Because we are not in a position to know this will be the case, we can only hope it will. Some versions of this view involve a possible escape from hell. Once again, free choice is the ultimate factor determining people’s eternal destinies. Like in C.S. Lewis’s Great Divorce, it might be that not everyone is able to get to heaven by repenting of their self-centredness and opening up to God. But the contrary is also possible.
Some of these views can be combined. Second chance and annihilation are not incompatible. Some hold that after death, sinners in hell have the possibility to opt for reconciliation with God or to opt for annihilation. Perhaps though it is possible to reconcile with God after death, those who don’t take that option will end up in hell forever.
Amipotence and the Hell
Open and relational theologians differ in their views on hell. Clark Pinnock was an annihilationist. So are Chad Bahl and Greg Boyd. Thomas Talbott is a universalist. In The Death of Omnipotence and The Birth of Amipotence, Oord argues that “an amipotent Lover forgives and never sends anyone to hell: God redeems.”[3] God never punishes. “A God who cannot control could not send anyone [to hell]. […] Our future in this life and in the next rests, in part, upon what we decide in response to a loving God and other creaturely decisions.”[4] In God’s Glory as Relentless Love, Oord argues that God never quits on anyone. Therefore, even in the afterlife, God continues to invite everyone into a genuine loving relationship with him. In fact, that is what he wants (1 Tim. 2:4). This doesn’t guarantee that everyone gets to heaven. But it provides good reasons to hope that this is the case. Hell might or might not be everlasting. But God’s patience surely is.[5]
Oord’s position is much like the one I call hopeful universalism. Classic universalism, in contrast, is not compatible with amipotence. An amipotent God cannot guarantee everyone will choose the way of uncontrolling love. If He could, then His love would be controlling. If God could singlehandedly stop all evil in the afterlife, then He should be able to stop it now. He doesn’t stop evil now because He can’t. And He can’t because He is love. An amipotent God grants genuine libertarian freedom to His beloved. So, God cannot coerce anyone into loving Him. God wants to become friends with us, and a coerced friendship is no friendship at all.
At first glance, annihilationism does not seem to be compatible with amipotence.
In fact, it might not even be compatible with open and relational theology in general. Among God’s attributes, open and relational theologians emphasize the primacy of God’s love. God is love, as the Apostle John puts it (1 John 4: 16). And Ryan Mullins argues that “If God annihilates you from existence, He is just not that into you.”[6] Mullins even argues that it would be more loving for God to send you into never-ending torment than to annihilate you. Further, according to Oord, the annihilationist God is impatient. God quits on those who choose not to love him. But an amipotent God never gives up.
In contrast, I believe that amipotence is compatible both with certain forms of annihilationism and with certain forms of everlasting hell. Let us picture an afterlife such as the one imagined by Oord. For years, God has been inviting John to be friends with him, but John never accepted. He just kept moving away from God. This goes on for thousands and thousands of years. I think it makes sense to believe that God would just stop inviting John and let him go his own way. Maybe John is like C.S. Lewis’s Napoleon in The Great Divorce—a self-centered, power-driven individual who prefers living miserably, all by himself, rather than experiencing the vulnerability that a loving relationship requires. A rational God would stop trying to convince such an individual to be friends with Him. Though God does not stop loving John, love requires God to let John go his own way. The same happens in human relationships—sometimes, a parent has to let her child go. Sometimes, a lover has to let her beloved go. Nevertheless, the door is always open. The gates will never be shut (Rev. 21: 25). But John has decided to never return. If this is the case, if there is a point of no return, I believe that God can rationally and lovingly decide to annihilate John rather than continue sustaining his miserable life in existence. That does not mean that God doesn’t forgive. We have all been forgiven, yet not everyone is reconciled with God. In this life, we do not have all the information. We might not know that God wants to be reconciled with us. Or we just might have been presented with a mistaken picture of God. In the next life, we’ll have a full picture. Nevertheless, we might still decide not to ever give in to God. Despite all the information we have and all the love we have received, we might stubbornly continue in our refusal of God in such a way that nothing can change that decision. And an omniscient God knows when this is the case.
The same scenario could be used to argue for an everlasting hell. Hell might be locked from the inside, to use Lewis’s metaphor.[7] Nevertheless, we might throw away the keys! We might reach that point of no return in which it makes no sense for God to try to convince us to come back because we are inconvincible.
I think both of these models of hell are compatible with amipotence. A more appealing suggestion for the amipotent theologian is a combination of both. Perhaps for an unrepentant sinner, it could end up both ways. And maybe God gives her the choice. I am pretty sure Lewis’s Napoleon will choose not to be annihilated and would live in hell forever. For it would be better for him to be a king in hell than a servant in heaven, to echo Milton’s Satan. But maybe John or someone else will accept annihilation or reconciliation.
If God gives us the choice of how to spend eternity, Love wins.
Bio: David Anzalone is a PhD candidate and tutor in the Master’s program in Philosophy, Theology, and Religions at the University of Lucerne. He has written on Medieval Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion and frequently speaks in various church communities.
OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE
David Anzalone argues that amipotence can align with certain views of annihilation and everlasting hell. He correctly notes that classical universalism, which relies on divine omnipotence, conflicts with amipotence. David suggests that an amipotent God might eventually stop inviting those in the afterlife who, after prolonged resistance, reject love. However, I see amipotence as something God necessarily and eternally embodies, meaning God would never cease inviting anyone. For me, amipotence is inherently tied to a relentless, unending invitation to love for all creatures. This relentless love, combined with amipotence, means God neither annihilates others nor condemns anyone to eternal hell.
For more on Oord’s view of God and the afterlife, see this article.
* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.
[1]. I am very thankful to Ryan Mullins for his comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
[2]. William Lane Craig. “Is God’s Moral Perfection Reducible to His Love?,” Religions, 14: 140: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020140
[3]. Thomas Jay Oord, The Death of Omnipotence and The Birth of Amipotence (SacraSage 2023), 128.
[4]. Oord, The Death of Omnipotence, 114.
[5]. Thomas Jay Oord, “God’s Glory as Relentless Love,” in Deconstructing Hell. Open and Relational Responses to the Doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment, edited by Chad Bahl (SacraSage 2023), 115-128.
[6]. R.T. Mullins, “The Philosophy of Eternal Life,” in Deconstructing Hell. Open and Relational Responses to the Doctrine of Eternal Conscious Torment, edited by Chad Bahl (SacraSage 2023), 36.
[7]. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (The Centenary Press 1940).