Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! Divine Omniscience (Also) Has to Go!

By Clarence Graham White

It is time to retire the idea of Omnipotence, and Omniscience as well, because if God knows everything, there is no free will.

When I became familiar with Open and Relational Theology in 2020, it was a godsend to me, as a disabled man, a philosopher and theologian who had struggled for six decades with the ramifications of disability and what my situation meant in terms of how God would be part of my life. Thomas Jay Oord has become one of my good friends. We do not agree on everything, but his work has opened new planes in my own thinking. One of my favorite of his books is God Can’t. Another is The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence. I think these two books, taken together, are an opening statement and then a fuller explanation of one of the most important ideas in Open and Relational Theology. God is not omnipotent.

This is not just abstract theology for me. I was born with cerebral palsy and now, as a retired professor, husband, father and grandfather, I am also dealing with Parkinson’s disease. My life is not easy these days. But even as I developed Parkinson’s, which I will tell you has been far more difficult for me than the cerebral palsy has ever been, I have a level of peace with things which I did not have for the first 60 years of my life. The main reason for that is an inner assurance, thanks to the work of Tom Oord and others, that God did not inflict this on me. There are things which happened, choices people made, which led to my current situation, but that does not mean God was sending me these difficulties. God is with me in this and I take great comfort in that.

In God Can’t, Tom shares an illustration of what it means if, even though God does not will natural evils and illness, and disasters on people, somehow God allows those things to happen. He uses the illustration of a parent allowing a child to drown when the parent could have prevented the drowning. That is fundamentally unloving. I agree totally. If God does not send natural disasters, but allows them (I grew up in West Virginia where the fear of the local coal mine exploding was a daily anxiety), then God is no more loving than the parent who would allow a child to drown when the parent could have prevented the drowning.

In The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, Tom takes this a bit further and offers a more academic consideration of the same idea. He is suggesting that identifying God as all-powerful creates problems for conceiving of God as love. I totally concur.

I had a student in a Philosophy of Religion class one time offer an idea that I think he got from the Reformed thinker R.C. Sproul. My student said there is not a single molecule in the universe which is disobedient to God. This student worked in law enforcement, which I found humorous if he really believed what he had said. The conclusion to such thinking is that everything which happens is God’s will. I find it impossible to reconcile a God who wills pain, hunger, disease, suffering and violence with a God whose nature is love.

This is precisely where the exquisite term Tom “gives birth” to, Amipotence, comes in. God’s power is not the power of domination, but the power of love. Love does not overpower. Love does not force. A God of love could do no other but give people free will, and free will means people will make bad choices, and suffering will occur. But that does not mean God willed the suffering.

I have told my Introduction to Philosophy students over the years, that even God cannot do that which is logically impossible. Many of you remember, perhaps, the example of the square circle. Just as it is logically impossible for something to be a square and a circle at the same time, God cannot give people free will and force them to do specific behaviors at the same time. If this is not the case, then God owns all the evil and suffering which has ever been, and God is suffering’s ultimate cause.

I am in agreement with Tom on all of this, to the best I understand him. But there is a further step I believe to be necessary or we really have not completely addressed this problem. I believe that not only does Omnipotence need to die, but Omniscience does as well. Here is why.

If R.C. Sproul is correct, and there is not really a single molecule in the universe which is disobedient to God, then there is no free will. I am aware that in some forms of Reformed Theology free will is believed to not exist, having been lost in the Fall, which God also ordained. To me, this is just as much a form of determinism as some materialistic determinism is. I do not think the difference, at least in how moral theory works, between R.C. Sproul and B.F. Skinner is as much a difference as people may think! Either way, whether one believes in theological determinism or materialistic determinism, there is no free will. Choice is an illusion, and moral accountability goes away.

The same problem is found in Divine Omniscience, however, as found in Omnipotence. If God knows what will happen in advance, then there is no free will either. I use this illustration in one of my own books, Open and Relational Ethics, which will be published in 2025. If I pull into a gas station with my Honda CR-V, and God knows I will put 11.4 gallons of gas in the tank, then there is no possibility I will stop at 11.2. Omniscience, at least the way most people think of it, destroys free will as much as determinism does, no matter what brand of determinism it is. This is because, either in an omnipotence scenario, where God holds all the power, or an omniscience scenario, where God knows everything, only one outcome is actually possible in each situation.

This is not to say God has no knowledge of what choices people will make. Just as knowing someone means we have an idea what they will decide to do in some situations, God knows us intimately and I believe God has a lot of knowledge of what we will do. The point is that knowledge cannot be absolute, because that is when free will goes away.

One possible way to frame this issue is to use the idea of divine dipolarity as framed by Alfred North Whitehead, when he describes God’s antecedent nature and God’s consequent nature. In God’s antecedent nature, God knows all possibilities. In God’s consequent nature, God knows what actually takes place. I believe this distinction can be helpful.

The fact remains, however, that as humans we live and experience and relate with God in God’s consequent nature. Whitehead said one time, every yes involves saying no to other things. Sometimes things are not possible because of previous events which have taken place. The city in which I live has a Marathon every September. Some years the route runs right in front of my house. With Parkinson’s disease I need a walker to walk, so I will not be entering the Marathon. Just like we can conclude that certain things cannot happen, I believe God can do that also. Among the possibilities which are realistic, however, I do not think God always knows which ones we will choose to actualize. If God knows that, no other outcomes are possible.

I am trying to suggest here, that as helpful as allowing the idea of Omnipotence to die is, if Omniscience, at least in the way people conceive of it generally, does not die along with it, we have not really extricated ourselves from the problem. Like I said, if God knows I will get 11.4 gallons of gas, I cannot possibly stop at 11.2 (or God did not really know how much gas I would buy). If God knows I am going to rob the bank, when I walk in the door, then it is not possible that instead, I will just withdraw some of my own money or make a mortgage payment. Divine Omniscience, as I see it, is as contrary to the power of love as Divine Omnipotence is, because either one is destructive of free will, and by default, responsibility for everything which ever happens falls back on God.

I believe in the Amipotent God. That is the God I love and want to serve. The Amipotent God, however, does not have complete knowledge of everything we do. And that is OK. In fact it is much less problematic than a God who either controls everything or even knows everything.

Bio: Clarence Graham White is retired after serving 20 years as Professor of Philosophy at Ivy Tech Community College in Columbus, IN. The author of nine books, he attended Earlham School of Religion and holds degrees from West Virginia State University, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Bethel Theological Seminary in Minnesota. Clarence and his wife Gay live in Columbus, IN.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Clarence White draws insightful connections between omnipotence and omniscience, grounding his reflections in his experience as a disabled man. He fully supports rejecting classical views of omnipotence and championing divine love instead. Yet he also argues that we must reconsider omniscience. The common belief that God knows the future with absolute certainty contradicts our lived experience of genuine freedom. If every action is already known, true choice seems impossible. For White, love and freedom are inseparable, and a relational God must know possibilities, not fixed outcomes. This view preserves both divine wisdom and authentic human agency.

For more on Oord’s view on omniscience, see this article.

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