Hope in Love

By Elizabeth Enns Petters

Amipotence gives us hope in a world where suffering is rampant and makes little sense.

When we begin to search for answers about the power of God, where do we most often look? The Bible might be our first stop, pouring over verses and interpretations, trying to make sense of the writers and the cultures dancing across its pages. When that perplexes us, we might find a scholar or a pastor to help us make sense of it all; someone with a degree, experience, and a more “valuable” or respected perspective than our own. Where, then, does our own intuition come into play in regards to the matters and character of God? Can we trust ourselves and our own inner knowing as much as we look outward for the answers?

I won’t take the time to explain the roots of omnipotence and why it gained traction, and why the Bible doesn’t support it the way we might have been taught. Thomas Oord’s The Death of Omnipotence…and Birth of Amipotence gives us all this and more. But I do want to pose a hypothetical that negates all of that. Let’s say for argument’s sake that the Bible fully supports the omnipotent nature of God. Must we take the Bible at face value? Does the Bible have to get the final word? I think not. The Bible, a wonderful tool for us to utilize, should not overshadow our sacred knowing. Our deepest needs, the way we see the world and the way we view others all matter. Who we are in the deepest parts of our soul tells us more about the nature of God than the Bible ever could. If we can only learn to listen and trust our own knowing, everything points to an Amipotent God, a God who leads with love in its pure uncontrolling form, rather than an Omnipotent one.

As a child sitting on the scratchy, stackable chairs of my Calvinist church on a Sunday morning, I learned about the almighty power of God. The power to calm the storms, and part the seas, and heal the sick. The power to create and destroy. The power to love and the power to condemn. They called it “Omnipotence” and it scared me to death. Because as soon as I was able to think critically, I realized that there were deep flaws in this idea. One of them being that if God was omnipotent and benevolent, then the world would not have the kind of suffering that I saw all around me. The power over all creation and the decision to allow people to suffer did not sit well with me. What kind of God was I serving? Even as a young child, I did not buy into this idea that a truly loving God could change suffering but wouldn’t.

When I first began to question omnipotence, I remember it came with a feeling of deep helplessness and hopelessness. In my mind, God’s omnipotence had always been tied to God’s love. If God wasn’t omnipotent, then what did that mean for God’s ability to love unconditionally and never leave or forsake me?

As a 12 year old living in suburban Pennsylvania, I spent a summer as a mother’s helper. I remember those days vividly. The mother that I was helping was battling cancer. Every few days, my own mom dropped me off at the front door of the family’s home; two toddlers and a family clinging to hope, waiting for me inside. Their hope was contagious. And in the early days, it all felt very normal. I would entertain the kids out in the sprinkler as their mom made tuna fish sandwiches and garbanzo beans for lunch. But as the days passed, and I watched this young woman’s body slowly wither away, I began to wonder, where was this omnipotent loving God I kept hearing about? Why wouldn’t an all-powerful God translate to saving the life of this beautiful human being, this mother with two precious children?

My last memory of her, this woman I had grown to love and whose children I adored, was of her fragile body bundled in a wool hat and a heap of blankets and nestled in a wheelchair at our church. At her funeral, all I felt was anger and deep nausea that clawed at my insides. It might have been then, standing in a sea of black dresses and suits, running my eyes over endless pictures of her and her family, that I realized I could never be all in on an omnipotent God who would allow such a tragedy.

Only a few short years later, I watched a sweet little 5-year-old girl in my Sunday school class slowly die of cancer. I remember her giggle and squirm into my lap to read a book. I remember the dimples in her cheeks and her deep smile. And I remember the day that she went into brain surgery and came out severely mentally impaired. I watched as her mother’s face became gaunt and her eyes dark under the strain of the trauma she was experiencing. I watched her baby sister cradle her face and bring her toys, too young to understand why she couldn’t play. And finally, I watched hundreds of people mourn the passing of this little girl at a funeral that was too much to bear. Her little red shoes on a table amidst all her favorite toys, a slide show of a life gone too early. No, I could not worship a God who would actively allow this.

Throughout my life, there have been many such experiences that have caused me to question God’s omnipotence, but I didn’t think I had an alternative. This was the God I had always known, and for many years, I didn’t feel free to come to my own conclusions. For me, Amipotence is the answer that I have been searching for. It allows for the power of God and yet ushers us into a continuous partnership with the Divine to bring about change. These days, I understand God’s love to be drastically different from our human idea of love, and I accept that there is much that I will never fully understand about God. But what I know is that if love perpetually comes first, it changes everything.

When I consider the application of Amipotence to these stories of suffering that I have shared, it changes my perception of God. No longer is God the controlling abuser who forces us to endure unimaginable pain for God’s glory alone. But instead God is with us and around us, partnering behind the scenes in a way that we cannot even imagine, coaxing and empowering creation to join in the divine dance. When the suffering happens and the pain does not ease, regardless of our personal beliefs on heaven and the afterlife, we can rest assured that God has not “caused” it or failed to stop it. Because if love is inherently uncontrolling and God is first and foremost love, we can trust that love will always take the lead, even if it does not bring about the results that we are hoping for.

I must admit that I do, at times, wish that God had a magic wand to wave in my defense. All we had to do was to call upon him/her/them when we needed saving, and all of our wishes would come true. How much easier life might be if we didn’t have to endure such suffering and witness it happen to others? But if we can fully trust that God’s love takes precedence over power, we can settle into our own humanity in a way that doesn’t cause friction to our soul. We no longer have to create reasons why God might utilize power to allow suffering. We can rest in the truth that God is always on the side of ultimate hope and healing and wholeness, even if our current situation feels far from that.

Although life will forever be filled with mystery, especially where God is concerned, what once felt hopeless to me now feels full of hope. Hope in a God whose very essence of love values my power as much as their own. Hope in a God whose power does not bulldoze, but instead, nourishes and coaxes. Hope in the truth that love always has the final say.

Bio: Elizabeth Enns Petters is a writer and podcaster known for hosting the Deconstructing Mamas podcast (www.deconstructingmamas.com). She has contributed to various publications including the book Deconstructing Hell. Elizabeth loves to be creative and can often be found deep in her imagination under layers of cozy blankets.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Elizabeth Enns Petters turns to the Bible to see if it supports divine omnipotence, but she finds no such backing. I especially value how she draws from her own history of wrestling with God’s power, questioning how a loving God could allow so many tragedies. I am delighted she sees amipotence as the answer she has long sought to understand love and power together. I also appreciate her honesty in admitting she sometimes wishes God could fix things unilaterally. Yet she recognizes the world’s brokenness calls us to reject omnipotence and trust instead God’s persuasive, relentless love.

For more on Oord’s view of the Bible and Open and Relational Theology, see this article.

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