The All-Nurturing, All-Sustaining God of Scripture

By Karen Strand Winslow

El Shaddai reveals God’s nurturing, protective, sustaining character and underscores love rather than an all-powerful God.

Thomas Jay Oord’s chapter “Not Born of Scripture” in The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence begins his argument against divine omnipotence and his explanation of amipotence, as he has conceived it. He uses Scripture at the outset to convince faith communities, who care about Scripture and consider it to be revealing of God’s will and ways, and who regard it as instructive, faith building, and authoritative. The purpose of my essay is to analyze Oord’s demonstration that Scripture is not the source of the traditional notion of omnipotence. I will also question his claim that “God almighty,” used to translate El Shaddai, supports it. I will conclude with my reflections and affirm that amipotence is a far more scriptural, experiential, and reasonable means of describing God’s power than omnipotence.

In general, I agree with Oord’s arguments in chapter one and commend the careful research behind it as expressed in his summary comments such as:

God can be powerful and do mighty deeds without being omnipotent.… A robust description of divine power must account for what a loving God does and doesn’t do. It must explain the mighty acts of salvation history and the history of suffering and evil. It must explain why God sometimes rescues and sometimes can’t (36, 37).

In the witness of Jesus, we find a God who does not dominate…whose crucifixion on a cross, according to the Apostle Paul, demonstrates divine weakness. …this humble Nazarene display[s] strength and weakness but not control. The Christological witness ought to influence our view of divine power (38).

Nonetheless, I wish to assess his reasoning regarding “God Almighty” and make further points about the Greek and Latin translations of “El Shaddai.”

God Almighty in English Bibles

Certainly, Oord is right that “God Almighty” is not the best translation of “El Shaddai” (God of breasts/mountains). Tyndale (AD 1494-1536) probably chose that term for El Shaddai before 1530, when his Pentateuch was published. His biblical translation influenced all later English translations.

The meaning of the Hebrew term in Genesis and Exodus means nourishing, protective, and strong; not all powerful. The contexts indicate that those who use it (the narrator, God, Jacob, or Isaac) affirm the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as guiding, nourishing, and protecting—as mothering. When Shaddai is used negatively in later books (Joel, Job, and Ruth), its ruinous side is a subversion of the trust expected from a mother (15-17).

Whereas some of the scholars Oord cites suspect Shaddai refers to “natural factors that destroy rather than God” (16), Shaddai in these books is connected to the mothering God of the patriarchs; it’s an expression of pain, disappointment, and bitterness. Cries of pain, lament, and bitterness appear throughout the Bible. We must avoid turning them into general theological premises to say that God causes misfortunes. A remark by characters in the world of the story—like Naomi attributing her disasters to God—does not imply that God causes evil, but how she understood the harm (evil) befallen her. Oord would agree.

Nonetheless, this negative use of Shaddai, an ironic contrast to its nourishing, protective meaning, does not alter Oord’s point, which, as he says, it transcends:

[S]haddai in Scripture does not mean omnipotent and is mistranslated “almighty. …Shaddai does not mean all-powerful.… A God of Shaddai does not have all power, cannot do absolutely anything, and does not control others (17).

I have reservations about Oord’s claim that “almighty” is a regrettable mistranslation. Some people may be prompted to think “omnipotent” when hearing the term “God Almighty” in Scripture or liturgy. But “almighty” does not imply what the Platonic (Greek), Augustinian, and later Calvinist concept of omnipotence entails. This is anachronistic and represents a clash of Hebrew/Jewish, Greek, and contemporary Western mindsets.

Although these “mindsets” were/are always evolving, the distinctions remain. Some people were/are more influenced by Jewish (scriptural) and Wesleyan ways of knowing God and others by Platonic and Calvinist theologies. Many Jews and Christians, past and present, can hear “almighty” without thinking omnipotent in a zero sum, totally controlling sense, as some adherents to omnipotence define it. Obviously, Plato (427-347 BCE) did not invent the concept of omnipotence based on either El Shaddai or the English “God Almighty” (AD 1525). He birthed divine omnipotence based on what he assumed a deity should be.

Omnipotens in the Latin Bible

Nonetheless, the term “omnipotence” is in the Latin Bible (later known as The Vulgate), which was the Bible of the Church for many centuries. Oord explains that the term omnipotens in Jerome’s Latin translation (AD 385 and following),) was chosen for the Greek term pantocrator (all-sustaining). This unusual Greek term was used to translate El Shaddai, and Shaddai in the Septuagint/LXX (250 BCE), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Oord regrets Jerome’s choice, saying that “if Jerome had followed the original texts, he probably would not have used omnipotence, and Christians thereafter would not call God ‘omnipotent’” (22). But Jerome did use the original texts of Hebrew to translate the Old Testament, as I’ve told all my Old Testament classes since 1987 when I began teaching university Bible courses. In fact, other theologians like Augustine maligned Jerome for using Hebrew versions, because the Greek Bible had become so dear, so Christian (as opposed to Jewish), and so “divine” by his time.

Jerome would have known that pantocrator meant “all-sustaining” and not “all powerful.” And he certainly knew the meanings of “El Shaddai” in the Jewish Scriptures. His choice of omnipotens to translate shaddai may represent his own Platonic theological leanings. Although Plato and his omni’s lived seven hundred years before Jerome translated the Bible from the original languages, omnipotens in the Latin Bible may have affected later clergy and theologians to preserve the notion of omnipotence.

All Sustaining in the Greek Bible

Oord’s research into pantokrater shows that it does not mean omnipotent. The producers of the LXX carefully avoided using panto (all) with dunamis (power) when describing God (23-25). As all-sustaining, pantokrater is not a “mistaken” translation of El Shaddai. Neither pantokrater nor “almighty” implies omnipotence. These Greek and much later English translations did not lead to the invention of divine omnipotence.

Furthermore, even if Jerome’s use of the term “omnipotens” in the influential Latin Bible prompted later theologians to elaborate upon the notion of divine omnipotence, the concept of divine omnipotence is pre-Christian and unrelated to the Jewish Scriptures. Neoplatonists, Calvinists, and other Christians who cling to the concept today do so out of hope that their loving God is also in complete control of all things and had/has reasons for causing or allowing evil. Their omnipotent God will reveal someday that suffering, pain, and death will have a good end. When evil occurs, adherents of divine omnipotence hold to the notion of God being in complete control and causing or permitting disaster for some “good” reason. That works until it doesn’t.

Like Oord, I believe the loving, good, productive, imaginative, powerfully creative God collaborates with us to bring good out of evil. This is not the reason tragedies and illness happen; instead, God responds to human choices and natural disasters, just as we must. God creates and preserves life, and we are called to do the same.

Metaphor

In reading Oord’s chapter, I’m reminded that in using Scripture to support our convictions, we often fail to embrace its hyperbolic nature. Even as we appreciate poetic, metaphorical, parabolic meanings, we point to this to mitigate a statement and contrast it to “actual” or hard truth about God or life. When conversation partners use a verse out of context to “prove” something, we point out that poetic and emotional expressions differ from persistent biblical themes and representations of God’s work. However, the assertions are still meaningful, such as the examples Oord gives on pp 29-30 and the many other verses that voice praise, lament, and perceptions that may not be strictly scientifically or historically accurate, hard truth. They may be reasonably probed for their deep, wild, and wonderful meanings.

Hyperbole and metaphor were never meant to proclaim “hard truth” that never changes. Naomi meant she wanted to be called “Mara,” because her life was now bitter and Shaddai had turned against her. The Psalmist meant to portray utter despair, wonder, or ecstasy about his/her experiences with God. Prophetic oracles proclaim God’s despair and pain-love. A cry like “I cannot give you up (Hos 11:8a), is belied by the “hard truth” that God did give Israel up. All these things are true: God’s passion, God’s anger as well as compassion (womb in Hebrew). This includes implicating God for suffering, whether God had anything to do with it or not. Furthermore, claims like “nothing is too wonderful for God” (“nothing is impossible,” 29-30), resist critical examination. They are expressions of joy, wonder, acclamation, and worship.

Concluding Thoughts

Scripture, like God, is colorful, textured, paradoxical, hyperbolic, ironic, and even contradictory. The Scriptures that give us this loving God also express human agendas and views of God that are problematic and don’t always fit with Oord’s amipotence. The multitude of passages, genres, books, and divisions of Scripture are tension filled. In other words, the Bible, its characters, and God repel categorizing and systematizing. I understand the need to stand back from the Bible, using reason and experience, to formulate ideas about God. But ultimately the Bible—and God—resist categories.

I am speaking as a biblical scholar, who enjoys the color, flavor, tension, and texture of Scripture; its multivalent, delightful, wild, irrepressible, and uncontrollable God-talk; the many things they say about God. Even so, I affirm the power of God’s love over an all-powerful God. As Oord shows, for God to be mighty does not mean that God has all the power, is in control, causes everything that happens, or that creatures and creation have no or little power. Scripture and experience confirm that we have choices, abilities, and strengths; that God needs us and the rest of creation to accomplish the good that God wishes. Out of love, God hopes and plans for the flourishing of creation. This requires partnership with us.

Thus, I welcome Oord’s notion of “amipotence,” because love and God’s loving presence with us is the consistent, persistent theme of the Bible. God’s creative love is powerful without being controlling. God’s living love goes beyond our deaths and the deaths of all who came before. As 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…for God is love.”

Bio: Karen Strand Winslow (Ph.D., University of Washington) has been a professor of biblical studies for decades. Her publications include Early Jewish and Christian Memories of Moses’ Wives; Imagining Equity: The Gifts of Christian Feminist Theology; commentaries on 1-2 Kings, Isaiah, and Esther; and studies of mixed marriages. Her teaching and research also focuses on Scripture formation, Judaism, science and theology, and women in religion.

OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE

Karen Winslow argues from scripture in support of Amipotence, agreeing with my biblical case while adding fresh insights. She observes that the word Almighty carries fewer negative connotations for many people than omnipotent. Winslow also questions whether Jerome’s use of omnipotence was shaped by Platonic philosophy rather than by biblical tradition. If so, the classical notion of omnipotence is pre-Christian and foreign to Jewish scripture. Moreover, she suggests that some depictions of divine violence in the Bible may be hyperbolic rather than literal, inviting readers to interpret such passages through the broader lens of God’s steadfast, uncontrolling love.

For more on Oord’s view of how Platonic philosophy undermines a coherent view of God and time, see this article.

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