The Politics of Amipotence
By Bruce G. Epperly
The Amipotent vision of God inspires a relational, interactive, and democratic vision of revelation, decision-making, and politics in contrast to the authoritarian relationships and politics inspired by authoritarian, all-powerful, and unilateral visions of God.
Twenty-seven hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (570-478 BCE) challenged his contemporaries’ anthropomorphic images of God as being far too human in their jealousies and foibles and not suitable for the moral and spiritual advancement of humankind. The Greek philosopher believed that our images of God shaped person’s values, character, and relationships. Unworthy images of God, especially those of the Greek pantheon, led to immoral and socially destructive behavior.
If cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like [persons], then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.
Less than a century ago, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), whose work is pivotal in the formation of process and open and relational theologies, made a similar declaration in his critique of the historical trajectory of Christian theology.
When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered…The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly. In the official formation of the religion, it has assumed the trivial form of the mere attribution of to the Jews that they cherished a misconception about their Messiah. But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.[1]
In strong words, the otherwise mild-mannered philosopher spoke of certain of images of God as idolatrous in their glorification of power, violence, and coercion. Whitehead advised his readers to imagine a different kind of God, the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, relational, persuasive, and intimate, a deity who privileged the power of love over the love of power. Whitehead believed that authoritarian images of God lead to coercive and authoritarian uses of political power and subverted the quest for equality and democracy. We must find God, Whitehead asserted, through love and not fear.
Our visions of God reflect our values. Conversely, our values also shape our images of God. Whitehead asserts that a person’s character reflects their most deeply held beliefs. How we understand God’s nature shapes our ethics, politics, and relationships, as well as our theological perspectives, leading First Testament scholar Terence Fretheim to suggest that the question “what kind of God do you believe in?” is more important than “do you believe in God?”
Whether they relate to the problem of evil, the scope of salvation, the nature of revelation, the realities of health and illness, the use of power, or the ethics of political involvement, our images of God can cure or kill or welcome or shun. Our deepest beliefs about God’s nature shape our attitudes toward immigrants, strangers, and persons of other faiths as well as our understanding of the scope of salvation, the width of revelation, and the meaning of suffering. What we believe about God can even influence our voting patterns, choice of presidential candidates, and attitudes toward national and foreign policy, often a major factor in persons’ concrete experiences of suffering and well-being. They may even shape the decisions of Supreme Court justices or whether we choose the way of democracy or dictatorship.
I was pleased when I found that Thomas Jay Oord recognized that the contrasting doctrines of amipotence and omnipotence have political implications, a theme upon which I have focused for many years in my work on the relationship of process theology and the teachings of Jesus to politics.[2] Oord notes, “seeing God as omnipotent affects how believers think about leaders and social politics.”[3] Visions of God as omnipotent and all-controlling lead to privileging authoritarianism, coercion, and domination in politics. Belief in an almighty God has been a major influence in the formulation of the divine right of kings and political leaders, the doctrine of discovery, white man’s burden, and the joining of Christianity and colonialism.
In the United States, coercive and authoritarian images of God inspired conservative Christians to believe that their equally authoritarian candidates are ordained by God and that any opposition to their leaders, including affirming the accuracy of election results, goes against God’s will. Believing in an all-powerful God who blessed their candidate, many followers of Donald Trump invoked Jesus’ name as they stormed the Capitol and identified Trump as God’s political Messiah, invoking their vocation to overthrow the democratic process and threaten violence against all who stand in the all-determining God’s way. Insurrectionist signs proclaimed, “Jesus is my savior. Trump is my president,” privileging the love of power over the power of love. In the politics of the omnipotent God, the inclusive gospel of Jesus of Nazareth has been replaced by what David Fitch describes as “the church of us versus them.”
Bernard Loomer, one of the least known but most influential process theologians, spoke of two kinds of power, relational and unilateral.[4] Unilateral power is coercive by nature: it seeks to manipulate and control the environment and the communities of which we are a part. Unidirectional, it speaks but does not listen, gives but does not receive, and compels but does not cooperate. Challenging the omnipotent sovereign God and that God’s faithful minions leads to retribution in this life and eternal punishment the next. Inspired by a zero-sum, I win, you lose, world view, unilateral power seldom compromises, whether in political decision-making or in describing the machinations of divine providence. Binary in nature, coercive win-lose power does not allow for dissent, diversity, disagreement, or authentic agency whether in divine-human relationships, personal relationships, politics, or congregational life. Inspired by a zero-sum, I
In the world of unilateral power, cooperation means defeat. Creaturely freedom and autonomy are an affront to God’s all-determining sovereignty. If we assume creaturely actions make a real difference in history, we are dishonoring God and putting the devices and desires of our own heart’s ahead of God’s providential choices. Creativity and innovation are discouraged as going against God’s vision, once and for all delivered to the saints and the doctrinally orthodox and inflexible. The same applies to zero-sum, win-lose, political decision-making. In contrast, meeting in the middle, or compromising to achieve positive goals for society, means that we must give up power in a zero-sum world and claim our responsibility in shaping the future whether this deals with climate change, race relations, economics, reproductive health, or human rights.
In contrast to coercive and unilateral power, the power exemplified by the amipotent God, is creative, responsive, cooperative, and expanding. Relational power acts and also responds. Relational power speaks and also listens. Relational power is democratic by nature in its affirmation of the integrity and agency of others. Relational power sees the nature of divine power as incomplete and ever-expanding. God’s mercies are new every morning and so is God’s involvement in the world in which God prizes freedom, creativity, and novelty.
In an open-ended world guided by an amipotent God, human creativity enables God to be more creative and active in the world. Healthy uses of human freedom help God achieve God’s visions more fully than passive obedience. God wants partners and not puppets. Relational power looks for revelation everywhere and not just in the small world of ecclesiastical or political authorities. Visionary in nature, relational power visualizes a variety of positive responses and not just one blueprint for personal and political issues. Rather than contracting the realm of possibilities, the relational God is delighted when “a thousand flowers bloom,” as Mao Zedong affirmed before he succumbed to the uniformity and coercion of the Cultural Revolution. God rejoices when we affirm “a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground…a thousand ways to go home again,” as the Sufi mystic-poet Rumi declares.
While we do not wish to install a theocracy or mandate Christian behaviors in our pluralistic society and politics, the vision of an amipotent God has clear political implications, both in the how and what of politics, that is, in the process of political decision-making and aims of political goal setting. In terms of political process, the open and relational amipotent God inspires an equally open and relational democracy of the spirit and decision-making. Trusting that God is at work persuasively in the moral arc of history, we honor a variety of paths to the “more perfect union.” We look, as theologian Reinhold Niebuhr counseled, for the truth in our neighbor’s falsehood and the falsehood, or limitation, of our own truth. We can affirm, on the one hand, fiscal conservativism and, on the other hand, compassion in providing a broad spectrum of health care and promoting a universal economic safety net. Persons who support reproductive freedom and those who affirm the holiness of fetal life can meet in good faith to reduce the number of abortions, support male responsibility for fetuses and children, promote women’s equality, provide positive role models for women, affirm universal child and pregnancy care, and high-quality education and opportunity for all people.
The amipotent God encourages the search for common ground rather than binary and polarizing win-lose solutions. The amipotent God embraces, provides spiritual guidance, and seeks the salvation of everyone. Those who disagree with us are not demonized, silenced, or polarized, but seen as the “loyal opposition,” a term regularly invoked by politicians of earlier era, who assumed the good faith and patriotism of those with whom they differed. Accordingly, a politics of amipotence embraces diversity and pluralism, looks for wisdom in all quarters, and seeks well-being for all persons across our nation and across the globe.
Theology matters in politics. Seeing God as amipotent, relational, creative, and generous in supporting creativity and diversity promotes the same values in the body politic. A welcoming and inclusive God encourages a politics of hospitality and inclusiveness and inspires the formation of public policies and legal statutes that balance order with love and judgment with compassion to promote liberty and justice for all.
Bio: Bruce Epperly is a theologian, pastor, spiritual guide, and author of over eighty books, including The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theology and Religious Pluralism; The God of Tomorrow: Whitehead and Teilhard on Metaphysics, Mysticism, and Mission; and Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism.
OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE
Bruce Epperly skillfully explores the political implications of amipotence. Like Whitehead, he notes that humans often imagine God as an authoritarian ruler. Epperly argues that our values shape our image of God, influencing our political vision. If God is amipotent, creaturely freedom and autonomy are valued; if God is thought omnipotent, they are often not valued. Amipotence fosters democratic politics that seeks common ground and the common good. I am confident that the United States and other nations with authoritarian leaders would benefit if leaders and citizens modeled themselves after amipotence rather than omnipotence. I thank Bruce for his fine essay!
For more on Oord’s view of Donald Trump and Christian Nationalism, see this article.
* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.
[1]. Alfred North Whithead, Process and Reality: The Corrected Edition, edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne (New York: Free Press, 1978), 343.
[2]. Process Theology and Politics (Gonzales, Fl: Energion, 2020), Talking Politics with Jesus (Gonzales, FL: Energion, 2022); Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism (Gonzales, FL: 2020); One World: Process Theology and the Lord’s Prayer (Gonzales, FL: Energion, 2019).
[3]. Thomas Jay Oord, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence (SacraSage Press, 2023), 85.
[4]. Loomer, Bernard (1976). Two Conceptions of Power. Process Studies 6 (1):5-32.