God Cannot Sit on a Nest

The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, by Thomas Jay Oord. Published by SacraSage, 2023.

I've been following the work of Thomas Jay Oord for at least a decade. One of the things that I've noticed over and over again in his work the careful work of a scholar, theologian, philosopher, and excellent academic who is aware of the historical and intellectual sources, but also the ramifications and the consequences of the work that he has committed himself to. Additionally knowing him personally, I know his personal concern for the good news of the gospel and the practical pastoral realities that ministers, priests, rabbis, elders, and spiritual leaders in the church face as they work and walk shoulder to shoulder with people who are struggling, grieving, and questioning trying to understand how this God works.

I was happily surprised to read in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence another voice coming from Dr Oord. A political voice.

Dr Oord, in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence speaks in a political tone. By politics I don't mean anything having to do with elections or partisan positions on issues but simply in that idea of power. Power over, under, and with creation.

I know in my life when I felt I needed God's power to be made known, and I felt powerless, up against a situation for which I didn't have the resources nor the insight, I have waited for God to act because God is the one with all power. And then as those fears come to pass and something bad or some suffering occurs either in my life or that of someone else, I wonder what piece of the formula I not gotten right in my petition. How did I not pray correctly to release the all-powerful god? In relation to this god, I have felt powerless. But in relation to the amipotent God, the God of love, I am empowered.

Thus, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence has a sense of manifesto about it. Without the Aristotelian and philosophical omnipotent god, we can become aware of how actually seeks to relate to God’s creation. One can almost hear a chant between the lines, “the omnipotent god is dead, long live the amipotent God.”

The death of omnipotence should be celebrated. Its demise helps us understand scripture better and overcomes conceptual conundrums that stem from thinking God exerts all power, can do absolutely anything, or can control. Abolishing omnipotence makes it possible to trust God as loving when we suffer. We need not sit passively on life’s sidelines -- like helpless damsels in distress -- waiting for “the Almighty” to show up and rescue us. We have an essential role to play to promote flourishing…Omnipotence is dead. Long live amipotence!  (Oord, 2023)

As Dr Oord releases God from the confines of philosophical labels defining God’s power, he relies on the Hebrew bible and the narratives which give shape to the God known most fully in Jesus. In looking at the biblical descriptions of God and God’s power, Dr Oord writes,

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 sometimes God can rescue and sometimes can’t. (Oord, 2023).

Ending that previously quoted with the word “can’t” hearkens to Dr Oord’s earlier book provocatively titled, God Can’t. Within The Death of Omnipotence, one will find even more depictions of what God cannot do. There are a lot of things God cannot do, and Dr Oord gets specific:

“God cannot lift a pebble. God cannot bench press 50 pounds. God cannot sit on a nest. God cannot chew licorice. God cannot do pushups. (Oord, 2023)

One god has been dethroned to make room for the kenotic, self-emptying God who has always been there. As a result, the power of God is revealed as a power in relationship as a co-laborer and as a collaborator. Neither we, not evil, is under God’s control. The power do subdue evil and to alleviate suffering is in our relationship with God and God’s purposes for creation. As Oord writes,

“An amipotent God creates alongside creatures and creation rather than overpowering or conjuring something from nothing” (Oord, 2023). In the face of evil, God comes alongside and continues to create.

Saying God has to love does not mean God is altogether without freedom. Open and relational theologians like me believe God loves moment by moment, facing an open, yet to be determined future. Consequently, God freely chooses how to love in each moment, given the possibilities and circumstances. Because God cannot be certain how free creatures will respond, God freely selects among the best options and calls creatures to choose.  (Oord, 2023)

This freely and creatively loving God is the amipotent God. “Amipotence, by contrast, is inherently uncontrolling. An amipotent God necessarily loves and cannot singlehandedly determine outcomes. Amipotence can’t control” (Oord, 2023).  Because love does not control.

This book continues Dr Thomas Jay Oord’s reflection on the open future and the uncontrolling nature of the God of love. With its empowering tone and it’s reference to the biblical descriptions of the type and character of God’s power, this book provides guidance for pastors and those seeking to learn more about our God whose primary description is love.

Fowler's stages and postfoundational practice

...a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity... Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ Luke 10.33, 37b

"mankind [sic.] is knit together with a holy knot ... we must not live for ourselves, but for our neighbors", John Calvin's Commentary on Acts 13

My friend, Beth, recently posted on Facebook a blog by Brian Zahnd, Beyond Elementary School Christianity, and in which he brought up the old classic by James Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning , and old classic that I recently put into a box of books to NOT sell to a used bookstore.  Maybe I’ll have to pull it out of the box again since a friend of mine posted a response to Zahnd on her Facebook page.  She asked “Do you think it's because leaders themselves are mythic-literal or are they simply fostering that viewpoint?”

The mythic-literal approach is also a mythic-linear way of thinking. When I think of myth, it think of imaginative stories of giants, gods, creation and destruction, and other grand over-arching narratives.  Myths are meant to be widely interpreted and have the capacity to infiltrate multiple aspects of our lives, precisely because they are not literal. Literalism narrows and defines with precision the interpretation of the myth, and actually makes it no longer a myth but a literal instruction.  Even literal and historical events can become mythic when they are interpreted widely and appended to our understandings of many events, relationships, and decisions we need to make. 

Beth asked if leaders in churches that reflect Zahnd’s characterization of possessing a mythic-literal faith are that way because they are reflecting the viewpoints of the congregation, or if this faith position is that of the leaders themselves.  Huge question. Basically, the answer is yes, no, and there’s more to it than that.

Conflicted Leaders

I know of leaders who do not share the opinions of the congregations they serve. These pastors maybe trying to lead their congregations to a new view of faith and life, but the congregation is not quite there yet.  In conversations at conferences, coffee shops, and pubs, they confess the dissonance in which they live – trying to communicate at a level the congregation can grasp, but still trying to move them forward. I used to practice a ministry of storytelling. I’d use any good story. Legends, fables, short stories. I would weave these into my sermons.  My first congregation appreciated it. But in another congregation, the chair of the elders reprimanded me, “we don’t need stories, we need facts”.  They didn’t get it, and I failed in getting them there.  The resistance was threatening and passive aggressive.  There are pastors that feel vulnerable for their livelihood and may not have the social capital to challenge the mythic-literal viewpoint of their congregations.  And they may have elders or other leaders to deal with as I had to.

Mythic-Literal Congregations

To a great extent, I suppose mythic-literal congregations would call, or lift up, a mythic-literal leader to be a pastor. They might not mind a synthetic-conventional (stage 3), since that is like a concrete-operational developmental stage.  It is not likely that these congregations would choose a person in the individuative-reflective stage (stage 4) because they aren’t always sure what they are trusting in, the conjunctive faith (stage 5) sounds to ephemeral, and the universal stage (stage 7) would strike them as odd as a Buddhist koan.  

Mythic-Literal Leaders

This is a breed I wish was rare. The trouble is that this is a terribly reassuring viewpoint. It sees the world as controllable, prayer as currency to get what you want, suffering as a sign of failure, and success as a sign that God’s favor is with you.  You can make millions selling that kind of trust to people.  As people eat up this simplistic god-talk, it merely reinforces leaders and prevents them from having to change. As Zahnd puts it, “We can preach the certitude of Proverbs, but not the paradox of Job; we can make sense of the maxims of Deuteronomy, but not the mystery of John.”

Advanced Stages is not “Progressive” or “Liberal”

Zahnd steers clear of the tendency of some, in which the assumption that progressing through the stages is equated with becoming a progressive (a.k.a. “liberal” in some quarters) Christian. Zahnd instead characterizes the higher stages of faith as abilities to enter contemplation and compassion. These are two characteristics are available to conservative and liberal Christians. But the Christians who reside in the post-conventional faith zone, are also less likely to describe their faith as a conservative or liberal position. In fact, they are likely to not think of faith as a position being held as much as a life being lived. A life which encompasses questions, doubts, and people of contrary views.

Postfoundationalism

Stanley Grenz was a friend who got me started on understanding, from a theological perspective that conservatives and liberals are more similar than they are different. Liberals trust the individual perspective, conservative trust the specific Greek words (carefully parsed and clearly defined). Both liberals and conservative build on a foundation of enlightenment epistemology: liberals on a Cartesian assurance of reason; conservatives on the assurance of empiricism.  The foundation shared by both is that we can figure it out clearly, rationally, and absolutely. Grenz wanted to create a different foundation to measure what is normal – worship in a community gathered around scripture (as the “normalizing norm”) being led by the Holy Spirit. That’s a Christian foundation.

So to answer Beth...

My hunch is that with the foundational practices Grenz lifts up, mythic-literals of both stripes, liberal and conservative, might skeptically try out.  But, if clearly practiced in behaviors of worship, Eucharist (sorry Quaker friends, I think the act is important), acts of mercy, and community reflection on scripture and the neighborhoods in which we live, even mythic-literals can be ushered into growing faith. These acts change both parties, both the recipient of mercy and the one who gives it are different, and closer.  The wounded Jew and the Samaritan (Luke 10) certainly looked at each other differently, challenging their previously black-and-white understandings of each other and their cultures. But we have to leave the old foundations, separations, clearly defined "issues" and divides behind.  The degree to which both leaders and congregations become self-absorbed and live only within the narrow confines of the familiar and habitual, the greater the difficulty there will be for them to grow in faith. Conversely, the degree to which leaders and congregations enter into scripture, worship and the lives of real people (not "issues") with an intention toward compassion, the greater the likelihood of spiritual growth.

Beth, I hope that answers your question.