Thank Goodness, God Can’t Control Elections!

I don’t think God wanted Donald Trump to be elected President of the United States.

Of course, I’m not certain about this. Or certain about much of anything. So I could be wrong. But I evaluate this election the best I can. And a theology of uncontrolling love helps me do that.

A theology that says a loving God can’t control makes sense when voters elect candidates I think are bad for the world. In this essay, I’ll identify five reasons the notion that God can’t control is helpful. And I talk about the problems that arise when thinking God is omnipotent.

1. The God who can’t control isn’t to blame for bad election results.

When a candidate is elected who I think is bad for the country, I don’t think God caused or allowed the results. I think God called citizens to vote for better candidates. But a God of uncontrolling love can’t coerce free creatures. This God can’t guarantee election outcomes. And this is good news, because we don’t have to blame God for bad election results.

2. Our feelings of anger, pain, sadness, and frustration make sense if God is uncontrolling.

Many of my friends have negative feelings after Trump’s election. That’s natural. If God is omnipotent, however, God either caused or allowed Trump to be elected. This means the negative feelings we have do not align with God’s will. But if God is uncontrolling, our negative feelings align with bad election outcomes.

3. An uncontrolling God feels negative emotions when elections harm.

Not only are our negative feelings warranted in a theology of uncontrolling love, but this view says God suffers with us. God gets mad, sad, and frustrated when we choose something other than the loving best possible. It’s encouraging to know that an empathetic God suffers with us. Both God and us can have these negative feelings without acting to harm in light of them.

4. Uncontrolling love theology says God doesn’t leave us when disaster happens.

The God of uncontrolling love moves through time like we do. This God works with creation to squeeze whatever good can be squeezed from the bad God didn’t want in the first place. God seeks to redeem, in collaboration with us and creation. An uncontrolling God of love doesn’t abandon us in the ashes of disaster. This God consoles us, while empowering us to take the next steps.

5. Uncontrolling love theology supports activism.

Uncontrolling love theology does not call us to sit by, passively accepting whatever happens. Instead, the God envisioned in this theology works to overcome evil with good. And this God needs creaturely help. Consequently, an uncontrolling love theology matches the intuitions of activists who work to make the world a better place. What we do matters.

Uncontrolling love theology does not consider God omnipotent. When harmful candidates are elected, this theology says, thank goodness, God is not in control. The rest of this essay comes from my book, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence:

God Picks Political Leaders?

Some point to biblical passages as support for the claim that God picks political leaders and systems. “Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities,” the Apostle Paul tells readers in Rome, “for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. Whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves” (Rom. 13:1-2). Adolf Hitler realized the benefits of this argument, and he was fond of calling God, “The Almighty.”[1]

When believers agree with those in power, Paul’s words provide evidence God also agrees. The ruler is divinely sanctioned. They ignore Jesus when he says, “the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them . . . ​ but not so with you” (Lk. 22:25-26). When believers don’t like a leader or political system, they appeal to other biblical passages that justify opposition to earthly authorities.

The Authority of an Almighty God

Some leaders capitalize on the implications of omnipotence by invoking God as the basis of their authority. This brings disastrous results.

One of the more notorious is the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery,” issued by Pope Nicholas V to King Alfonso of Portugal. Here, the Pope sanctions the “discovering” and colonizing of lands and the subjugation of Indigenous people, including “reducing their persons to perpetual slavery.” He issued this decree “by the authority of Almighty God conferred upon us,” and says we should trust “in Him from whom empires and governments and all good things proceed.” He warns that no one “infringe” or “contravene” his permission, else that person “incur the wrath of Almighty God.”[2] Because so many have invoked an omnipotent God to justify their oppression of others, postcolonial and liberation theologians today are rethinking divine providence.[3]

More recently, Evangelical Christians claimed an omnipotent God appointed Donald Trump as President of the United States. Trump aligned himself with Evangelicals because doing so secured votes for his campaign and support for his policies. Doing so also granted Trump, in the minds of some, divine authority. The logic of omnipotence leads naturally to thinking God puts leaders in power, so it’s not surprising Evangelicals would say God put Trump in the White House. What should surprise us is when other Christians accept omnipotence but criticize Evangelicals when they follow its logic.

A Benevolent Dictator?

A common retort to this argument says God differs in a crucial way from human rulers: God is perfectly good. Human leaders are not. “There are no absolutely good people,” say some, “but we worship an absolutely Good and Omnipotent King.”[4] God is a Benevolent Dictator. To put it another way, controlling tyrants cause harm, but controlling Love does not.

This argument falters for many reasons, but I’ll mention two. First, it ignores our first-hand experience as agents with power and freedom.[5] If omnipotence means God exerts all power or controls others, God cannot be omnipotent and creatures have power and freedom. And if benevolence is always persuasive, “Benevolent Dictator” is a contradiction. Dictators don’t persuade, they control.

Second, when pointless pain and unnecessary suffering occur, believers rightly wonder why an allegedly good and omnipotent King does not stop them. The Benevolent Dictator must be asleep. Claiming an all-powerful God differs from powerful kings by being consistently good fails to align with our experience of genuine evil. A benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it.

Conclusion

To worship God as omnipotent, therefore, is explicitly or implicitly to endorse the ruler or political system of the day.

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^[1]. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, G. T. Thompson, trans. (New York: Harper, 1959), 48.

^[2]. Pope Alexander VI’s Demarcation Bull, May 4, 1493. Also known as “The Doctrine of Discovery.” https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/doctrine-discovery-1493 (Accessed 1/6/22)

^[3]. For example, see Ekaputra Tupamahu, “A Decolonial View of God,” in Uncontrolling Love, Lisa Michaels, et. al., eds (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2017) and Randy S. Woodley, Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonialized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2022).

^[4]. Jonathan Foster portrays controlling divine power as “Omnipotence” with a capital O. See his Theology of Consent: Mimetic Theory in an Open and Relational Universe (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2022).

^[5]. Among books arguing for the irreducibility of freedom, see Jeffrey F. Keuss, Freedom of the Self (Pickwick, 2010); Timothy O’Connor, Persons and Causes (Oxford, 2002).