What is Amipotence?

God is amipotent, not omnipotent.

That’s been my argument in several books, but I made the case extensively in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence.[1] It’s the idea pondered by 140+ essayists in a recently published, two-volume work called Amipotence.

I believe theists should reject the notion that God is omnipotent.

By omnipotent, I mean three primary ways scholars and laity have understood the word. Most mean that 1) God exerts all power whatsoever, 2) God can do absolutely anything, or 3) God can control creatures or creation. See my work for citations of leading theologians in the past and present who define omnipotence in one or more of these ways.

Biblical Case

The case against omnipotence is partly biblical. Neither the word nor its meaning are present in Christian and Hebrew scriptures. Even the English word “almighty,” which readers of English-language of the Bible encounter, is a mistranslation of the Hebrew words Shaddai and Sabaoth. Shaddai means “breasts” or “mountains;” Sabaoth means “hosts,” “armies,” or “councils.” Neither means omnipotent, sovereign, or all-powerful.

Before the New Testament was written, Greek speakers translated the Hebrew scriptures into what we call the Septuagint. When doing so, they chose the Greek word Pantocrator for both Shaddai and Sabaoth. But Pantocrator means “all holding” or “all sustaining,” not all-powerful or omnipotent.

Pantocrator appears ten times in the New Testament. That’s remarkably few. The Apostle Paul uses it once in a passage that draws from the Septuagint, and the other nine times appear in Revelation. None of the New Testament instances connotes omnipotence. And the word pandunamis, which literally means “all power,” never appears in the New Testament.

Many centuries after the scriptures were written, St. Jerome used the Latin word Omnipotens when translating the Hebrew and Greek scriptures for the Latin Vulgate. This decision introduced omnipotence into Christian, Jewish, and Muslim reflection. Biblical translators today continue to render wrongly Pantocrator, Shaddai, and Sabaoth as “almighty.”

The mistranslation of biblical words confuses.[2]

Philosophical Case

The case against omnipotence is also philosophical. Most major theologians and philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas, recognize some of the difficulties that arise when affirming omnipotence. It can’t mean that God can do absolutely anything, even though Augustine and many others say this. Conservative and liberal theologians in the past and present make exceptions to what an allegedly all-powerful God can do.

I’ve catalogued many of those exceptions and their conceptual problems. Although most believers say God can do anything, exerts all power, or can control others, these claims contradict other claims these same believers want to make. For instance, the God whom many claim is omnipotent can’t create a rock so big that God can’t lift it. This God can’t make mathematical and geometric errors true. This allegedly omnipotent God can’t contradict logic. This God can’t deny the divine nature or stop existing. An allegedly omnipotent God can’t change time or undo the past. This God can’t control free creatures or random events. Because God is an incorporeal spirit, this allegedly all-powerful deity can’t do billions of activities embodied creatures can do.

Philosophically, omnipotence dies a death of a thousand qualifications.[3]

Experiential and Evidential Case

My case against omnipotence is also experiential and evidential. The primary reason many people give for why they don’t believe in God—the problem of evil—cannot be overcome if God is thought omnipotent and perfectly loving. This God either causes evil events or allows them. But a truly loving person neither does evil nor permits evils the person could prevent.

Thinking God is omnipotent creates other problems. The idea doesn’t mesh with the errors and discrepancies in the Bible. It makes little sense if God wants to stop pandemics and climate change. An omnipotent God either installs political tyrants or allows them to remain in power. The idea of hell is compatible with an omnipotent God, but not a perfectly loving one. An omnipotent and loving God would want profound religious experiences for all who seek them, especially if such experiences were crucial for salvation. This God could presumably clear up any contradiction that might arise among the world religions. The idea God is omnipotent doesn’t fit well with an ancient earth and long evolutionary history, and it doesn’t fit well with diverse genders and sexualities.

These problems bury omnipotence six feet under.[4]

Amipotence as an Alternative

I’m not just arguing against omnipotence, as important as that task may be. I offer an alternative view of God’s power: amipotence. I invented this word by combining a Latin word for love “ami” with a Latin word for power. Amipotence is pronounced “am,” a short “i,” (as in “it”), and “po-tence.”[5]

Amipotence says divine power is uncontrolling love. An uncontrolling God can’t control others, animate or inanimate. Adding “uncontrolling” is not necessary for those who believe love, by definition, does not control the beloved. Because love is not always regarded in this way, I add “uncontrolling” to emphasize that an amipotent God never controls anyone or anything. God can’t.

By “can’t control,” I mean God cannot bring about outcomes singlehandedly. God cannot be a sufficient cause, to use philosophical language. God does not have the ability to determine creatures, circumstances, the smallest entities, or creation unilaterally. God’s action is a necessary cause in every event, however, because every event has both creaturely and divine influence.

We sometimes use the word “control” to talk about a person using their body to force others to do something. Parents move defiant two-year-olds, for instance, or we might reach out and restrain a friend from stepping into traffic. While we sometimes use our bodies to thwart the movement of others, God does not have a localized body with appendages to move or restrain others. God is incorporeal. Consequently, a bodiless God can’t constrain others in the way that creatures sometimes can.

Of course, God can call upon creatures to use their bodies to impact others. We can be God’s metaphorical hands and feet. But creatures can refuse to cooperate. And because they have freedom and autonomy God can’t override, creatures don’t literally become God’s robotic tools.

Love Comes Before Power

Amipotence prioritizes love before power among God’s attributes. This priority is logical, which means we best understand divine power in the light of uncontrolling love. Those who try to regard love and omnipotence as co-equal inevitably privilege power over love. Or they make incoherent claims about who God is and how God acts.[6]

Prioritizing love in God should influence how we conceptualize other divine attributes. Because love involves giving and receiving, for instance, amipotence assumes God is passible (relational) rather than impassible. Because love is activity done moment by moment, amipotence assumes God enjoys temporal experience rather than being altogether timeless. Because love requires more than one, amipotence assumes God is never solitary. Amipotence is changing in one sense and unchanging in another, because God’s loving experience changes, while God’s essence is immutable. And so on.[7]

The Providence of Amipotence

By providence, the amipotent Spirit of love gives life and existence to creation. The Spirit provides integrity, agency, self-organization, and freedom to all creatures, depending on their complexity. God gives robust freedom to complex creatures like you and me. God gives agency and self-organization to simpler creatures. God gives the integrity of existence to the smallest entities. The gifts of amipotence are, to use the language of the Apostle Paul, “irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). Even the law-like regularities of existence—“natural laws”—emerge from God’s sustaining amipotence for all.[8]

The amipotent God necessarily gives to creatures and creation. When self-giving and others-empowering love comes logically prior to God’s power and choice, God must give freedom, agency, self-organization, and integrity. God’s nature is giving and receiving love. God cannot fail to provide, withdraw, or override the gifts God gives. The Spirit loves necessarily.[9]

Most theologians who embrace omnipotence explicitly or implicitly think power comes logically first in God. Consequently, they wonder why God would choose to create. This God could exist in isolation. Theologians who embrace omnipotence typically wonder why God decides to share power (if they are not theological determinists, that is). They usually say God periodically controls creatures or circumstances. Theologians who embrace omnipotence assume mighty acts and miracles are instances of God singlehandedly bringing about results.[10] And the logic of omnipotence assumes God will someday override creatures to make all things right.

The logic of amipotence, by contrast, starts with God’s everlasting and necessary love for creatures and creation. It says love was and always is God’s reason for creating. Because God everlastingly loves others, in fact, God everlastingly creates others. In the logic of amipotence, it’s never a question whether God will share power; it’s the nature of love to do so. The theologian embracing amipotence never wonders if God occasionally controls. Love, by nature, is uncontrolling. Mighty deeds and miracles result from God’s initiating activity and creaturely responses or conducive conditions in creation. Love’s ultimate victory will come through relentless love, not absolute control, with the hope that amipotence eventually persuades all.

According to amipotence, the God-creation synergy wasn’t a divine afterthought, backup plan, or evolutionary addition. Synergy is always the way of love. God necessarily gifts the elements of otherness to creatures great and small, to creation simple and complex, to all things now and forever. An essentially isolated being is not a God whose name and nature are love.

Maximally Powerful Amipotence

Although amipotence says divine love can’t control, it does not portray God as weak or impotent. Amipotence is the most powerful force in this universe and every other that might exist. The Spirit is strong. God is maximally powerful without being able to singlehandedly determine creatures or circumstances.

Amipotence is the greatest power among other powers because, first, God is an active agent. Amipotence is the greatest power, second, because God everlastingly loves creatures and creation. No other actor is everlasting. An amipotent God is strongest, third, because this omnipresent deity influences all creatures whatsoever. No creature is omnipresent. Fourth, this God receives from others, and this enhances the effectiveness of divine power. Finally, amipotence arouses creaturely cooperation. Partial credit is due the Lover who inspires others to cooperate freely with the Lover’s aims.[11]

God is amipotent rather than impotent or omnipotent.

The Two New Books

I’m happy to announce the publication of two books on amipotence. In volume one, about half of the contributors offer reasons and arguments that support amipotence. The other half offer criticisms.

In volume two, contributors apply and expand amipotence. In doing so, they explore implications of amipotence and broaden its scope.[12] There are more than 140 essays between the two books.

I am grateful to each person who contributed an essay. I plan to respond to each when essays are posted online on the Center for Open and Relational Theology’s website. This should encourage others to join the conversation.

I deeply appreciate the editors of these two volumes. Chris Baker, Brandon Brown, Steve Fountain, Fran Stedman, Melissa Stewart, Deanna Young, and Travis Young did AMAZING work. I’m so grateful! I appreciate everyone’s keen eye when editing, and I thank each for engaging the book contributors. Brandon Brown took the role of lead editor for this project, which meant even more work for him.

My deep hope is that these books engage the intellectual work of evaluating and expanding amipotence. And I hope that the writing, reading, and discussion of these important ideas prompt us all to imitate the God who loves us all (Eph. 5:1).

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^[1]. Thomas Jay Oord, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2023).

^[2]. My most extensive look at divine power is in “Not Born of Scripture,” in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, Ch. 1. Find a slightly revised version in my essay, “Omnipotence is Not Born of Scripture,” in From Force to Persuasion: Process-Relational Perspectives on Power and the God of Love (Salem, Or.: Cascade, 2024).

^[3]. For a full explanation of these claims, see “Death by a Thousand Qualifications,” in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, Ch. 2. For my take on this subject comparing the theology of John Wesley, see “John Wesley Qualifies Omnipotence,” in Wesleyan Theological Journal 58:2 (Fall 2023): 108-129.

^[4]. For a full explanation of these claims, see “Evil Ends Omnipotence,” in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, Ch. 3. See also Thomas Jay Oord, God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2019) and Questions and Answers for God Can’t (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2020).

^[5]. This idea is common among open and relational theologians. For an introduction to this perspective, see Thomas Jay Oord, Open and Relational Theology: An Introduction to Life-Changing Ideas (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2021).

^[6]. See examples of this in chapter four The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence.

^[7]. I address the meaning of love and the biblical justification for thinking it preeminent in God’s nature in Pluriform Love: An Open and Relational Theology of Well-Being (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2022).

^[8]. I address God’s providence and the regularities of creation that many call “natural laws” in The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Academic, 2015).

^[9]. I make a Christological argument for this and call it “essential kenosis.” See The Uncontrolling Love of God, Ch. 7.

^[10]. For my discussion of the problem of selective miracles, see The Uncontrolling Love of God, Ch. 8; God Can’t, Ch. 3; and “Miracles, Theodicy, and Essential Kenosis: Response to Sanders,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 53:2 (2018): 194-215.

^[11]. For the argument that God is maximally powerful, see chapter four, “Amipotence,” in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence.

^[12]. Several edited books address uncontrolling love. See Love Does Not Control: Therapy in Open and Relational Thinking, Annie DeRolf, et. al, eds., (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2023); Partnering with God: Exploring Collaboration in Open and Relational Theology, Tim Reddish, et. al., eds., (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2021); Open and Relational Leadership: Leading with Love, Roland Hearn, et. al., eds., (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2020); Uncontrolling Love: Essays Exploring the Love of God, L. Michaels, et. al., eds., (Grasmere, Id.: SacraSage, 2017).