We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Redefining Omnipotence
Traditional, classical theology has equated divine power with God causing and determining all things to exist. God supposedly acts on everything as their cause, but nothing in any way acts on him. Yet, these assumptions about how God causes things to exist starts in the wrong place. If we start with reason, it causes us to conceive of God as absolute power. However, if we start with the crucified Christ, we arrive at a conception of God as absolute love.
Indeed, in the absolute love revealed on the cross we are given an entirely different conception of power. The theologian Hans Urs Von Balthazar goes so far as to assert that “in the powerlessness of the Incarnate and Crucified One” we see “the shining forth of God’s omnipotence.”[1] Yet, Paul teaches that what looks powerless and foolish to natural reason is actually “the power” and “wisdom” of God (I Cor 1:18). When God puts his omnipotence on display, it appears as the foolish and weak omnipotence of self-giving love.
If we think about divine causation in terms of self-giving love rather than determining power, we would not assume that God causes agents to exist by exhaustively determining them. I submit that we should rather conceive of God “loving [agents] into existence” by making space for them. More specifically, since a loving relationship is only possible between agents that are distinct from one another and who have the power to choose the relationship or not, I submit that we should conceive of the power of God’s self-giving love refraining from determining agents precisely so they can exist distinct from him and be invested with their own morally-responsible causal power, the power of self-determination.
And, finally, I submit that this suggestion is confirmed in the fact that Jesus came as one who perfectly loved people who were distinct from him as well as in the fact that the biblical narrative consistently depicts humans as existing over-and-against God and as possessing the power of free choice.
[1.] H. U. von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter, trans. A. Nichols, U.P. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990), 34
Photo credit: solsken via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Love, Omnipotence
Topics: Attributes and Character
Related Reading
Featured Sermon Series: Scandalous Love
The Scandalous Love series is often considered one of Greg’s and Woodland Hill’s most foundational series. In fact, it was so important that it subsequently led to the Can’t Stop the Love series. Defining the true character of God is at the heart of what ReKnew is all about, so we wanted to host…
Cross-Shaped Transcendence
Hellenistic philosophers traditionally embrace a conception of God as the simple, necessary, and immutable One. They do this in order to try to explain the “unmoved mover” who is absolutely distinct from the ever-changing, composite, contingent world. However, we must be clear that it is misguided for Christian theology to follow this path. If we…
Listen and Learn: A First Step Toward Reconciliation
Jesus Christ is not just the Lord, Savior and Messiah of the Jews: he is the Lord, Savior and Messiah of all people. Through Christ a kingdom is being established that tears down tribal walls between races and re-unites and reconciles people together in the love God. Paul makes the point most forcefully. In Ephesians…
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
This is the first week of Advent, the season where we anticipate the coming of Christ. It’s a time to hear and enter into the story of how Jesus came out of love to give his life for us. This grand love story of Christmas taps into a deep intuition we have about the centrality…
Where is Human Free Will in the Bible?
The Bible is emphatic on its teaching that humans possess free will and are capable of originating evil. Notice, for example, that in the very first chapter of the Bible God commands humans to be fruitful and exercise dominion over the animal kingdom and the earth (Gen. 1:26). The fact that God must command us…
God’s Favor, Not Vengeance
Jesus began his ministry with a brief sermon in his hometown synagogue. Quoting Isaiah 61, Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to…