When a man (yes I use the noun on purpose) think of how glorious and all powerful God is, he probably likes to imagine God as that great Superman in the sky, perhaps only taller and with a white beard. Power is defined in this androcentric gaze as the strongest will to coerce; the stronger you are in an act of physical exertion, the more powerful you are. For example, if the United States has the most formidable military on the face of the planet, this means we are the most powerful country in the world, or what some would label in political science circles, a hyper-power (a super-power on steroids, but still broke budget wise none the less).
With this view of omnipotence, its no wonder that non-theists see God as a projection of human desire. Process theology takes a different approach. Because God as love, as 1st John 4 reports, “God is the unique Subject, whose love is the foundation for all of reality” (Robert Mesle, Process Theology: A Basic Introduction, page 8). God’s omnipresence in the world means that we experience God everyday, as God is interwoven into the very fabric of all of our lives, all of creation, everything. God is not Being (something of a static nature) but more of a Becoming, a process. God waits and responds to human choices. Divine power, in this form of relational theism, should be understood as having a persuasive nature. God is always calling (in Christian terms) human beings to do the good. Power is relational in that it is first the ability for a being to be open, engaged, and in relationship with the world; it is also the ability to be self-creative, or to receive the most experiences, feelings, and influences (Mesle, 30).
When one glances at apologetic books, what view of God’s power do these texts up hold? It would have to be the former. However, in scripture, God is referred to as the Almighty, or YHWH Armies. One can be a process theist and argue against the classical understanding of God’s omnipotence, but still have faith in God as Almighty. If God reigns by God’s Word in the biblical text, it would make more sense, since God does not have a body, to say that God rules by persuasion, providing visions for, words, and concepts for our salvation. That is to say, God liberates persons from oppression or sin through God speaking into existence a better future, a life in God (perhaps what Christians call sanctification, holiness, or theosis?).
Although process theism has a bad reputation for being not Trinitarian, because the Trinity is a concept that deals with God existing in relationship, it is possible to be both Trinitarian and a Process theist. I personally am an Open Theist with a process view of transcendence– that God’s greatness is something that we can only touch but yet encounter in the concrete world as we know it (and not off in some far off village in the sky)–for more see Mayra Rivera’s A Touch of Transcendence.
I think that process theism’s version of divine omnipotence is compatible with early Christian thought, like with concepts such as Logos Christologies, as well as modern day theologies of the Word (Barth, Brunner, Cone, Bonhoeffer). Perhaps that would be something to explore in the future.
Wooooo! That goalpost was moving all over the place in this post. Haha.
Insightful, Rod. Very insightful.
Why thank you, Tusk.