God Chooses Powerlessness
I often hear people question the existence of God because of theodicy, which is the challenge of reconciling the omnipotence of God with the existence of evil. The logic of those so questioning—at least as I’ve heard it—goes something like this: How can a loving God, who is presumably almighty, exist when terrible evils occur? Some who veer into such questioning are quite close to me.
But I admit, this classic question or conundrum has never made sense to me. Not because I have an answer for theodicy, but because I do not agree with the tenets behind it. Namely, for all the talk of divine omnipotence in Christian theology and history, I do not see God as almighty. The reason has to do with a foundational assumption I hold: that God gives creatures freewill. And a God who gives creatures freewill seems to me a God who has chosen powerlessness. I suppose some might describe a God who has power but chooses not to use it as still omnipotent, but this doesn’t make sense to me either. A God who chooses not to be almighty can no longer be described as almighty. God has chosen powerlessness. This statement does not even sound controversial to me.
God’s Spirit is in Us
Believing that God chooses powerlessness does not mean I believe God has no influence. God’s influence is immense and I see evidence of it often. God’s influence is akin to inspiration, or in-Spirit-ing. God is not a divine being out in the heavens somewhere. Like the luminaries of mystical traditions everywhere, I see God within us as well as without. And that presence of God in us, which I call Spirit, is the most essential and enduring part of who we are. The force of love that is God is inside of us—it is part of who we are; and if we are open to it, this force that is God, this Spirit, guides us, restores us, and in our most aligned and alive moments, enlivens us to act as God’s hands and feet in the world in wondrous ways. When we do this—in other words, when we are so inspired, and when we use our freewill to align with God’s deep wishes for the world—we are both influenced by God and we act out God’s influence within the world. Jesus was an example of someone so fully saying yes to God that he became God’s incarnation—the en-flesh-ment of God. I guess in a sense, one could say that creatures aligned with God are God’s power, and Jesus was the best example of this. The God who has chosen powerlessness has conferred divine power onto those who commune with God intimately.
The Point of Prayer
So, what is the point of prayer if God chooses powerlessness?
Prayer is not a matter of asking favors of God and getting some “big guy in the sky” to bend the almighty, divine will to our wishes. Prayer is the way in which we can tune in to Spirit to be reminded of the presence that is already there in us. It is so easy for us in all of our self-absorption and distraction to go through days oblivious to God’s presence in and availability to us. I know that’s true for me most of the time. When we choose to use our freewill to tra-la-la through our lives acting as if God doesn’t exist, we stymie divine influence in the world. I like to think of prayer using the analogy of a tuning fork. Prayer is how we strike the tuning fork within ourselves, bringing ourselves—our prayers, intentions, desires, and focus—into attunement with God. From this place of attunement, we are more likely to begin seeing/feeling/acting from Spirit and not in opposition to it, and this has power. Through prayer we harness divine power and partner with God. When we pray “thy will be done” and allow Spirit to bring us into attunement with God, God’s will is done through us.
God’s Not Going to Swoop in and Save Us
In other words, God is not going to swoop in and save us like the main character in a Marvel comic or an action movie. God chooses the way of powerlessness and inspiration. The fix, or the way we humans will get out of the predicaments we find ourselves in—whether personal, regional, or global, is a spiritual fix. That doesn’t mean the fix doesn’t involve concrete, earthy actions and consequences. But it means those actions and consequences are not born out of our ingenuity alone. They come from our tuning in to and setting out from Spirit and communion with the divine and making a difference in our world in concrete ways specific to our own gifts and callings. It means that we cannot sit back and wait for God to act and we cannot dismiss God because we don’t see God swooping in. It means that a God who chooses powerlessness and chooses to entrust us with the agency to act powerfully from divine attunement needs us. God can do wondrous things through us.
Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal
Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.
May the Universe come together as and in Peace!
I also think the denotative, logical hermeutic of theodicy (left brain) blinds us to appreciateing the connotative (right brain) religious stories, poetry and hymns in the Bible (e.g. 50 psalms of lamentation, most of the Book of Job, the story of Jesus on the cross quoting the opening of Psalm 22) where those on the edge of being overwhelmed by trauma tell God in the words of shared faith what they are feeling in their suffering as part of passing through our feelings in a gestalt transformation of empowerment to make an affirmation of faith for what Kiekegaard might have called "living into the future." In the famous quip that summarizes his view, "Life can only be understood backwards (theodicy), but must be lived forwards."