Amipotence: The Ghost Buster of Harmful Doctrines

Last updated on: January 17, 2025 at 3:24 pm by Michael Camp

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Amipotence: The Ghost Buster of Harmful Doctrines 2025-01-17T15:24:52-08:00 Michael Camp

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An amipotent God, by nature, cannot orchestrate a violent sacrifice of an innocent victim. | Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The concept of “amipotence” helps solve the issues we have with problematic doctrines in popular fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. Amipotence is the concept which defines God’s chief attribute as uncontrolling love rather than almighty power. God is not omnipotent, but neither is he impotent. The following is the second half of my essay from Amipotence, Volume 2, Expansion and Application, the second of two volumes on “amipotence” inspired by Thomas J. Oord and now available on Amazon. To see the first half of this essay, see Solving the Problem of Evil and Other Harmful Doctrines. In it you’ll read why the concept of an omnipotent God is not found in the original language of the Bible, how amipotence solves the problem of evil, how it contradicts original depravity, and how it corrects the notion of a retributive God. Below, I make the case how amipotence debunks the problematic doctrines of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), the belief in hell, the inerrancy of the Bible, and the rejection of the LGBTQ community.

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Nonviolent love requires no bloody sacrifice to appease a demanding God

The use of violence by someone against another is a mechanism of control. But if an amipotent God necessitates an end to retribution and violence, then how can Jesus’ violent death be an appeasement to God? Penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is the belief that God requires punishment for sin and the only way to forgo that punishment is for a sinless innocent victim (Jesus) to be tortured and murdered on a Roman cross in place of the guilty. Thereby Jesus takes on the punishment that humanity deserves. What’s more, only if one accepts this transaction is one forgiven and thereby saved from God’s wrath and eternal damnation. But this makes God out to be a violent deity who demands a brutal blood sacrifice before he can forgive. Forgiveness is contingent on a vicious act of violence orchestrated by God himself and acceptance of that vicious act by the sinner. This is not divine nonviolent love but just the opposite. It doesn’t condemn violence, it endorses it. Therefore, it can’t be the meaning of the cross.

An amipotent God, by nature, cannot orchestrate a violent sacrifice of an innocent victim. Uncontrolling love cannot impose a violent solution to the problem of sin. Uncontrolling love, which is unconditional, works in the transformational realm to bring redemption not in the legal realm where a proscribed penalty is instituted. It desires mercy, not sacrifice, let alone an excruciating sacrifice. Unconditional love may accept its own persecution and still forgive its perpetrators, but it can’t require a violent act be done for forgiveness to take place. Moreover, the history of the Jesus movement confirms this. The early “church” did not teach PSA. It wasn’t first described until the 11th century through Anselm and not fully developed until the 16th century through Calvin.

Uncontrolling love demands universal restoration

The ultimate act of control is to restrain a person for eternity. To take away their free will and freedom and lock them up in an eternal dungeon. This is essentially what hell is. It’s a place an unrepentant sinner (who has not accepted the substitutional sacrifice of Jesus) goes upon death that forever closes the door to repentance and forgiveness. Yet uncontrolling love cannot restrain a person forever. It must leave the door to repentance and forgiveness open. It must always seek to influence the sinner or wrongdoer to change and be restored. It pursues restorative justice rather than retributive eternal punishment. An amipotent God cannot envision let alone create a place of eternal conscious torment nor one of annihilation. Uncontrolling and unconditional love demands finding, influencing, and restoring the lost. Universal restoration was also the original view of Jesus and his first century movement and arguably the predominant view of the movement’s first 500 years. An amipotent God fits like a glove into the notion of universal salvation of the lost.

The amipotence of God vaporizes a host of harmful theologies

Amipotence is by far a morally superior view of both the nature and character of God. It is a harmful doctrines ghostbuster. It not only solves the problem of evil but sets us free from destructive and fearful doctrines that were never part of the ancient “church.” These include not only the ones cited above, but others like the inerrancy of the Bible and how evangelicals view LGBTQ issues. If God is not all-powerful, and doesn’t control humanity, it makes sense that he could not make the Bible inerrant, ensure the right canon of scripture, and orchestrate accurate translations. He can influence people to record things about his nature but cannot guarantee everything would be infallible. In the same vein, a God who doesn’t singlehandedly have all power couldn’t create a human race that has perfect design, immunity from illness, and flawless gender boundaries. He couldn’t prevent or cure all diseases. Neither could he change a gay individual into a heterosexual, nor need to. He would have limits on his power. But not limits on his love.
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In conclusion, the notion of God being amipotent, rather than omnipotent, busts up several harmful doctrines and helps us make sense of things like the atonement, the afterlife, how to view the Bible, and why there is an LGBTQ community to begin with and why we should support it. Since amipotence means an end to God controlling humankind through punitive, retributive, and violent means, the meaning of the cross can’t include the notion that God had to torture and murder an innocent Rabbi in order to forgive humanity. Consigning people to hell—locking them up for eternity with no hope of redemption—is the ultimate act of control over a human being. An amipotent God, by definition, could never do such a thing. Neither could such a God ensure a human-written set of original or translated documents is one-hundred percent accurate, let alone ensure every jot and tittle perfectly reflects his will. An amipotent God makes sense out of the Bible we have: A set of ancient texts that aren’t univocal or internally consistent, but do contain much sacred and inspirational wisdom, when we are freed to judge it with scientific, historical, anthropological, and philosophical criteria. If God’s core nature is uncontrolling, he or she really can’t create a world where humans draw perfect gender boundaries, and by his nature wouldn’t be able to impose heterosexuality on lesbian women or a gay men. And, I argue, wouldn’t want to. Uncontrolling love demands that God always allows free will and doesn’t condemn its fruits unless it harms or controls other human beings. Amipotence is indeed a ghost buster of harmful doctrines.

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About Michael Camp

Michael Camp is an author, podcaster, non-religious spiritual director, faith transition coach, and former evangelical missionary to Africa. He earned his M.S from Eastern University and is currently in a certification program with The Center for Non-Religious Spirituality. Camp is the author of Breaking Bad Faith, Craft Brewed Jesus, and Confessions of a Bible Thumper. He tends The Spiritual Brewpub (www.spiritualbrewpub.com) and loves hiking, golfing, and drinking craft beer in the Pacific Northwest. You can read more about the author here.

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Solving the Problem of Evil and Other Harmful Doctrines