The greatest difficulty of Christianity
How to understand the omnipotence of God
1. the quality or state of being omnipotent
2. an agency or force of unlimited power
Now read a few of these phrases….
Jesus saved us. (Salvation means no suffering or pain; if we are suffering, we haven’t yet received it fully, and we have to try harder for it)
I came to give life and life in its abundance (my favourite Bible verse, but we can also think of this verse to justify prosperity gospel — richness is a gift of God and poverty as a curse)
Ask (in faith) and you shall receive. (If you don’t receive, your faith was missing, or God’s omnipotence is not true)
If you find difficulty with those interpretations, reading may be helpful. If you agree with those, may be you can close the page already.
Christmas, life of Jesus, washing of the feet, death on the cross — all of these create much difficulties with our understanding of God. Resurrection is difficult to prove, but not so much problematic to believe as something possible for God. Most of us Christians will agree; and we say
Yes, our God is loving.
He came to serve and not to be served.
He is the model of humility.
All of these are true; and some of these are not easy to accept. But there are still more complicated things to accept…
- Which one is easy to go with? A humble God or an all powerful God? Some of my regular readers can ask: I am mostly against binaries (either-or). Why I use one such here? I am not asking you to take either one; but which one is easy to go with?
- If you make a prayer and it is for a just cause — which response of God is better? I will grant it immediately or I will walk with you to create the response, which can take some time.
- Will you love to watch a miracle of Jesus or the parables like Good Samaritan/prodigal son in action?
- Why there is a huge rush for a miraculous event (eucharist turned to flesh or some appearance of Jesus/Mary) compared to great event organised by the church for any good cause (against abortion/for the cause of refugees/for the underprivileged etc)?
- Do I like arrival of God’s kingdom by the absolute power and in super speed or God bringing about his kingdom by attraction and respect of human freedom, but that is a little slow?
No blaming or judging here. Most of us like those options which are highlighted. I am not saying that we don’t like the non-highlighted options. But we surely enjoy more the highlighted options. It’s simply because there is much of the qualities we associate with supernatural/divine/god in those cases. Probably incarnation, life of Jesus and his death gives preference to the other set. Again, it doesn’t deny the highlighted set, but it gives preference to the non-highlighted. And this was the struggle of disciples and early Christians; this is the struggle of the past and the present Church and Christians. This is a greater struggle when we do have power too.
I know that I have opened up a pandora’s box without answering everything clearly. It’s not so easy. It is a process. It has to be discovered. This impatience (I too possess it) is a clear sign of our preference. Patiently waiting, trying, engaging is a revolutionary act. I end with two quotes that have deeply influenced me.
The omnipotence of God is his love (Michael Fedou SJ, as the title given to one of his interviews in a newspaper)
Our God is an accompanying God, starting from creation, the entire Old Testament, life of Jesus (a special peak moment) and times of the church (which includes the new testament). (An idea of Elizabeth Johnson from her book, Creation and the Cross)
NB: I will be happy to hear your point of views, thoughts with or against here as responses which can engage more people