Friedrich Nietzsche believed we are most deeply driven by a Will to Power. Though he’s not a philosopher I would expect to find grounding his anthropology in the Hebrew scriptures, that sounds remarkably like the story of the garden. We covet the power of God, and surprisingly, God seems willing to relinquish it. Remember the incarnation?
God, the One with the most power, seems to use it the least, certainly not in a way that forces and compels us. We, who have very little power, dream of how we would act if we had more. We desire and pursue power.
Perhaps, our thoughts about God and his power may reflect more our own will to power, projecting onto God our fantasies of control and dominance. Have we made God in the image of Nietzsche’s man? No one will accuse you of heresy for talking about God’s infinite power, but if you talk about infinite love you might be labelled a universalist. Has power trumped love in much of our theology? Are we more comfortable with power than love? If we are the powerful and privileged of our world, that is a very dangerous and self-serving posture. These two are not mutually exclusive, but we either conceive of God’s love in terms of his power, or his power in terms of his love.
As I read scripture, God shows an astounding willingness to be misunderstood, co-opted, abused, maligned, domesticated, blamed, accused, rejected, ignored, defied, blasphemed, and on and on. Through it all there is a patient love which culminates in Jesus. Here is the weakness and powerlessness of God. The grand narrative seems to begin where first we clearly see God’s power and barely notice his love, which says more about us than God. But by time we get to Jesus, we are seeing the love of God much more starkly. Finally, in the cross, power is made subject to love. God has become powerless and is at the mercy (or lack thereof) of his creatures. If the garden is about a will to power, the cross is about a will to love. The garden is our sin, and the cross our redemption.
Perhaps we ought to explore how God’s “being in control” is through the power of his love, rather than a raw exercise of brute force. I have come to think less of God’s control in the sense of dictating and forcing things to transpire according to his Will, and more of God “being in control” by being present, loving every moment and every facet of his creation according to his Will. The Will of God, with respect to his power, might be that he has sufficient strength, not necessarily to dominate everything, but to love everything.
Leave a Reply