Encircling Spirit,​
Sacred Whole, and
the Deep Nurturing
​
 Theology without the word "God"​

I learned from my mother, a pretty traditional Christian, that God is an encircling spirit. When she prayed she would often address God as Holy Spirit and not use the word God at all. She would say: "Holy Spirit, please encircle ____ with your love and help them feel safe and secure, happy and peaceful." Even as she was dying, she was praying for people this way. People would come to visit her, asking if she would like for them to pray for her, and she would receive their prayer but then pray for them, too. They would leave the room feeling encircled by something warm and loving, something that could be felt as a Thou and not simply an It. She was a pan-en-theist, without never knowing or needing to know the term. She thought of God as a loving spirit and the sacred whole of life.

I learned a lot from my mother. That's why I'm drawn to process theology. Sometimes it's hard to explain to people that when you speak of God, you're not talking about a bully in the sky, but rather a Life in which the universe unfolds. And it's hard to explain that for you, God is a verb, not a noun, or better yet, a verb that is also a noun: a gerund. Here are some metaphors that can help. They all make sense from a process-relational perspective. Feel free to combine them if helpful and add your own:

Holy Spirit.
Encircling Presence.
Cosmic Breathing.
Protective Womb.
Cell without Boundaries.
Invisible Light.
Universal Consciousness.
The Deep Listening.
Energy of Love.
Beauty within and beyond.
Cosmic Creativity.
Holy Wisdom.
Reservoir of Possibility.
Lure toward Truth.
Arc of Justice.
Nurturing Parent.
The Deep Nurturing.
The Amipotent Spirit.
Sacred Whole.

It's not as if, in speaking in these ways, you are being surreptitious. Instead it is that these other words and phrases, in context, are closer to what you are referring to than is the word "God."

Truth be told, the word "God" can get in the way of communicating your meaning. And it too easily becomes solidified in people's imaginations, reducing God to a mere focal object of the intellect.

Flexibility of imagination is needed. Using different words and phrases in different contexts can help avoid misunderstanding and solidification. Such flexibility is a way of letting the divine dimension of life be better appreciated, without the word "God" getting in the way.

This is true even of Nurturing Parent: the Deep Nurturing and the Deep Listening. Let's say you imagine God as a cosmic consciousness in whose life the universe unfolds: a consciousness filled with love for the world and each living being. Perhaps you are an open and relational theologian.

For you, the universe has its own independence; its various entities have their own self-creativity and autonomy. But the universe is not outside God as a totally separate entity. It is inside God the way organelles are inside a living cell, or embryos are inside a mother's womb. On this view God has a life of God's own. You can pray to God and someone is listening, But God is not an object among objects in the world. God is instead the Sacred Whole of the universe.

Here, too, the word "God" can get in the way. The word can suggest a locatable being when in fact God is not located. God is the Whole within which or whom all things unfold, and the Whole is itself unfolding as influenced by the parts. You may speak of God as Amma (mother) or Abba (father). You may address God in prayer. But God is not a thing among things. God is the living Whole. This Whole is never an object among objects and yet we are always already inside the Whole. It is the encompassing environment of our lives.

The idea of God as Sacred Whole offers a way of thinking about all the other alternative phrases. They are themselves parts or aspects of the Sacred Whole.

Divine Hands, Pens, Wheels, and Pipes

In literature there is a figure of speech called synecdoche in which a part represents the whole. Here are some familiar examples:

​"All hands on deck." In this phrase, "hands" signifies the entire crew of a ship. "The pen is mightier than the sword." Here, "pen" symbolizes the written word or communication, while "sword" represents violence or warfare. "New wheels in the driveway." This expression employs "wheels" to refer to a complete vehicle. "He's got a great set of pipes." In this example, "pipes" refers to someone's vocal cords or singing ability.

​I suggest, then, that we can draw from these instances of synecdoche and use them theologically. Divine "hands" are the divine lures toward truth and beauty; the divine "pen" is the guidance God gives through the energy of love and other forms of communication; divine "wheels" are the way in which the Sacred Whole is moved and moves with the world; and that God's "pipes" are both the beauty of music and the sounds of the earth, and voices of the poor, powerless and marginalized as they seek justice.

One advantage of synecdoche is its vivid and concise imagery. If you read too much theology, so many words and phrases become cliches, including the very word "God." But divine hands and pipes are, at least for the moment, engaging. They catch the eye and ear. They surprise.

Beyond Subject-Predicate Ontologies

Another advantage of using synecdoche theologically is that it offers an antidote to what is too often the case: turning God the Sacred Whole into an object of the intellect but not the subject of trust, devotion, prayer, and responsibility.

It has become commonplace to talk about how subject-predicate ontology (that there are subjects that have predicates) is a deep part of our western philosophical tradition. It is part of the structure of our western languages, including English. When we say "God is loving," we are using subject-predicate ontology. It's as if we are saying there is a subject, God, who has a predicate, loving.

The problem with this form of language is that it tempts us to think of God as a particular kind of being who has certain qualities (like loving), rather than as the Sacred Whole in which we live and move and have our being.

So let's say you want to communicate the idea that God is loving. Instead of saying "God is loving," which invites a subject-predicate ontology, you could say, "In God there is Deep Nurturing." This new way of speaking may get closer to what you mean. It is still a statement, and so still has a subject and predicate. But the statement does not suggest that there is a subject, God, who has a predicate, loving. Instead, there is a nurturing that is so deep and so present that it is divine. It is the Deep Nurturing.

Amipotence

​In one of his latest books, Thomas Jay Oord has coined a new term: amipotence. For Oord the term is meant to suggest that God is all-loving and that there are limits to God's power. Oord's project is to define God in such a way that when we hear the word "God," we hear amipotence not omnipotence. But he knows as well that definitions must be complemented by aesthetically and spiritually engaging language. That's why, at the end of his book, he speaks of "The Universal Spirit" as a complement to the word "God." He writes:

1. The amipotent Spirit always loves everyone and everything.
2. The amipotent Spirit acts but cannot control others.
3. The amipotent Spirit has no body but has material and mental dimensions.
4. The amipotent Spirit’s activity cannot be perceived by our five senses.
5. The amipotent Spirit can be perceived through nonsensory perception.
6. The amipotent Spirit’s influence can be inferred from what occurs.
7. The amipotent Spirit is present to and influencing all creation, all the time.
8. The amipotent Spirit is maximally powerful.

In my view he could have also said The Deep Nurturing or the Sacred Whole. He could have written:

1. The Sacred Whole always loves everyone and everything.
2. The Encircling Presence acts but cannot control others.
3. The Deep Nurturing has no body but has material and mental dimensions. 
4. The Sacred Whole cannot be perceived by our five senses.
5. The Encircling Presence can be perceived through nonsensory perception.
6. The Deep Nurturing of the Sacred Whole can be inferred from what occurs.
7. The Sacred Whole is present to and influencing all creation, all the time.
8. The Deep Nurturing is maximally powerful.

And he could have added: We can pray to the Sacred Whole, trusting that we are being listened to and loved, and trusting that we will be nurtured, no matter what. We are encircled.

Synecdoche and Amipotence
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I have tried to make a case for using synecdoche with regard to God. I suggest we can do the same with the word "amipotent." We can create a synecdoche out of it. The amipotent Hand. The amipotent Wheel. The amipotent Pipe. The amipotent Pen. The advantage of these phrases are that they retain the sense of power but also conveys the idea of limits. The Hand can lure but not control. The Wheel can guide but not determine. The Pipe can sing but not compel. The Pen can write but not dictate. And this activity is receptive as well as active, composed of the world it receives as well as the world it influences.

As we experiment with and refine this language, perhaps we can come to talk of the Sacred Whole in ways that respect the integrity of its parts, the interactivity of the parts with the Whole and the parts with each other, and the deep care that we feel and that we see in the world when we look at it with the eyes of the heart.
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As that happens, the word "God" may itself become obsolete not because we have left God, but because we have grown closer to the amipotent Spirit, which the word "God" can never fully contain.


Jay McDaniel, 6/15/2023