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Universal Love as a Plasmatic Field
A Theology of the Spirit in Motion
Plasma Astrophysics
Plasma is an ionized gas composed of free electrons and ions, often referred to as an electrically conductive fluid. It is the most common state of matter in the observable universe, making up stars, solar wind, nebulae, and much of the interstellar and intergalactic medium. Plasma astrophysics is the study of how plasma—the fourth state of matter—behaves and interacts in astrophysical environments, including stars, galaxies, interstellar space, and cosmic structures. It provides a framework for understanding the dynamic, interconnected, and often violent nature of the universe, bridging classical astrophysics with modern fields like space weather, cosmology, and fusion science, revealing how charged particles and magnetic fields shape cosmic evolution on every scale.
Narrations
“Various metaphors from the natural world are used in the Bible to describe God's spirit: voice, fire, water, wind, and breath, for example. How about plasma, too? Plasma is, after all, the most abundant form of visible matter in the universe. Why not imagine God’s spirit in its glow, flow, and intensity as a kind of cosmic plasmatic gas, adding, however, that divine plasma is defined by love and purpose, not violence. It may sound strange at first, but it opens up a vision of the Spirit as energetic, radiant, dynamic, and alive—not unlike the universe itself.”
Dr. Leila Farouz, imaginary plasma physicist
"Amipotence is the most powerful force in this universe and every other that might exist. The Spirit is strong. God is maximally powerful without being able to singlehandedly determine creatures or circumstances."
Thomas Oord, real theologian
Felt not Grasped
The Spirit as Plasmatic Love
Encountering the Spirit of Love
I have met the amipotent Spirit of God in many ways—and I imagine you have, too. Through friendships, dreams, dogs, rivers, struggles, music, church, solitude, books, beauty, and prayer. By “love,” I mean an energy of tenderness, beauty, courage, and the will to flourish—a love-energy. I use this phrase as a variation on what theologian Lina Langby calls love-power. She writes:
“The Holy Spirit manifests what amipotence tries to convey: the loving and active nature of God’s power. God’s power is love-power. And the Holy Spirit is God’s love-power actively at work in Creation. We need the Spirit, but God as the Holy Spirit also needs us.”
Biblical Images and Misunderstandings
In the Bible, this love-power—this love-energy—is described using analogies drawn from the natural world: fire, water, clouds. wind, and breath. These images remind us that the Spirit can be felt, sometimes viscerally, even if it cannot be grasped like a solid object. You can feel the Spirit, but you cannot clasp it or own it.
This is why some theologians describe the Spirit as immaterial. While understandable, this insistence can fall into three traps. The first is a dualism that sharply separates spirit from matter, forgetting that the material world may itself be infused with spirit. The second is the tendency to reduce the Spirit to an abstract object of belief, rather than a felt presence. And the third is a limited view of matter itself—as if all matter must be solid.
What they want to emphasize, instead, is that the Spirit cannot be grasped or clasped with the hands, possessed as an object, or transported by an act of the will from one location to another. It is not like a solid object: a figurine, for example, or a building, or a landscape. It may surround a landscape, for example, like an aura, evoking a feeling of peace or wonder, but it is not the solid objects in the landscape. And certainly the Spirit can be felt in relationships between people: in moments of forgiveness, or shared and loving delight between, say a parent and a child. But the Spirit is not reducible to the spatial location of the child or the parent; it is, again, more like an atmosphere. In this sense, the Spirit, as alive with feeling, is more like an atmospheric gas that is spread out over a space, or a liquid, than like a solid object. And certainly it is like the process of breathing: a movement akin to the flowing of a stream, or a wave in an ocean, or the currents of a breeze.
The Fourth State of Matter
In truth, matter exists in multiple states—or phases, as scientists now say—of which solids are only one. We also have liquids, gases, and a fourth state: plasma. Matter can move between these phases. Water, for example, becomes ice or steam depending on temperature and pressure.
In light of this, I offer a suggestion: the Spirit of amipotent love may be imagined as being like plasma—though animated not by electromagnetic charge, but by love as its deepest essence. Plasma is often called the fourth state of matter, consisting of highly energized, charged particles such as ions and electrons. It is found naturally in stars, lightning, and the auroras, and is characterized by its conductivity, luminosity, and responsiveness to electromagnetic fields.
Spirit-Like Properties of Plasma
Here are some properties of plasma that strike me as Spirit-like:
To imagine the Spirit as plasma is not to reduce it to physics, but to honor the creativity of God in all phases of matter and energy. Just as Jesus was said to be "the Word made flesh," perhaps the Spirit is God’s love made plasma—radiant, moving, relational, transformative, and always alive.
The World’s Many Energies
This image also reminds us that there are many kinds of energy in the universe—some of which are not rooted in divine love, if "rooted" means "generated." Just as plasma is not generative of all phenomena, so love-energy is not the sole power at work in the cosmos. Some of these other energies may be destructive, others neutral, and many profoundly good in their own right. They have their own agencies and trajectories.
The key is to consider the whole range—the good, the bad, the ambiguous. Some energies are destructive, like hatred, greed, or vengeance. Others may be neutral, like gravitational pull or cellular mitosis. And some are profoundly good—not only in acts of kindness or forgiveness in the human sphere, but also in the sheer beauty of the more-than-human world: the grace of a deer moving through a forest, the intricate hum of bees in a meadow, the playfulness of otters in a stream, indeed the spiraling of the trillions of galaxies within whose multitude our galaxy, the Milky Way, unfolds.
While some might wish to say that all that is good, true, and beautiful has God's Spirit as its source, it can also be good to recognize that the universe itself has energies of its own—energies not reducible to divine love-energy—and that these, too, can produce goodness. In process philosophy, these other energies are instances of what the philosopher Whitehead calls the “self-creativity” of each actuality in the universe. Yes, God is the primordial instance of this creativity, but not the only one. God works with and through the world, through the Spirit, to lure the world toward productive forms of self-creativity.
God and Spirit
My aim is not to say that the love-energy of the universe is plasma, but rather that it is plasma-like in the ways identified above. We encounter the Spirit through a certain kind of felt presence—an energy of tenderness, courage, creativity, and beauty—that we find within the material world in all its phases. Whether in the radiance of fire, the fluidity of water, the movement of air, or the shimmer of plasma, the Spirit meets us in and through the universe’s many states, always inviting us into relationship, transformation, and love.
A final word about God: When we speak of the Spirit, the language can easily suggest that God is one reality and the Spirit of Love another—as if God were a self-same substance coursing through other things. There is wisdom in this image. If God is amipotent love, then yes, God flows through the universe while remaining Love. This is the eternal side of God.
In philosophy the word "eternal" can be used to name something non-temporal altogether or something with infinite temporality (no beginning and no end, but always in process.) I am using the word "eternal" in both senses, paralleling what Whitehead calls the primordial decision in God's nature to order eternal objects and the flow and sympathy of the consequent nature of God as empathically receiving (and being partly constituted by) the the multiplicity of the universe. In both senses God has purposes or "ideals" by which the divine life is guided: truth, goodness, beauty, adventure, and peace among them. There is something eternal within and beyond the Spirit,
But such language can also unintentionally suggest that this Eternal Reality - God - is like an invisible, yet solid entity residing in or above the universe, existing outside or apart from God's Spirit. Here the metaphor of plasma may again be helpful, alongside other metaphors such as wind and fire and breath. It suggests that God's own unity is more like a field than a solid object. God is a vibrant, radiant, relational, actuality—not located in space or even, at some level, in time, but whose energies can be felt in myriad places.
God is not simply a what but also a who, but a field-like who: a Deep Listening I like to say, and also a Deep Breathing. Divine predicates such as listening and breathing are part of, not apart from the divine subject. Field-like metaphors also invites us to recognize that we ourselves, as subjects of our own lives, are field-like rather than solidified, even as we, like God, contain "solids" as parts of our lives. The many of the universe, including the solid objects, are part of what we are, but they live and move and have their being inside a deep and loving non-solidity.
What is most important, though, are not the speculations but the direct experience of the Spirit, and we can experience this Spirit even if we aren't sure what to make of God. We encounter the Spirit through a certain kind of felt presence—an energy of tenderness, courage, and beauty—that we find within the material world in all its phases. Whether in the radiance of fire, the fluidity of water, the movement of air, or the shimmer of plasma; the love of a friend, the laughter of a child, the welling up of hope in times of despair, the creative transformation of a soul. The Spirit meets us in and through the universe’s many states, always inviting us into relationship, transformation, and love.
- Jay McDaniel
I have met the amipotent Spirit of God in many ways—and I imagine you have, too. Through friendships, dreams, dogs, rivers, struggles, music, church, solitude, books, beauty, and prayer. By “love,” I mean an energy of tenderness, beauty, courage, and the will to flourish—a love-energy. I use this phrase as a variation on what theologian Lina Langby calls love-power. She writes:
“The Holy Spirit manifests what amipotence tries to convey: the loving and active nature of God’s power. God’s power is love-power. And the Holy Spirit is God’s love-power actively at work in Creation. We need the Spirit, but God as the Holy Spirit also needs us.”
Biblical Images and Misunderstandings
In the Bible, this love-power—this love-energy—is described using analogies drawn from the natural world: fire, water, clouds. wind, and breath. These images remind us that the Spirit can be felt, sometimes viscerally, even if it cannot be grasped like a solid object. You can feel the Spirit, but you cannot clasp it or own it.
This is why some theologians describe the Spirit as immaterial. While understandable, this insistence can fall into three traps. The first is a dualism that sharply separates spirit from matter, forgetting that the material world may itself be infused with spirit. The second is the tendency to reduce the Spirit to an abstract object of belief, rather than a felt presence. And the third is a limited view of matter itself—as if all matter must be solid.
What they want to emphasize, instead, is that the Spirit cannot be grasped or clasped with the hands, possessed as an object, or transported by an act of the will from one location to another. It is not like a solid object: a figurine, for example, or a building, or a landscape. It may surround a landscape, for example, like an aura, evoking a feeling of peace or wonder, but it is not the solid objects in the landscape. And certainly the Spirit can be felt in relationships between people: in moments of forgiveness, or shared and loving delight between, say a parent and a child. But the Spirit is not reducible to the spatial location of the child or the parent; it is, again, more like an atmosphere. In this sense, the Spirit, as alive with feeling, is more like an atmospheric gas that is spread out over a space, or a liquid, than like a solid object. And certainly it is like the process of breathing: a movement akin to the flowing of a stream, or a wave in an ocean, or the currents of a breeze.
The Fourth State of Matter
In truth, matter exists in multiple states—or phases, as scientists now say—of which solids are only one. We also have liquids, gases, and a fourth state: plasma. Matter can move between these phases. Water, for example, becomes ice or steam depending on temperature and pressure.
In light of this, I offer a suggestion: the Spirit of amipotent love may be imagined as being like plasma—though animated not by electromagnetic charge, but by love as its deepest essence. Plasma is often called the fourth state of matter, consisting of highly energized, charged particles such as ions and electrons. It is found naturally in stars, lightning, and the auroras, and is characterized by its conductivity, luminosity, and responsiveness to electromagnetic fields.
Spirit-Like Properties of Plasma
Here are some properties of plasma that strike me as Spirit-like:
- It is radiant. Plasma emits light. It glows from within, shimmering with color and energy. This radiance reminds me of the inner light many associate with God’s presence—a luminous warmth that touches hearts and reveals truth without coercion.
- It is dynamic. Plasma is in constant motion. It pulses, swirls, expands. Like the Spirit, it resists containment. It is ever-unfolding, ever-becoming. It is the energy of change itself.
- It is relational. Plasma consists of charged particles—ions and electrons—that interact in responsive, shifting ways. It is a community of elements, not a solitary force. Just as plasma is relational, so the Spirit of God is relational, flowing in and through relationships, inviting communion. And just as the Spirit is relational, so God is relational: not a solitary force outside the universe, but a presence within it, loving, responding, and co-creating with all that lives.
- It is sensitive to its environment. Plasma responds dramatically to electromagnetic fields. The Spirit, too, is sensitive to context—entering gently, moving in tune with the contours of human and more-than-human life.
- It can be found in unexpected places. Plasma is not rare; it comprises 99% of the visible universe—stars, lightning, auroras. Yet we often overlook it. The Spirit, too, is frequently unnoticed, though it pulses through dreams, silence, sorrow, song, and joy.
- It is transformative. Plasma is a high-energy state, crucial to the transformation of matter and energy on both cosmic and atomic scales. The Spirit transforms lives—sometimes dramatically, more often through slow, tender power, like light shaping the dawn.
- It is mysterious. Plasma behaves according to scientific laws but also exhibits surprising, emergent qualities. The Spirit, too, is mysterious—not irrational, but trans-rational—a mystery of love deeper than control and more enduring than force
To imagine the Spirit as plasma is not to reduce it to physics, but to honor the creativity of God in all phases of matter and energy. Just as Jesus was said to be "the Word made flesh," perhaps the Spirit is God’s love made plasma—radiant, moving, relational, transformative, and always alive.
The World’s Many Energies
This image also reminds us that there are many kinds of energy in the universe—some of which are not rooted in divine love, if "rooted" means "generated." Just as plasma is not generative of all phenomena, so love-energy is not the sole power at work in the cosmos. Some of these other energies may be destructive, others neutral, and many profoundly good in their own right. They have their own agencies and trajectories.
The key is to consider the whole range—the good, the bad, the ambiguous. Some energies are destructive, like hatred, greed, or vengeance. Others may be neutral, like gravitational pull or cellular mitosis. And some are profoundly good—not only in acts of kindness or forgiveness in the human sphere, but also in the sheer beauty of the more-than-human world: the grace of a deer moving through a forest, the intricate hum of bees in a meadow, the playfulness of otters in a stream, indeed the spiraling of the trillions of galaxies within whose multitude our galaxy, the Milky Way, unfolds.
While some might wish to say that all that is good, true, and beautiful has God's Spirit as its source, it can also be good to recognize that the universe itself has energies of its own—energies not reducible to divine love-energy—and that these, too, can produce goodness. In process philosophy, these other energies are instances of what the philosopher Whitehead calls the “self-creativity” of each actuality in the universe. Yes, God is the primordial instance of this creativity, but not the only one. God works with and through the world, through the Spirit, to lure the world toward productive forms of self-creativity.
God and Spirit
My aim is not to say that the love-energy of the universe is plasma, but rather that it is plasma-like in the ways identified above. We encounter the Spirit through a certain kind of felt presence—an energy of tenderness, courage, creativity, and beauty—that we find within the material world in all its phases. Whether in the radiance of fire, the fluidity of water, the movement of air, or the shimmer of plasma, the Spirit meets us in and through the universe’s many states, always inviting us into relationship, transformation, and love.
A final word about God: When we speak of the Spirit, the language can easily suggest that God is one reality and the Spirit of Love another—as if God were a self-same substance coursing through other things. There is wisdom in this image. If God is amipotent love, then yes, God flows through the universe while remaining Love. This is the eternal side of God.
In philosophy the word "eternal" can be used to name something non-temporal altogether or something with infinite temporality (no beginning and no end, but always in process.) I am using the word "eternal" in both senses, paralleling what Whitehead calls the primordial decision in God's nature to order eternal objects and the flow and sympathy of the consequent nature of God as empathically receiving (and being partly constituted by) the the multiplicity of the universe. In both senses God has purposes or "ideals" by which the divine life is guided: truth, goodness, beauty, adventure, and peace among them. There is something eternal within and beyond the Spirit,
But such language can also unintentionally suggest that this Eternal Reality - God - is like an invisible, yet solid entity residing in or above the universe, existing outside or apart from God's Spirit. Here the metaphor of plasma may again be helpful, alongside other metaphors such as wind and fire and breath. It suggests that God's own unity is more like a field than a solid object. God is a vibrant, radiant, relational, actuality—not located in space or even, at some level, in time, but whose energies can be felt in myriad places.
God is not simply a what but also a who, but a field-like who: a Deep Listening I like to say, and also a Deep Breathing. Divine predicates such as listening and breathing are part of, not apart from the divine subject. Field-like metaphors also invites us to recognize that we ourselves, as subjects of our own lives, are field-like rather than solidified, even as we, like God, contain "solids" as parts of our lives. The many of the universe, including the solid objects, are part of what we are, but they live and move and have their being inside a deep and loving non-solidity.
What is most important, though, are not the speculations but the direct experience of the Spirit, and we can experience this Spirit even if we aren't sure what to make of God. We encounter the Spirit through a certain kind of felt presence—an energy of tenderness, courage, and beauty—that we find within the material world in all its phases. Whether in the radiance of fire, the fluidity of water, the movement of air, or the shimmer of plasma; the love of a friend, the laughter of a child, the welling up of hope in times of despair, the creative transformation of a soul. The Spirit meets us in and through the universe’s many states, always inviting us into relationship, transformation, and love.
- Jay McDaniel