spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

is a common theme in AIC and Pentecostal circles, but what happens when the notion of power
is made central to Reformed ways of speaking about God and healing? Would it be possible to
articulate a clear link between divine power and healing so that it fitted within the Reformed
matrix? In other words, the question raised by the church-based healing discourse is: what kind
of power can be attributed to God in relation to healing? 59
10.1.1 Reformed struggle with power
The theme of power is a precarious subject within Reformed theological discourse, because the
idea of God’s omnipotence results in a struggle with the question of the existence of evil. If God
is all-powerful, how is the existence of evil then to be explained? The theological tradition
understands power as a divine attribute that reveals God’s power to do anything He wills (cf.
Case-Winters 1990:11). Classical theism sees divine power as a self-sufficient kind of power in
the sense that God can dominate and control any kind of situation without the need for human
involvement (Ford 1987:234). Reformed thought on the power of God is strongly rooted in the
Old Testament narratives about a personal God who directs his power according to his will in
nature and over history (cf. Kish 2002:1f; Sykes 2006:81). The idea of the God of the Old
Testament who is free to rule over creaturely life, and who is able to demonstrate his power as
He pleases, is the basic thrust of the Reformed doctrine of power: that is, the power of God is a
divine attribute referring to God’s omnipotence. God alone is able to do what He wills, and He
has the authority to be in control.
This conventional idea of solitary power has dominated Reformed thought on God and power, as
is, for example, revealed by Calvin’s approach to divine omnipotence. His understanding of
God’s power defined subsequent Reformed understandings of divine power. Calvin saw God’s
power as the effectual exercise of God’s will in order to bring all life into accordance with His
purposes. This view on power was developed in close relationship with the doctrine of
providence: God governs all things as He sees fit. Some implications of Calvin’s ideas on
omnipotence are the denial of genuine freedom of human life and the worsening of the theodicy
problem. In response to Calvin’s concept of divine power (and to those proposals that adopted
Calvin’s approach), Barth aimed at a re-visioning of power as a divine attribute of dominance
and control. He did not regard divine power as an unlimited power, but as the ability to do
things that affirm God’s divine being, such as divine voluntary self-limitation in order to make
59. The basic form of this question is derived from Anna Case-Winters’ work (1990) that looks into the problem of
divine power and its meaning by asking what sort of power is being attributed to God (p. 11). In this chapter, the
exploration of divine power is specifically linked to the theme of health and healing.
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