Carey Baptist College, New Zealand
‘All Things Are Possible’: The Narrative Conditioning of Omnipotence in the Gospel of Mark
In the Gospel of Mark, a camel going through the eye of a needle (10:25) or a mountain being cast into the sea (11:23) are examples of the classical figure of speech, adynaton. In each instance these impossible comparisons are followed by the declaraton that “all things” (πάντα, 10:27; 11:24) are possible with faith in God. The same language of “all things” is used in an exorcism account (9:23) and in Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer (14:36). When considered theologically, interpreters usually qualify the claim that “all things” are possible through the believer’s faith as being dependent on God’s will and thus to be taken as hyperbole. However, this creates two problems: First, if the believer can only pray for what God has already willed then “all things” are not possible, only the (much smaller number of) things that God has already willed. Second, if these are hyperbolic expressions of God’s omnipotence then God is only omnipotent hyperbolically, and therefore not really omnipotent at all. In this study I argue that such interpretations move too quickly to theologising with the effect of isolating these statements of divine omnipotence from their literary seeking. I aim to show how the narrative context of each instance of “all things” limits the expression’s referential scope to concrete, non-miraculous human situations (and in which no camels or mountains are harmed). Consequently, this interpretaVon provides a more specific and encouraging guide to what the believer should expect to receive from their faith in the omnipotent God. Lastly, I suggest that this interpretation coheres with our understanding of parallel texts elsewhere in the NT.