The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence

by Thomas Jay Oord

Rarely does a new theological position emerge to account well for life in the world, including not only goodness and beauty but also tragedy and randomness. Drawing from Scripture, science, philosophy and various theological traditions, Thomas Jay Oord offers a novel theology of providence―essential kenosis―that emphasizes God's inherently noncoercive love in relation to creation. The Uncontrolling Love of God provides a clear and powerful answer to the problem of evil, the problem of chance, and how God acts providentially in the world.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Christianity, Faith, Spirituality

229 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2015

Reviews

[Broken Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

see
http://brokenkeypublishing.blogspot.c...


I will begin this book review with a spoiler.
Sometimes we hold onto something so tightly, we cannot ever let it go. We become blind and forget we are even desperately clinging onto it. These are blind Sacred Cows.
I believe many religious traditions are guilty of this and thus struggle with the theological problem of pain, suffering, and evil.

The answer is simple but heretical.
God cannot be both omnibenevolent and omnipotent.

Either God is All-Powerful, but not All-Loving...
or God is All-Loving, but not All-Powerful.
You cannot have it both ways. ("Almighty" and "Omnipotence" are not synonymous. "Divine love preconditions God's almightiness". Pages 188-191).

I personally have come to this conclusion several years ago. I opt with the latter: God's Love trumps God's power. Let me tell you, it isn't a popular position. And not having the theological clout makes this a difficult position to hold.

Thomas Jay Oord sees this clearly.
He expertly juggles herculean theological challenges that - although any serious amature theologian may not know their proper terms or nomenclatures - should most definitely recognize and identify. Christian or not, these challenges are the undertow of our reality, one way or the other, with serious practical implications. They are important questions and should not be disregarded or relegated to the realm of speculative contemplation.

Personally, I approach these issues from a perspective of 'God' akin to something like the Hindu concept of the Brahman, or the Taoist's Tao, but I still hold onto the Christian belief of God being - not loving - but Love itself. (And in chapter 4, pg. 83, he systematically lists the 'types' of Providence-beliefs, including mine (pg. 94-95). And just in case, my gentle reader, you're curious, my views of God's providence falls somewhere between points 4-5 (God is Essencially Kenotic - God Sustains as an Impersonal Force). My point being, we all begin from a certain paradigm and this book is written with that understanding.)


An old ex-pastor friend of mine used to tell me that I had to be careful how I chose to write about some of the theological concerns and issues I often address. He said, I often had interesting and valid points that certain religious groups would do well to hear and listen to, but the risk was to avoid putting it in such a way as to turn them away.

My friend was right. But sometimes I think there is value in being up front and honest; in thinning out the herd; in weeding out the garden; separating the chaff from the wheat.

This is a book many religious groups would benefit well to study.
Thomas Jay Oord has balls the size of church-bells with some of the theological issues he addresses in this new book. He doesn't shy away or attempt to sidestep some of the most difficult theological challenges there are, but rather embraces them and faces them head-on. No doubletalk, no Christianese, no churchtalk. In fact, he chastises some of these less than satisfactory and submissive answers. This is not a watered down selective theology made to look pretty.

The existence of evil. Free Will vs. Determinism. Libertarian Freedom. A non-all-controlling God. Regularists vs. Necessitarians. Natural Law. Euthyphro's dilemma. Evolutionary Emergence. Divine Kenosis, divine impassibility & mutability, and the list goes on!
This is no light of fluffy read.
I have given his previous book, "The Nature of Love: A Theology" a great review, but my one complaint was that he needed to significantly expand on his concept of Essential Kenosis. This book promises to do just that.

Ultimately, in my humble opinion, this book is a sequel to "The Nature of Love: A Theology". In my review of "The Nature of Love: A Theology" the only real criticism I found was that Thomas Jay Oord's revolutionary concept of "Essencial Kenosis" needed more fleshing out.

In "The Uncontrolling Love of God" he does exactly this, not only going into significantly more detail and exposition, but also summerizing and exploring popular and currently held beliefs and theories that have attempted to address these difficult issues, and ultimately come up short or have failed.

I am an adherent to "Essential Kenosis", have come to these self-same conclusions myself. However, in "The Uncontrolling Love of God", I feel that the author needed to better explain how "Essencial Kenosis" addresses random harmful (genuinely evil) acts.

"Essential Kenosis" adequately explains the existence of pain and suffering in our world while maintaining God's inculpability and inability to intervene when dealing with individuals of free-will or agency. But once "Essential Kenosis" launches into issues of non-agency, or the inanimate, or aggregates, or 'laws of nature', it becomes less than crystal clear.

I admit, part of the fault may fall upon the reader (myself) for I have not given this particular issue thorough thought or exploration. It is definitely something I personally need to better address. But let's be clear here: I am not the one proposing "Essential Kenosis" (even though I edorse it). The burden of onus lied upon the author, Thomas Jay Oord, and I'm not convinced he followed this through thoroughly enough. Maybe this could be material for a new book? (Essential Kenosis, part 3?)

This becomes more problematic and convoluted as he attempts to address the issue of Miracles. Although the section pertaining to divine miracles is detailed, I will do the injustice of simplifying it (it is still worth the read) in saying I feel as if he is dancing and weaving around the problem of divine miracles by redefining it; possibly becoming fixated on 'hammering a round peg into a square hole'. He is attempting to force the Christian criterion of Miracles into "Essential Kenosis" where I am not sure it fits. I think a simple point of its beauty is missed: Essential Kenosis does not have to be exclusively Christian.

There is a near insurmountable challenge present when dealing with Christian Miracles: It is nearly always accepted as God intervening. The author offers a new paradigm to consider. When free-willed agents (us) interact with God's uncoercive desires and will, this collaborative effort leads to a future closer to God's will or hope for the universe - what we might call the Kingdom of God (not the Heaven of the Afterlife); that maybe, this paradise-like world is within the natural scope of the 'laws of nature'; it is not supernatural, but simply natural; a simply unrealized potential.

Although I am not a fan of approaching theories based exclusively upon the biblical witness, Thomas Jay Oord goes far beyond this method, building upon observation and evidence from Science, Philosophy and Theology. This book is thoroughly grounded.

"The Uncontrolling Love of God" belongs on any religious, spiritual, or theologian's bookshelf. This is a must read!

Five stars!

[Logan Bennett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give one star because no stars is not an option. A "Christian theologian" who does not argue from the Bible and rarely interacts with it. This book is dangerous and thoroughly unbiblical.

[John Martindale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thoughtful Christians often grapple with how to make sense of the gratuitous evil in our world in light of the claim that God is perfectly loving and all powerful. Many have suggested that God, desiring beings who could truly love and be loved, chose to give genuine freedom to mankind which resulted in the possibility of evil. Secondly, some suggest that God chose for the earth to be governed by natural law and not directly controlled by God. Yet the problem of course is there are examples in scripture of God stopping evil and working nature miracles, sure they are the exception rather than the rule, but they seem to suggest God can intervene in our world to prevent evil, and to promote good. Now if He really is capable of preventing some evil, or for example, stopping a tornado from landing directly upon a church killing a childrens choir, why doesn't He do so? Even if God doesn't will or cause evil, if He is perfectly able to intervene and in fact does so occasionally, does this not imply that God typically allows evil, even when he could have stopped or prevented it without throwing the natural order out of kilter? Doesn't God's rare actions in the world appear extremely arbitrary? To me it would be simpler if God just never acted and never did miracles, if He was a completely absentee landlord. I'd find this easier to deal with.
Oord's solution seems to be that God being love means God necessarily cannot control. God doesn't self-limit himself, or chose to give freedom, for love requires that he does so. Next, God not having a body, means he couldn't act in our world, even if His loving nature allowed it. Therefore, God doesn't cause or allow evil, because God cannot prevent or stop evil. Yet Oord somehow thinks that positing a God that can't stop evil, doesn't negate scriptural claims of miracles. I personally found his arguments in regards to this to be either incomplete, hard to follow, vague, weak, impossible to reconcile with scripture or tending to create more problems than are solved. It was not satisfying whatsoever to me.

When saying that God couldn't coerce, he defined coercion as some kind of metaphysical causation; the complete violation of free-will, I think of the forbidden Imperio curse in Harry Potter. Oord apparently thinks Arminians and Open Theist believes God employs such coercive control over people occasionally, I don't know of anyone who does. If this was all Oord meant when he says God's love isn't controlling, then I can agree, I don't see any need to for God to control people in the way Hyper-Calvinist might believe God does, yet it almost seem Oord thinks such kind of control is the only way God could prevent evil, but I don't think one needs to exert metaphysical coercion to stop evil, but more on that later. Also, it seems Oord wants to deal with natural evil and randomness which results in suffering. To do all this, he mentions that God has no body, and thus is necessarily handicapped. Not only can God not make a stone heavier than he could lift, but He couldn't lift a pebble, move a molecule, or do anything in the physical realm like redirecting a rock and therefore, he couldn't have prevented a random rock flung off a truck tire from killing the the passenger in a car, nor could kill cancer cells which his love sustains, or redirect a tornado.
Now lets suppose God has no body and thus cannot act or do anything in the physical realm, Oord still seems to attribute to God the idea of having a mind. This brings up one of the ways God can prevent evil without engaging in coercion. Take God's still small voice, or his generating a subtle inclination or a mental nudge. A lot of people are easily persuaded by an inclination, a dream or sensation or an idea that pops in their head. God could direct, redirect, influence, and protect potential victims from certain evils if He would speak, lead, give visions and dreams a little more often. I would wonder how Oord explains away all the scriptural examples of God speaking and reveling himself? Or if Oord accepts it, how does this not then make God responsible for not preventing evil? God being able to act mentally gives God the ability to reduce the amount of evil in the world without metaphysical control. For me affording God the ability to influence others with a thought or an idea, or some inclination, etc... is fatal for Oord's theodicy. Maybe Oord rejects the notion that God can speak to people, for this would alter and effect their mental brain states and God cannot move or redirect a molecule. It really seems to me that Oord's God can't do anything, though not impassible in the sense of not affected by people, he is completely unable to affect people, for to do so somehow is somehow controlling, and would alter brain states. Yeah, in trying to get God off the hook for natural evil, Oord, in my mind moves into the realm of absurdity.

When addressing miracles Oord didn't comment on 'miracles' like Ananias and Sapphira being struck dead, David's friend being smitten for touching the ark, the multitude of disasters, fire, famines, plagues, the ground opening up to consume the wondering Israelites, fire coming down from heaven to consume Sodom, etc... there are tons of horrific events attributed to God, all acts of punishment and in the book of Numbers, God continually flies off the handle, killings 10s of 1,000s right and left b/c he couldn't handle Israels complaining.
If God can smite (he sure is presented as doing tons of it in the bible), then it seems to follow he could have smitten plenty of evil folks to prevent evil. In light of all the biblical evidence, it is hard to believe God is actually unable to take a life and thus we have the problem of why God doesn't smite more often when it would prevent great evil.

Oord didn't mention the numerous Old Testament examples where they portray the Angel of the Lord or sometimes YHWH himself walking and talking with human beings. Also miracles like axe heads floating, poisoned water becoming pure, the sun being made to stand still, fire coming down from heaven, the use of animals for certain purposes. It doesn't seem a God who couldn't prevent or stop evil would be capable of doing any of these things.

It doesn't seem that within Oord's theodicy there is any room for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Somehow, quite fortuitously, the molecules of Jesus' decaying body somehow decided to awaken to life (in response to?) the loving non-active love of God, but God couldn't and thus didn't directly do anything, display any sort of power or make the molecules awake, for this would be coercive and contrary to God's nature. So it is hard to believe such a being could resurrect all people, destroy the wicked in the final judgment and give the righteous glorified bodies.

But yeah, there is much more I could write, but this is getting too long as it is.

[Genni · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

About a month ago, I listened to Thomas Jay Oord on a podcast and was interested enough to pick up two of his books. He attempts to stake out a very specific strand of open theism that claims God is essentially kenotic versus voluntarily self-limiting. It is interesting, and he does make some good points, but I found it rather incomplete.

After spending quite a bit of time on philosophical considerations, he stakes his claim of essential kenosis on Philippians chapter 2 after a brief exegesis and little discussion of any other scripture. He does the same with his claim about God’s knowledge. God knows the past and present exhaustively, but only knows all possibilities about the future rather than actualities. He does not discuss at all how prophecies would work within this framework, especially prophecies about Jesus, as one would have to do if you take a high view of Scripture.

It will not surprise anyone who knows me that I came to the subject lying somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Somehow God’s sovereignty/power and the limited free will of humans co-exist in someway that we don’t really understand. Oord’s discussion of miracles left me with a broadened imagination of how they can or cannot occur within that tension. The rest of his case needs more fleshing out.

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is God? If you believe in God, as do I, what characteristics do you apply to this God? What is God’s identity? Depending on whom you ask you might hear that God is distant and capricious. Or you might say that God is loving and gracious. How you choose to live in relationship with this God may depend on your vision of God. If God is angry and capricious you likely will live in fear (and I don’t mean reverence). If you believe God is loving and gracious you may seek to draw close. There is another issue involved in this conversation and that has to do with the degree to which God is involved in history. That is, does God control things? If so, how much does God control and how much freedom do we have to determine our fate? The theological term here is providence, which speaks to the degree to which God’s hand rests on history.

A traditional understanding of providence assumes that God is in control and not only that but God already knows the outcome of history. Before we ever act, the future is already decided. We can’t really change things—at least from the divine perspective. We might think that we’re acting on our own, but in reality it’s all settled. That is, unless you embrace an open-relational view of reality. This vision comes in a couple of forms, including Process Theology and Open Theology. The latter has its location within evangelical circles, mostly Wesleyan in nature. Among the most prominent of these “Openness of God” theologians is Tom Oord, who is nearing the end of his tenure as a professor at Northwest Nazarene University. One of the features of Tom’s work has been his stress on the place of love in our theological understandings. In fact, his book The Nature of Love, (Chalice Press, 2010) has been a constant companion in my own theological and pastoral work.

In the Uncontrolling Love of God, Tom builds on this work to lay out both a relational understanding of divine providence and offer a theodicy (defense of God in the face of evil). After all, we all want to make sense of our realities, including the presence of evil and tragedy. Even people of deep faith wonder about God’s presence or apparent absence in moments of distress. If God is all powerful, then why doesn’t God act? The answer that Tom Oord seeks to offer here is rooted in the premise that love is the defining characteristic of God’s nature. Thus, the answer could be found in God’s nature. This conversation, however, takes place within the context of Tom’s own theological foundations. As an “Open Theology” advocate, he argues that God does not know the future in its fullness. He seeks to understand providence in conversation with the recognition that the future remains unwritten. God has intentions but there is still the place of randomness to account for, and that includes our input into the realities of life. This book is, as the author notes, an attempt to offer a “plausible explanation for how God acts providentially amid randomness and freedom” (p. 25).

The full review appears on my blog -- October 1, 2015.

[Sean McGaughran · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a theology book, the author uses very few Scripture references. The author’s thesis is not articulated until the second to last chapter and his support for his open theist view seems to be primarily grounded in emotions while cherry picking from scientific theories and occasionally proof-texting from Scripture. Perhaps the saddest part about the book is that, in his attempts to let God off the hook for the problem of evil, the author ends up creating an image of a god who is loving but also essentially neutered rather than the image found in Scripture of a loving AND sovereign God who conquers evil by working it for good as ultimately exemplified at the cross.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Proposes a way of addressing God's goodness and providence in the light of randomness, pointless suffering, and genuine evil by arguing for uncontrolling love as the cardinal attribute of God.

Random accidents where a tumbling rock kills a motorist. Terrible suffering that results from a random genetic mutation. Genuinely evil actions resulting in injury and death with no evident intervention of God. It is often said that as difficult as these things are to understand, they are all part of God's sovereign and providential plan. Thomas Jay Oord finds these explanations unacceptable, and not just the trite versions of these explanations, but also those more theologically nuanced. They end up being susceptible to making God the cause of evil, or raise questions of why God fails to prevent evil, including random events if God is capable of doing so. Either God is sovereign but seems unloving; or God is loving but ineffectual.

In this book, Oord argues for a better account of the providence of God, rooted in an open and relational theology of God. He begins with an exploration of both the randomness and regularity that seems to exist even in the physical world for which our understanding of providence must account as well as the existence of both genuine evil and good in the world. He then outlines seven models of God's providence that have been proposed, briefly critiquing each, except for model four, which he proposes as the most plausible:

1. God is the omnicause.
2. God empowers and overpowers.
3. God is voluntarily self-limited.
4. God is essentially kenotic.
5. God sustains as impersonal force.
6. God is initial creator and current observer.
7. God's ways are not our ways.

He then offers an overview of open and relational theology (and antecedent theological corollaries) for those who may not be familiar with this, since it is foundational to his argument. In brief, open and relational theology contends that God and his creatures relate and his creatures make a real difference to God; that the future is open and not determined and neither God nor his creatures know all that will occur; and that love is God's chief attribute and primary lens for understanding God's relations with his creation.

This last is crucial to Oord's argument as he contends in the following chapter. Traditionally, theology begins with the primacy of the sovereign power of God over all creation, an error he believes even John Sanders, an open theologian falls prey to. Oord would argue that the love of God that is preeminent must be understood as uncontrolling love, and that this uncontrolling love governs God's relations with his creation. He would contend that God has created a world with creatures (and he would extend this extends to the fundamental building blocks of the world) that he cannot control. It is not a question of whether or not God will intervene to control but that God will not act contrary to his character as a God of uncontrolling love. This accounts for randomness and for genuine evil in the world without making God either the cause of these, or implicating God for failure to prevent genuine evil.

Oord goes on to describe and elaborate this as the "essential kenotic model of providence." Oord contends that Philippians 2:4-13, and indeed the gospels, are not about what attributes of God Jesus relinquished in the incarnation, but rather how the incarnation reveals the very nature of God, and that in his humbling even to death on a cross reveals the God who works through uncontrolling love to serve and redeem. Christ does not prevent the evil done against him, the evil choices of human beings, but through love works to accomplish our redemption. And in this, something is revealed of God's essential character in which God works non-coercively. This raises the question of miracles, which Oord would define as God's unusual, good, and special actions in relation to creation. His explanation recognizes the ways God often works in cooperation both with natural elements and human agents in these works for good and non-coercively. This was least convincing in considering the plagues of Egypt, including the death of Egypt's first-born, or even Jesus's cursing of the fruitless fig tree. In other instances, I felt Oord was in danger of explaining the miraculous in natural terms. I would propose this part of his case needed strengthening.

There is much in Oord's account to consider, particularly in offering a strong account of how we may speak of the goodness and love of God in light of both random and genuine "evils" without reverting to trite platitudes that do not comfort, and actually make light of human suffering. I also appreciated the clarity of writing and argument I found in Oord. I do hope for a serious engagement of his ideas, particularly because of the important pastoral implications of these discussions.

I personally wrestle with fully embracing this view for some of the reasons that I wrestle with openness of God theology more generally. It situates God within time, and also seems to make "uncontrolling love" a kind of law God must obey that doesn't allow for God to be more "complicated" in the exercise of God's power (Oord does allow for God to be "almighty," although within the constraint of "uncontrolling love"). In Narnian terms, it feels to me that the Aslan of open theology is a tame lion. I happen to think there are too many "messy counterfactuals" that this apparently logical and compelling argument inadequately address. Likewise, those who uphold traditional understandings of providence must address the unsatisfying character of their explanations. Might this be an instance where iron could sharpen iron?

This book won a 2016 IVP Readers Choice Award.

[Simon Wiebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habe nach dem Buch gemischte Gefühle. Vor allem, weil ich die Qualität der Kapitel sehr unterschiedlich wahrgenommen habe. Manche Kapitel fand ich persönlich etwas unstrukturierter, manche gut überblicksmässig dargestellt und manche waren hilfreich, indem sie frühere Thesen und Einwände vertieft haben. Das Nachwort von Matthias Remenyi fasst die wichtigsten Thesen von Oord zusammen. Das empfehle ich als erstes zu lesen. Fand das sehr gut.

[Chris Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We all want to make sense of life..." So begins Dr. Oord's "The Uncontrolling Love Of God". Dr. Oord provides an intriguing look at how we might make sense of chance, evil, miracles, and provision, all in light of a good God of love. Where others have tried to make love the defining characteristic of God only to let other characteristics take control, Oord consistently keeps love at the center. The result is a new model for the providence of God-at the heart of which is noncoercive love.

After summarizing other models of providence, Dr. Oord goes on to define what a God of noncoercive love might look like in relation to his creation. Do I agree with everything in the book? I'm not sure yet. Is it making me think about God and who He is in a new light? Yes!

If you want a creative, fulfilling, original look at the problem of evil, I'd encourage you to check out this book.

[Andrew Kastendick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t even know where to start with this review. If I took the time to walk through Thomas Oord’s arguments and compare them to what the Bible teaches, we’d be here a long time. Simply put, this book is an absolute mockery of the God of the Bible. Right from the get-go it becomes glaring obvious that the hermeneutic used by Oord is his own personal experience and his own definition of what it means that God is loving. His critiques of other “models” of providence are grounded in pure subjectivism and misunderstanding (particularly the “Reformed” view of providence). This work is an example of how dangerous “open and relational theology” is (AKA, “open theism”). While Oord attempts to provide meaning to life’s biggest questions (pg. 15), he instead invents his own god to fit his own understanding of how the universe works. 10/10 would not recommend.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book group choice. I am not convinced by a long shot. Oord strikes me as yet another human who is trying too hard to explain vexing theological questions, and to explain how God works in our lives. I believe that topic is bigger than any of us mere mortals.

I don't disagree with the ideas of randomness and regularity, or that humankind has free will. I do disagree that some of the examples Oord puts forth to define evil are really evil. Oord's overall argument for why God does not prevent evil is unconvincing if we believe anything we ever read in the old testament, in which God is portrayed as interfering with nature, and engaging in the lives of humans, quite frequently.

My humble opinion.

[John Muriango · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, why did IVP publish this book?????? The 'god' who is propagated in this work is such a little 'god', even Dionysius is better than him! In short, this book is full of heresies that have been propagated since time immemorial! I wasted my time and resources reading this useless work!

[Daniel Tanner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute crap.

[Stephen Case · Rating 3 out of 5]

The world of Nazarene higher education was rocked not long ago by news of the controversial dismissal of Thomas Jay Oord from his teaching position at Northwest Nazarene University. Though I don’t know Oord personally, I know he was generally regarded as a respected and active theologian inside and outside the denomination and someone who was doing important work. He also had a certain amount of controversy about him, primarily as he was considered a leader in the field of process theology.

Not knowing much about him or about process theology in general, I was anxious to read his most recent work, which is an accessible and non-academic introduction to this school of theology and in particular an explanation of how Oord’s particular flavor of process theology can provide what he sees as a solution to the problem of evil. In the work, it’s clear that Oord has read and engaged extensively with wide fields of contemporary theology across denominational traditions as well as the work of scientists at the forefront of the dialogue between theology and science. If you want to know what Oord in particular and process theology in general are about, this is a good place to start, as Oord’s discussions engage much of the current literature and his extensive footnotes give lots of directions of various places to go to learn more.

The goal of Oord’s work is to apply his brand of process theology to the issue of evil in the world. That bad things happen is undeniable. Oord calls this “genuine evil” and begins the book with several examples, from a random death caused by a rock through a windshield to the story of a woman who was raped after her family was murdered. Any theology, Oord maintains, that attempts to say things about the nature of God needs to give an account of these evils, and Oord outlines several possible responses. Any response, however, that says that God is all-powerful and could have prevented these things but did not, Oord believes, leaves God culpable for the evil and is thus unacceptable. If one has the power to prevent evil and the knowledge that it will happen but allows it to happen anyway, Oord argues, one is in some respect responsible for the evil.

Here is where Oord’s process theology comes into play. In his brand of process theology, God knows all that can possibly be known in principle. However, because Oord believes modern science has shown randomness and uncertainty as fundamental properties of the universe, the future is in principle unknowable. God does not know the future. He is presently omniscient, in that He knows all that happens in the unfolding of time, but He does not know the future because it does not yet exist. His experiences the unfolding of time along with Creation. In a sense, He learns as certain potentialities close and others become actualized.

This takes care of the foreknowledge issue in the problem of evil. God simply does not know for sure what is going to happen. But what about the divine power to prevent evil? Here is where the crux of Oord’s argument lies, as outlined in the title of his book: Oord argues that the primary, essential, and logically prior characteristic of God is uncontrolling love. This means it is always God’s nature to give freedom to his creation—from animate, intelligent beings to inanimate rocks governed by the law-like properties of the universe. Everything that God does flows from this kenotic, self-emptying love that preserves the freedom of all creation. Because God cannot deny his own nature, He cannot violate the freedom of either a person bent on evil or the trajectory of an errant stone. It’s not simply that He choses not to intercede (in which case He would still be culpable in Oord’s eyes). It is instead that the nature of God means He cannot.

If this feels like a risky, limited vision of God, it is. But it’s not one that’s completely without precedent in the Christian tradition. The old analogy of God creating a rock so big He can’t lift it points to the long-held Christian belief that God cannot do things that are logically impossible. Oord believes what someone might think is “lost” in this view of God is more than made up for by replacing a God who seems to allow evil with a deeper knowledge of the essential aspect of God—love.

To some extent, this is a view I can sympathize with and find much attractive above, especially the portions that deal with God’s nature in respect to human freedom. But there are places where I remain unconvinced, primarily related to ideas about God’s foreknowledge or lack thereof, Oord’s definition of “genuine evil,” the perception of God we’re left with, and a few other issues that Oord may clarify in later work or perhaps has already addressed elsewhere.

The first issue is something I’ve never understood, and perhaps someone can explain it to me at more length. I’ve never understand how divine (or any) foreknowledge is incompatible with free will. The explanation usually goes that knowing exactly what someone is going to do would mean they didn’t have free will in making the decision. But consider this: if Doc Brown followed me around for a week (undetected) observing and recording everything I did and then got into his DeLorean and went back in time a week, he would now have foreknowledge of every choice that I made. But would that mean I didn’t have free choice when I made them? I don’t understand how his knowledge would be incompatible with my freedom.

I’m also not convinced by the concept of a God that experiences time along with creation. For one thing, I’m not ready to give up on the concept of time travel, nor am I as married to a forward-only causality as Oord is. (I’ve even published a story about causality working the other direction.) Oord believes science indicates this is the way the world works, but I don’t think science has shut the door on the world working otherwise. Indeed, relativity shows that time is as fluid as space itself, that the geometry of space causes time to flow at different rates in different locations. I’m not sure how this maps onto Oord’s view of a God learning in time along with us. (And, as a friend pointed out, this view of time is inherently Western. Other cultures view time in very different ways.) More generally though, if God’s essential nature is uncontrolling love, I’m not sure we need to give up on his extra-temporal nature to maintain Oord’s central argument.

Too much, in my mind, is given up if we give up the concept of a God who transcends time. For one thing, I like don’t like the idea of a God that can in principle be surprised or a God that functions like a divine super-computer, reduced to simply making (very good) predictions about the future. I like to think at least someone understands and foresees the intricacies of my own personality moment to moment, or the personality of unborn kids. I’m also rather married to the idea of certain events (like the crucifixion, for instance, which the Orthodox like to talk about as happening in some sense “before the foundation of the world”) as being eternal and having backward as well as forward consequences.

I also have concerns with the way Oord defines “genuine evil,” which touches on his ontology of choice. In essence, he’s classified the genuine physical harm that comes about from an errant rock with that coming from the choices made by murders and rapists. I don’t think an accidental death can be a “genuine evil” in the same way as the result of a conscious choice can. I want to maintain a distinction between the two, even though both in my mind can have “genuinely bad” or “genuinely harmful” results. Obviously an explanation of providence needs to encompass both, but Oord seems to be on very different ground philosophically when talking about the rock versus the rapists.

In the case of the human actors, I think I can agree with him: if God’s essential nature is uncontrolling love, then it would result in a logical inconsistency for God to violate His own nature to override the freedom of choice in humans—even to prevent genuine harm. The evil that results from human actions or inactions are the responsibility of humans alone; God is not culpable.

But what about harm that results from the law-like processes of nature, including random actions that result in death and destruction (like a tornado or a stone through someone’s windshield)? Here choice doesn’t seem to be an issue, and Oord recognizes that there’s still a lot to be worked out in this respect. But he claims that because the law-like regularities in the world are themselves a form of grace, God cannot withdraw His presence or override the freedom inherent in physical processes themselves because to do so would also violate His own nature of kenotic love.

This is a bit harder for me to follow, though I again resonate with the idea that the spirit-filled presence of God throughout the physical order means that everything is sustained by God and that law-like regularities (Oord is careful to not call them laws of nature, being sensitive to contemporary philosophy of science) are themselves a form of God’s grace. But in maintaining that the freedom to self-organize is an essential property of nature and that there’s a continuous spectrum of choice from humans down to much simpler forms of life, he has to assume a teleological evolution to the universe in some sense. I don’t know all the implications here, but it seems like Oord is on much shakier ground.

I also wonder if Oord’s prioritizing of self-emptying, uncontrolling love as the essential and logically prior nature of God doesn’t overlay a Western, contemporary view of love on God in the same way that his linear conception of time does. Would this view of love have been one understood throughout history, or even in non-Western contexts today? Note that Oord’s version of process theology does not say that God is evolving; the traits of God remain eternal. But the concept of love seems to be one that has changed throughout history, which makes it potentially problematic to posit as God’s essential nature, at least love qualified in the terms that Oord gives it.

Finally, it seemed like the door was wide open at several points throughout Oord’s account to bring in trinitarian theology, or to at least acknowledge that his work has important implications for our understanding of the Trinity as well as the Incarnation. In his work, however, these implications seemed to take a backseat to Oord’s logical grapplings with qualifying God’s properties.

The idea of a God who suffers along with us, who takes risks, and who is defined and perhaps even bounded by His own self-emptying love is a strong one. I think Oord is on the forefront of important thought on these ideas in evangelical circles. I can follow him a good distance along this road. But especially as relates to issues of the nature of God in time I remain unconvinced, and in questions of God’s presence in the physical world and the implications it has for physical harms (as opposed to those from human or creaturely choice) I need more explanation.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these books out of order. I first read “God can’t” and then read “God can’t Q&A”, both convey the ideas in the “uncontrolling love of God.” The first time I heard Thomas Jay Oord(podcast interview) say that there were things that God simply can’t do, I was taken aback. I believed God was all of the “omnis” and wasn’t ready to even entertain that idea. Months later it kept nagging at me until finally I decided to hear him out. I’m glad I did! There are some that may have trouble getting beyond the Euro-influenced determinism to really give this argument a fair hearing. Others, like myself, may find it liberating, to no longer blame God for failing to prevent evil in the world. TJO provides historical and scriptural references along the way. I would call this book a must read. Not because I suggest everyone should or will adopt this view, but the majority of theologians have the same classical views and need to read things that don’t reinforce what they already believed. I would agree this book is not for the laymen, but it can be read by anyone.

Note: Oord is on social media and is very responsive to questions that arise while reading.

[Buford Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why is there evil in the world? Why do tragic events occur? Why do the young die? As Christians we often hear and respond to these questions with responses such as “God is in control,” “God’s ways are not our ways,” “We cannot see and know what God sees and knows.” While we will offer these types of responses in an effort to provide comfort to the suffering and to attempt to make sense of the events we see going on around us, when things hit home these explanations seem less than satisfying. Do they really answer the questions we are trying to ask? Many will say that “we shouldn’t question what happens!” Why not? Can God not handle the hard questions?

Face it, God can handle the tough questions and Scripture gives us many examples of when God’s people asked the hard questions. In fact, we have been trying to make sense of the world around us and how our lives intersect with God for as long as we can trace. Thomas Jay Oord’s new book The Uncontrolling Love of God, due to hit the shelves in December 2015, is no different. In this newest work by the noted theologian and educator, Dr. Oord does not back down from the hard questions. In fact, he begins to unpack the very questions many are afraid to ask. Not only does Oord ask the questions, but he also begins to offer an answer to those questions. However, be forewarned, if the reader is not comfortable with tradition being challenged, then this book is not for you! For the rest, you will find that you probably will not agree with every point, but for the reader who approaches the book with an open mind and a learning spirit, you will find Oord’s concepts very thought provoking.

The overarching theme that Dr. Oord begins to unpack is the idea of Essential Kenosis, the idea that God’s love is self-giving instead of being self-limiting. In other words, since God’s nature is love then God is compelled to give of God’s self, which Christ is the ultimate manifestation of. God’s love is complete in what Dr. Oord refers to as “full orbed.” God does not choose to limit involvement in our lives, but rather is relational with creation, desire reconciliation and relationship with creation through God’s self-giving nature. In order to build up to this crescendo though, Oord first has to work through the hard questions of evil, free will, randomness, and evolution.

Oord begins to look at the problem of evil in the world through the lens of free will. Oord maintains that evil exists because of the wrong choices that creation has made. Oord maintains that we have freedom and that a God that loves completely is unable to create creatures that do not have the freedom to choose evil. Therefore, Oord maintains that God is not responsible for evil. The hard pill to swallow here is the idea that God is not in complete control and the idea that God cannot do something. However, Oord maintains that we cannot maintain the idea of free will and also maintain an idea of God being all controlling, because the two cannot coexist. Oord also continues this discussion of free will when discussing the seemingly randomness that takes place in the world and balances this with how other things happen through regularity. The big question is really though, is God all knowing? Is God in complete control?

Oord’s stance is that God knows, only what is knowable. In other words, Oord maintains that the future from beginning to end is not completely laid out and that each moment in time is determined by the free choices made in the previous moment. With each choice we make, there are a number of additional choices and options opened up and the course history takes is only determined by the choices we make. God’s foreknowledge is limited to knowledge of all the possible choices based on what we freely decide to do. Otherwise, we would be forced to believe in God predestining all things, including the evils that occur as well as some being destined to die alienated from God. This would leave a level of responsibility for these things with God, thus negating God’s loving nature as well as free will. While this is a logical argument, I admittedly am still working through my own ideas with this!

With all the issues of evil, evolution, randomness, and regularity that The Uncontrolling Love of God addresses, Oord still finds space to address the issue of miracles. While, Oord’s explanation of miracles is counter our traditional understanding, what is refreshing is that Dr. Oord does acknowledge miracles in terms of God’s uncontrolling love and offering new possibilities. However, what is less than satisfying is a good answer as to why everyone who prays for healing is not physically healed. To gain a fuller understanding of Oord’s position though, I will leave that up to the eventual reader of the book.

As for some concluding thoughts, essential kenosis is a very viable and reasonable approach to revitalizing the theological framework for the current generations of post-moderns who are seeking God no less than generations that preceded them, only looking for answers on a different level. As Wesleyans we try to use experience, reason, and tradition weighed against Scripture to inform our theology. However, what we have witnessed is a move from Scripture as the ultimate authority to a position where tradition from the 18th and 19th century church has reigned supreme. What may have been reasonable 100 years ago is no longer reasonable today. Essential kenosis does not reinvent theology, only seeks to return to a Scripture centered approach, using our experience, reason, and tradition to build a theological framework that answers many of the tough questions about God, good, evil, and the universe. Is essential kenosis perfect? Absolutely not, but in the words of the Apostle Paul, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Rev. Buford Edwards II
Lead Pastor, Stanford Church of the Nazarene

[Shawn Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shew...this book did a real number on me.

Oord is a careful, persuasive, and humble writer -- and all those attributes shine in this work. It's been quite some time since I was genuinely persuaded to an alternate theological position, but, by God, Oord may have converted me! I am still thinking through the whole open and relational system (which will take quite a while and quite a few more books), but I find the general framework, especially for God's power and ability, to be really compelling.

Okay, now I need to read some John Cobb, Alfred North Whitehead, and John Sanders...stay tuned

[Luke Schmeltzer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for a research paper. Oord labors to prove what he calls "Open and Relational Theism," which takes the Open Theist heresy to even greater extremes. Oord's God is a powerless love force who can only influence through loving experiences, bound by nature to sit back and do nothing in the face of evil. Evil has no greater purpose, and there is no sovereign plan that ultimately works all things for our good and His glory. Usually, God tries to stop evil but simply can't; the bad guy wins in the end. This view absolutizes love at the expense of justice and holiness- and a humanistic love at that. The thesis of "Open and Relational Theism" is unbiblical, irrational, unloving, and unlivable.

[Jake Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! Definitely a little too far for me but I enjoyed process of seeing how he got to his conclusions that God lacks control (kind of). I really do understand why someone would come up with a view like this, but I think some of the logical implications are troubling. I also loved the view of God being essentially rooted in Kenotic love and I do really appreciate what Oord did here, even if some of his conclusions I don’t agree with.

[Chad Gibbons · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a review, these are the notes I wrote down as I read through the chapters.

1. Tragedy Needs an Explanation
Presumably Oord comes to his views because of the deficiencies in all other theodicies. He doesn’t feel they are sufficient.

2. Randomness and Regularities
Oord doesn’t speak here of the difference between cause and knowledge (which seems a massive oversight). Maybe he’ll tackle this later?
The appeals to quantum mechanics throughout this chapter are a pet peeve of mine. Oord appeals to quantum indeterminacy (as lots of people like to do), but then every single example of randomness he uses is NOT due to quantum indeterminacy. Even if we grant that Oord’s particular interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct - which is itself a stretch and not one I think is even correct - nothing he is claiming happens because of QM is because of QM.
Quantum indeterminacy is real, but we know how it works. And it’s predictable. The Uncertainty Principle is real (let’s say) and we know how it works and we’re aware of the ramifications. But by the time we reach the size of things we can see and experience - indeterminism disappears as a causal factor. Even by the time you reach the synapse of the human brain, quantum indeterminacy is not and can never be an explanation, excuse, or “cause” of even the slightest thought of a single human being across the entire human race. At that level, we’re already at way too large a scale for it to be any kind of factor.
Oord seems to understand at least one ramification of this. He says: “Regularity and randomness are both here at the same time.” But the only thing I can think is that he must miss the entire point. It’s not “a little of both things mixed together”, but they’re just the same exact thing - they have to be. I’ve either read too much quantum physics or too little.

3. Agency & Free Will
He starts off okay, but all of a sudden a bombshell: “Genuine evils happen and they have no greater overall purpose” and “If we think about it long enough, we all know this.” This could only be true if, while we are thinking about it, we make a point to ignore Christ and pretend He doesn’t exist. I have thought about this for a long time. So have many others. The takeaway normally is: “It is impossible to say (as Oord does) they have “no greater overall purpose””. But I hear what he’s saying.
Oord grounds morality and so-called “laws” in the being of God. This is not new. It’s at least as old as Aristotle (if not Aristotle, then the Middle Platonists).

4. Providence
Oord gives a helpful (though not exhaustive) breakdown of various views.
Oord’s choice is: Essentialism. What he calls “Essentialism” is as old as the hills as well. Basically, anyone who is not a theological voluntarist believes this and has believed it for a long time. The dilemmas he’s presented in the earlier chapters don’t apply to the majority of Christians. What’s “new” is saying that “kenosis” is the thing that’s essential (instead of being, or the transcendentals, or any other “attributes of God”, or holiness, or sovereignty, or love - unless it’s “love” defined by Oord I suppose).
Sidenote: Scholastic Theology points out that God’s essence must be Being itself, as Being (qua being) is the only sufficient grounding for all things. Everything else is contingent on being. Love (and anything else) must exist for it to mean anything and love can’t exist prior to existence itself. It’s contingent on existence, so love is a contingent thing, and couldn’t - by definition - be a necessary thing. Be curious to hear a Thomist’s take on the relevance of that ontology here.

5. Open and Relational
I’m somewhat fine with Relational theology (contra Scholasticism), but can’t get on board with Open Theology. I’ll keep reading about it, but it doesn’t solve any problems it purports to (in my opinion), and raises hundreds of others - and far greater ones. And what’s worse: It’s just wrong.
Oord gives 4 paths that lead people to Open and Relational Theology: Scripture, Theology, Philosophy, and Science. I’m unconvinced on every single one of these paths. In fact, I’m convinced of the exact opposite on 3 of them. I’m hesitantly “Relational” because of Theology, but I am far from “Open” for those very same reasons (but this is just me).
This book seems to be having the opposite effect on me than what is intended. I believe it’s because this is an introductory work and I’m already familiar with these ideas? There’s an assumption that the reader is coming to this book already unsatisfied (or ignorant) of any other approach to providence, foreknowledge, election, theology, science, philosophy, and hermeneutics. I think if you did know about these things already, you would just realize that the ramifications Oord says you should have aren’t the ramifications you or anyone else actually does have.

7. Essential Kenosis
Here is the main section. God is essentially kenotic. And Kenosis = “Persuasive.” “Vulnerable.” “Noncoercive.” This definition of being kenotic is ad hoc. Oord says “We see this in the cross”… Somehow? If we squint our eyes and tilt our heads? He just says it as if it’s obvious. As if the main thing we think when we see Jesus on the cross is: “That guy is persuasive. That guy is vulnerable. That guy is noncoercive.”
In the list of things the cross communicates to us I guess maybe I would put those words on the list? Maybe? But they would be pretty far down the list (probably not even making the top 100), and I would assume they’d be far down on anyone’s list. It apparently took humanity 2,000 years removed from crucifixion as a practice to start thinking that those 3 adjectives are what crucifixion communicates.
So let’s say those 3 things are actually what the cross means. Okay. From there, we’re supposed to think that these adjectives are the three particular adjectives that best describe God? This is far-fetched. Oord says that “Scholars debate what kenosis means” and “no one knows precisely what it means”. Sheesh, this is not an argument for Essential Kenosis, this is an excuse! If this were an argument for believing Essential Kenosis, maybe don’t pick a questionable Greek word to base everything on - Let alone a narrow interpretation of that particular word that almost no one agrees with. He says that “most scholars” think that it doesn’t mean what Oord says it means. Weird.

He quotes Philippians 2:9-11, but then doesn’t say a single word about it. This is the exact same passage Oord bases the whole thing on (where ‘kenosis’ comes from):

Therefore God exalted him[Jesus] to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

I’m supposed to read this passage and come away thinking the idea Paul is going for is that God is uncoercive? Merely persuasive? Vulnerable? Other-empowering? Uncontrolling? I don’t see how you get any of those ideas from verses 9 through 11 at all. What is apparently obvious to Oord is not at all obvious to me. I not only don’t see it, I don’t see how he can even see it. And I’m reading his book.

Oord’s definition of coercion: “Control entirely”. Fine. But every single Christian who isn’t a Calvinist doesn’t think that anyway. He gives a circular abductive argument that God can’t stop evil: “God can’t stop evil because evil exists and God’s not stopping it.” Huh. This chapter gets a big frowny face from me.

8. Miracles
There’s a good talk on what miracles mean. Oord end’s up saying that a miracle is “God providing new ways of existence.” Isn’t this just equivocation? Kicking the can down the road? Okay, so… why isn’t God always doing this? Oord says God takes into account the way creatures acted in the past. He uses people’s faith. Okay… I guess except when He doesn’t? Or this is just “Name It Claim It” in different clothes. God didn’t heal me because I didn’t have enough faith. Gross. So maybe God is uncontrollingly loving creation a little extra more when miracles happen? (Wooing the dead cells that made up Lazarus’ body especially persuasively? The storm that was calmed? The demons Jesus drove out?)
Sidenote: He said in the last chapter that only complex creatures have free will, but now it seems everything does? I might have missed something. There’s probably an explanation for it I’m not seeing.
Oord is very hesitant on nature miracles and is squirming now - for good reason. His definition doesn’t seem to account for it. He says: “Essential Kenosis employs various strategies to account for nature miracles.” Here comes quantum mechanics again. Big eye roll here. He gives three “strategies” in total, and they sound more like escape routes because he’s painted himself in a corner, rather than convincing proofs. These are desperate attempts at a solution, but at least he’s honest. If Oord is right about God, then nature miracles don’t actually make sense. At least he gives something to cling to if someone found his earlier arguments convincing (though one of the “outs” is to just say that nature miracles aren’t real).

Overall thoughts:
This whole book presents one big False Dilemma: Either God is the cosmic tyrant of the worst kind of double-predestination, supralapsarian, 10 point calvinist… OR you have to be Open & Relational - and specifically Essentially Kenotic (and apparently even Process). There’s no other option. Oord can’t stand Jonathan Edwards and John Piper, but then he chastises all Christians for Edward's and Piper’s views. I agree that they are wrong about God, but why is Oord blaming me? In Oord’s scheme, Piper, Edwards, myself, and every other Christian are in the same group. Essential Kenosis is apparently a weird and unhelpful set of lenses to see things through.

The book opens with the problem of evil and several tragic examples of evil. He gives his own answer later, but in the end, there’s not much that’s “new” about it. Of all the “solutions” to tragedy Oord describes at the beginning of the book, the Essential Kenosis solution we’re eventually given is, in my opinion, one of the worst ones. The caricature Oord gives to all the other views could just as easily be made of his own:
Standing with Oord at the gates of Auschwitz, Oord says: “I know you’re thinking that God should have done something about this, but God can’t do anything about it. It just sucks to be them, that’s all.” After listening to a strange definition of a koine Greek word and a strange definition of what love is, the fellow onlooker gazes out at the burial pits and flecks of human ash floating through the sky from the hellish furnaces and says: “This is what happens when God loves? This is what it means to have love at the center of reality? To hell with love, then! If this is what it means for God to love, then love is impotent and unworthy. If this is the best that love can do, then to hell with God and his impotence as well!”

It’s easy to caricature, but not helpful.

[❊ Cami ❊ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notes:
☑ The amount of evil far outweighs whatever we might need to appreciate good.
☑ Random event or set of circumstances had no intended purpose, was not part of someone's plan, did not follow a pattern or may not have occurred as it did.
☑ The aggregate of random events at simple levels generates highly predictable patterns at higher levels.
☑ Bleievrs are wise to say that God creates in and with the randomness and regularities of existence.
☑ We cannot be morally responsible unless we are fully response-able
☑ In fact, I believe it is impossible to worship wholeheartedly a God who loves halfheartedly
☑ One major problem with materialism is that we all live as if good and evil are real. I certainly do, and so do you. We all live as if there is, at bottom, more than blind, pitiless indifference. Even Richard Dawkins does. We also all live as if we should and sometimes act primarily for the Good of others.
☑ Without a metaphysical foundation or ground, materialists have no objective basis on which to assess good and evil. Without some transcendent ground, the materialist cannot even determine whether his arguments are better than others. The materialist needs a transcendent standard by which to make such value judgments.
☑ Besides, we should be wary of worshipping the entirely inscrutable God because we never know who the devil he may be! (the appeal to mystery)
☑If dominant views in science and philosophy are correct in their affirmation of randomness and chance, theologians such as Augustine, Calvin and Sproul are wrong. God does not control all things; randomness is real.”
☑The model of God as essentially kenotic says God’s eternal nature is uncontrolling love. Because of love, God necessarily provides freedom/agency to creatures, and God works by empowering and inspiring creation toward well-being. God also necessarily upholds the regularities of the universe because those regularities derive from God’s eternal nature of love.
☑ The God who could prevent any genuine evil unilaterally is responsible for allowing genuine evil. The one who could stop genuine evil by restraining the perpetrator of evil is morally responsible—or better, culpable—for permitting the painful consequences. We don’t consider morally exemplary those who fail to intervene to prevent horrific events and atrocities, if such prevention were possible.
☑ Essential kenosis agrees with Jacob Arminius when he says, “God is not freely good; that is, he is not good by the mode of liberty, but by that of natural necessity.” For “if God be freely good, he can be or can be made not good.” In fact, Arminius considered blasphemous the idea that God is freely good
☑ A God worthy of our worship cannot be Someone who causes, supports or allows genuine evil. In fact, I believe it is impossible to worship wholeheartedly a God who loves halfheartedly. We might fear a God who helps sometimes but other times chooses not to, but we cannot admire this God unreservedly

[W Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this helpful and thought-provoking book, Thomas Jay Oord presents a love-based model of providence (which he calls the "essential kenosis" model) that fits very nicely in the framework of open theism, with special attention to making sense of our lived experiences in a world that is filled with "regularities and randomness, freedom and agency, good and evil". In wrestling with the apparent tension between divine power and divine love (which is ultimately the central locus of any discussion of providence), Oord opts to prioritize love in a logically consistent way, arguing that any account of God's action in the world which allows God absolute power over even the smallest part of creation logically fails to prioritize love. In the negative sense, this is because a God of absolute power exacerbates the problem of evil by adding to it what others have called "the scandal of particularity"; if God can stop events whose overall effects are evil, but chooses not to, then God is culpable for that evil. In the positive sense, this is simply the nature of self-giving love, and this extends all the way to the most fundamental laws of physics: "Regularities of existence—so-called natural laws—emerged in evolutionary history as new kinds of organisms emerged in response to God's love. The consistency of divine love creates regularities as creatures respond, given the nature of their existence and the degree and range of agency they possess. God's eternal nature of love both sets limits and offers possibilities to each creature and context, depending on their complexity. In this, God's love orders the world. And because God's nature is love, God cannot override the order that emerges." Oord takes special care to note that this is not the same as saying that God voluntarily limits his own power in the service of love; rather, God's power derives from his love, and so the power that we often attribute to God simply does not exist whenever it would conflict with love, and in particular whenever it would involve unilaterally overriding the so-called natural order that itself derives from God's love. It is worth mentioning here that even though Oord's proposal focuses a lot of attention on what God cannot do, this is only to clear away the reader's preconceptions, and would perhaps not be necessary were it not for the long theological tradition of depicting God as an absolute sovereign. The constructive part of Oord's proposal is substantial, so his is not a merely negative account of providence.

These basic assertions have surprising implications. One is an apparent solution the problem of evil: "This model of providence says God necessarily gives freedom to all creatures complex enough to receive and express it. Giving freedom is part of God's steadfast love. This means God cannot withdraw, override or fail to provide the freedom a perpetrator of evil expresses. God must give freedom, even to those who use it wrongly. ... Essential kenosis [also] explains why God doesn't prevent evil that simple creatures with agency cause or even simpler entities with mere self-organizing capacities cause. God necessarily gives the gift of agency and self-organization to entities capable of them because doing so is part of divine love. God's other-empowering love extends to the least and simplest of these. God cannot withdraw, override or fail to provide agency and self-organization to any simply organism or entity that causes genuine evil. The kenotic love of God necessarily provides agency and self-organization. God's moment-by-moment gifts are irrevocable. Consequently, God is not culpable for failing to prevent the evil that basic entities, organisms, and simple creatures may cause." An auxiliary claim is that even though God is present to all places at all times, he is not present in a bodily way, so that he must work lovingly and persuasively through and in creation rather than acting unilaterally from outside of creation; God actually needs the free cooperation of creation in order to redeem evil. Another surprising assertion is that God experiences time in a way analogous to our own experience of time, and in particular that God does not know the future. This is motivated partly by the understandable (but not incontestable) claim that God's foreknowledge would render creaturely freedom an illusion. Perhaps more importantly, this claim is motivated by the idea that "Love is an adventure without guaranteed results". While I appreciate the intuition behind this, I find myself skeptical of the idea that God experiences time with us; I find myself asking, "Where in the universe does God experience time?", because according to relativity, time flows differently in different places, and in fact time is wrapped up with the spatial dimensions of reality. Further, no two events taking place in different locations can be said to happen simultaneously. How then should we understand God's experience of time in light of God's omnipresence? This is not necessarily an unsolvable problem, but I find myself in want of a fuller explanation of how this problem might be solved.

Finally, Oord has an incredible exposition on how miracles fit into the essential kenosis model. Essentially, God is always working with and in creation, constantly opening up new possibilities if we cooperate; when our cooperation results in unusual good that appears to fall outside what we would call "natural", then a miracle has occurred. Because both the natural order and miraculous events derive from God's love with the cooperation of creation, there is no clear line between the natural and the miraculous; there is an irreducibly subjective, relational aspect to miracles. This coheres well with much of what the Bible depicts as miraculous; it especially sheds light on Jesus' oft-repeated phrase "Your faith has made you well," as well as his claimed inability to perform miracles for faithless people. It also helps explain why miracles are not always consistent; even for those who have faith, a miracle may not occur if some other aspect of creation is especially resistant to that miracle. My only complaint here is that Oord does not address biblical events attributed to God which are unambiguously harmful and unloving, such as the plague of death in Exodus. On the one hand, such events are not miracles at all by Oord's definition, since they are not good; on the other hand, one can hardly avoid calling such events miracles, since they appear to be the direct result of unusual divine action. The only way forward that I can envision here is to recognize that such events, though attributed to God by the biblical authors, cannot have actually happened as recorded if God is truly the God of love revealed perfectly in Christ. I am quite prepared to take this course, but other readers may not be.

Oord is to be praised for so consistently prioritizing love in a way that upholds the dignity of God and of people. His compelling vision of God working in and with others is compatible in interesting ways with other concepts within the Christian theological tradition, such as panentheism and deification. One particularly challenging but fruitful exercise in this regard is the reconciliation of open theism and universal salvation. Oord does not comment on eschatology in this book, which leaves the door wide open for a variety of views on the final state of created things. The most obvious choice would be to endorse a free will model of salvation and damnation, but I fear that this is too high a price to pray for God's goodness; as David Bentley Hart has pointed out, a God who knowingly creates a world in which the final damnation of any creature is even possible is an evil God, for morally speaking what has been risked has already been surrendered; moreover, in such a picture it would be logically possible to say that God loved all humans to the utmost, even though all humans voluntarily damned themselves. On the other hand, some Christian universalists have suggested that God may occasionally override human freedom in the interest of saving all, and on Oord's account this is too high a price for God's love. Following the lead of Hart, I would suggest that God's love has fashioned us in such a way that we are intrinsically drawn to God, who is our sole and final good; our freedom is ultimately not our ability to do wrong, which arises from deception and slavery to sin, but rather it is our ability to do right, to simply be what we are be design. That is to say, God's love naturally makes us so that we naturally seek God's love; just as God cannot not love us, we who are made in God's image cannot in the end not love God, though for some while we may deceive ourselves into thinking that we do not. So God need not know the future in precise detail to guarantee the ultimate reconciliation of all things (which I think he must do if he is good); and this inexorable return of all things to their source is not coercive on God's part, precisely because it is deeply consonant with the love-fashioned nature of created things.

Again, this is a helpful and thought-provoking read. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in providence, miracles, or open theism. I look forward to reading some of Oord's other books in the future!

[Ben McFarland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm faced with a dilemma: how do I interact on a deep level with a book that challenges a central tenet of theology when I listened to the book as a free audiobook? One thing's for sure: I'm not going to be able to give a coherent contribution to this debate, so I'll settle for bullet points! Better yet, listen to Thomas Oord read his own book for free by downloading the book, then join the conversation.


-- When I met Tom, I knew right away that he was a theologian to take seriously, because his very manner is not too serious. He exudes grace and life. This aspect of his personality shines through in his book. Tom argues that God's love comes before God's power in everything. Which includes his ability to control the natural world. God's nature of love makes it so that He cannot stop certain evils from happening. Tom makes it clear that God is still "all-mighty" and that miracles happen, but that God's love prevents him from coercing anything created because love comes first in the nature of God.


-- The word study I appreciated most was of the word "kenosis," which literally means "emptying," but Tom's preferred "pouring out" is better. This fits very well with Robert Spaemann's definition of life as being that "which exists in itself and pours itself out." Pouring is a dynamic process and there's lots to unpack for a chemist in that very definition.


-- Chapter 2 is an excellent summary of randomness and chaos. I think I may use it in class someday.


-- Tom's argument is fundamentally that God is near, being active in the very regularities of nature. That the regularity of nature is itself a manifestation of God's faithfulness. This is a fundamental tenet of theology that we have lost somewhere along the way, and this book helps us recover it.


-- I have several "what-about" questions: What about the Trinity (it's more implicit than explicit)? Why is explanation of evil so important when a large majority of evil is explainable, especially if we consider the risks we willingly take on when we move through this regular universe? (Tom refers to an example of a rock through a windshield, but I think this is a consequence of the technology that allows our soft bodies to move so quickly down the road. Expecting God to stop every fatal rock would be "putting God to the test" as much as Jesus flinging himself down from the Temple parapet.) He writes about Scripture and power later on but I think that should come earlier because it is so prevalent a theme that dealing with it feels tacked-on in so short a book. For example, when Jesus says "All authority is given to me in heaven and earth" what does that mean in terms of uncontrolling love? And most of all, what about the resurrection and eschatology?


-- Ultimately I agree that God is near and God is love. Tom's solution may be rooted too much in a modern view of the universe. Justifying evil events involves causation, and causation itself has become a slippery concept, and which makes blame and explanation slippery as well. Tom writes about chaos theory and the unpredictable results of small events, but then he comments that we may soon know more about chaos theory, when chaos theory says these things are by definition unknowable. This is where I wish I could engage exactly with this section, because to me chaos theory is like the uncertainty principle: it's not that we can eventually reduce the uncertainty but that the uncertainty is by definition irreducible. I don't think we'll ever know more about chaos theory in a way that would address that question (but I'm not sure from listening!).


-- What if this theology makes us more fearful? There is no fear in love. But uncontrolling love at first blush makes me more afraid. Is that my failing or that of the theology?


This is a thought-provoking book that is good for Christians to talk about, as long as we keep all our conversations grounded in the truth of both books (nature and scripture) and as always permeated with love. If we do that God will be there among the two or three gathered. In that spirit I look forward to the conversations that will result.

[John Culp]

Oord explains God’s action in the world in a way that acknowledges human freedom without limiting God’s ability to provide salvation. The Uncontrolling Love of God presents a succinct and non-technical application of Oord’s earlier and more technical works on his theology of love. He accomplishes his goal of making “sense of randomness and evil in light of my conviction that a loving and powerful God exists and acts providentially” (19).

Uncontrolling Love of God masterfully considers complex scientific, philosophical, and theological issues in a manner that is readily understandable for non-specialists. Oord draws on personal experience to show how abstract ideas have concrete application. His commitment to a personal God plays an important role in his discussion of God as self-giving love. Oord’s non-technical presentation enables people to think carefully about God’s presence in the world. His terminology does not require either a dictionary or extensive training in theology, science, or philosophy. Further, his examples of destructive events are events that are both well known and similar to many experiences that others have had. He appeals to ordinary experiences of freedom, evil, and moral expectations to develop his argument and makes crucial references to Biblical passages and the tradition of Christian thought. While logical consistency is important for his argument, he does not develop that point in a technical manner. Oord invites all people to respond to God’s presentation of possibilities for realizing the kingdom of God.

As an open and relational thinker, Oord makes important contributions to thinking about God’s actions in the world. He begins by describing four disasters that raise questions about where God was during these events and why God did not keep those disasters from happening. In Chapter two, Oord defines randomness as events without a cause and contrasts it to regularity. Both randomness and regularity characterize the world that God created. Chapter 3 moves on to account for human freedom to cause disasters. Using science, theology, and philosophy, he concludes that evolution from self-organization to agency coupled with an increase in complexity led to free will. Freedom is not unlimited but does exist. The existence of goodness leads to chapter 4 summarizing models of God’s providence. These models range from God being in complete control to God acting as an impersonal force creating and sustaining creation. In chapter 5, Oord treats the open and relational understanding of providence, which he sees as generally the most adequate understanding. But, as helpful as an open and relational understanding may be, it still raises problems for understanding God’s activity in the world. The desire to avoid the world conditioning God leads to asserting that divine sovereignty precedes divine love in God’s decision-making. If God could control events even though God chooses not to, God has some responsibility for evil because God could have prevented evil. Oord develops his own form of open and relational theology of “essential kenosis” in chapter 7. “Essential kenosis” emphasizes God’s self-giving rather than God’s voluntary self-limitation. God’s nature as love is a necessary aspect of God’s unchanging nature that makes it possible to trust God without reservation. The priority of the divine nature over God’s will means that God is not responsible for evil caused by free choice because God as uncontrolling love cannot create beings that are not free to do evil. Oord recognizes that God as uncontrolling love seems to indicate that God cannot act in the world so he turns to the question of miracles in his final chapter. Miracles happen through God’s uncontrolling love by means of God’s presentation of new possibilities and the cooperation of creatures with God’s love.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Uncontrolling Love of God is an accessible, logically-developed and engrossing look at God's providential working in history, nature, and humanity from the perspective that His essential nature of love is something He cannot contradict. Coming from deep roots in the Wesleyan-Arminian stream of Christianity myself, with charismatic leanings, and now having joined an evangelical church influenced by Reformed theology, I came to this book with questions about providence, free will, making sense of evil and suffering, etc. I agree with Thomas Jay Oord that his "Essential Kenosis" teaching "helps make sense of our lives," of history and the Bible. Open and relational theology makes sense to me and I think in these days we need the hope and creativity it invites us to. Could it be God is speaking to us through the discoveries of science, philosophy, and theology to help us break out of our defensive, protective, fearful stances and respond to the invitation to cooperate with our intensely personal God to create and experience inner and outer wholeness, shalom--God's kingdom come?

Some readers will swallow hard when reading Oord's view of God's foreknowledge. But as I read and prayerfully considered, I found in it an invitation to participate with God in accomplishing His purposes. Another concept that many Christians are struggling with is evolution. It feels intimidating and overwhelming at first to think of billions of years of history and that some things in nature and life have developed by chance. But when you see that God's love gives freedom to all and even works through random events, always calling forth goodness and newness, a picture comes clear of the Creator lovingly involved with His creation. God is so much closer and yet so much bigger than we realize!

As I read The Uncontrolling Love of God I kept wondering what the author thought of miracles--God's intervention in nature and human affairs. I was delighted to read the final chapter in the book in which Oord explains miracles according to Essential Kenosis. He doesn't explain them away. He affirms miracles. I found Oord's scriptural explanation quite appealing. However, I have two other questions not answered in the book: How do angels and the unseen spiritual world fit in this theology? And what about prophecy and its fulfillment? Obviously I need to read more of Oord and other teachers of open and relational theology. I plan to do that.

I will also watch for more practical out-workings of Oord's Essential Kenosis teaching. For instance, reading this book has already influenced how I pray and look for answers to prayer. How will it influence how preachers preach, how Christians live daily, how we train our children, how we interact with our culture and environment?

Get this book and read it prayerfully. And view the author on "making sense of life" here: https://youtu.be/Sp3GVIqhYQk

[Jimmy Reagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tackles a subject that everyone thinks about at times–how to think about God in a world of profound hate and senseless tragedy. While the author, Mr. Oord, takes us beyond the hard feelings of questioning faith to the theology that can tries to answer the question, he even goes to science and philosophy along with the Bible. Without any fluff at all he takes us on a journey that demands we decide what we believe about the providence of God.

Mr. Oord brought out a potpourri of emotions in me as I read. At times I would feel I was reading a simple believer in Christ while at other points I would think how could he believe such nonsense. In one place he would hold that Scripture is a trustworthy guide and at another he would speak of evolution as a settled fact. Here he would want to honor the Lord and His Word and there he would speak of science and philosophy as near equals to the Bible.

His analysis of all the issues and what has been believed was simply superb. His writing was as good as acedemic titles get. His simple, little chart on page 83 crystallized the range of thought on providence. His description of every method was fair and probing. He was a careful thinker who would have no part in reducing the discussion to merely a Calvinistic/Armenian debate.

When he finally turned to his own explanation that he called “an open and relational account of providence”, I simply could not go along with him. Though he offered profound points, I could not put them all together as he did. He figured that God’s love was the controlling factor in all God did until providence could be deemed as the Uncontrolling Love of God.

To my mind he missed a major point. The Lord is better described as equally the God of love and the God of holiness/justice. I believe one could arrive at a better theology of providence with that focus.

Despite disagreeing with his ultimate premise, and some lesser ones on what God could do or miracles, why do I give this volume a pretty good rating anyway? He spurred my thinking until I had to decide what I believed. I will always count such a book good and helpful. I am truly glad I read this book and have it on my shelves to refer to in the future.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll continue to think about this and would like to re-read it on the future. I like the premise but it's so far from whatI'm used to theologically that it's hard for me to grasp.

[Arnoud · Rating 1 out of 5]

With essential kenosis, freedom comes first and love comes second.

Thomas Jay Oord, The Uncontrolling Love of God. IVP Academic, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2015.

In Oord’s model of essential kenosis, freedom takes a prominent place. Because of God’s nature of self-giving love, it is claimed, God necessarily gives freedom to creatures. It is against his nature to do otherwise, and since God cannot act against his nature, he cannot withhold freedom. Therefore, if somebody undergoes an horrendous evil such as rape or torture, God cannot prevent it: it is against his nature of self-giving love to fail to give freedom to the perpetrator.

The problem of moral evil could be formulated as the question: why would a loving God not withhold the freedom of a perpetrator of some great moral evil? In other words: why would God prioritize freedom to, say, protecting the weak? Oord’s model does not answer this question; instead, it simply posits the assertion that the nature of self-giving love is that it never withholds freedom. This is in stark contrast with our own intuitions about love, which tell us that withholding somebody’s freedom is a loving act in several circumstances. It is easy to come up with many examples in which preventing people from harming themselves or others seems the right thing to do, e.g. in raising children, in law reinforcement, et cetera. Thus, the fact that a loving God supposedly seems to prioritize freedom of evil-doers over protection of the innocent is precisely what needs to be explained, because it is against our deepest intuitions about the nature of love. Instead, Oord’s model simply takes this fact as a given, as an apparently obvious attribute of self-giving love, without further explanation.

A second reason why God cannot prevent evil, according to Oord, is the fact that God is an omnipresent spirit and has no localized body. He has no physical hands, so to speak, to stop evil-doers. While this argument seems appealing, various biblical narratives seem to suggest that God is not impressed by this barrier. The miraculous escape of the apostle Peter out of prison, for example, is executed by God-sent angels (who, interestingly, are called ‘ministering spirits’ in Hebrews 1.14); many more examples of such special interventions initiated by God exist. Since for many Christians the biblical narratives are fundamental in shaping beliefs and expectations about God, the argument would have been stronger if Oord would have provided more detail on why precisely the lack of localized physical body would keep an omnipresent spirit from preventing evil. The biblical narratives suggest otherwise.

A third reason that Oord brings forth why God cannot prevent evil is the `evidence’. On page 185, he writes:

`Upon affirming that a loving God wants to prevent genuine evil though genuine evils occur, the argument from evidence concludes that a loving God must not prevent genuine evil because God cannot control others or situations. In other words, the evidence indicates or suggests that God cannot coerce. To put it differently: because genuine evils occur and God always loves, we are right to infer that God must not be able to coerce to prevent genuine evil.’

Regarding this argument: I think that it is not obvious at all why the `evidence indicates or suggests that God cannot coerce’. In fact, the major alternative interpretation of the ‘evidence’ is that God allows evil for some greater good that cannot be attained without suffering, although God still could prevent it if he wished. Asserting that the evidence suggests that God cannot coerce requires showing that this major alternative interpretation is wrong. At first glance this may perhaps seem easy, given the abundance of horrendous evil in the world. However, as other authors on the theodicy question have pointed out, proving in some particular case of evil that there exists no greater good justifying the evil is very difficult and frequently impossible. Thus, while it may be true that God cannot coerce, it does not follow immediately from the evidence. The evidence suggests that God does not coerce, but that does not imply that God cannot coerce.

Moreover, even if it were true that the evidence suggests that God cannot coerce, then this does not support the assertion of Oord that self-giving love by nature necessarily gives freedom. There could be other reasons why God cannot coerce.

Thus, in addressing the problem of moral evil, it seems to me that Oord is caught in a kind of circular argument. The question is to explain why a loving God seems to prioritize the freedom of an evil-doer over the protection of the innocent. This question arises because, according to our intuition, love would prioritize the well-being of the victim, even if this would be at the expense of overruling the freedom of an evil-doer. Oord’s answer is simply that the nature of self-giving love is to never withhold freedom, and that God cannot act against his nature of self-giving love. I think that this construction is not at all a solution; it simply changes the question into: why is it in the nature of self-giving love to never withhold freedom?

Even if Oord’s model of essential kenosis is correct, I am not sure if it offers a sufficient explanation of the loving nature of God in relation to suffering. Many authors on the problem of evil have noted that no greater-good defense at the expense of innocent sufferers can be adequate. In other words, God or Love would never allow someone to suffer involuntarily in order to attain a greater good that does not directly benefit the sufferer. Oord’s model appears to violate this principle: in his view, the nature of self-giving love seems to find a general `greater good’ (namely: not interfering with somebody’s freedom) more important than the suffering of a particular victim who does not directly benefit from this greater good. Presumably this is not the message that Oord wants to convey, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion. In any case Oord does not address the question of whether the benefits of not overruling freedom outweigh the costs.

For these reasons I think that the essential-kenosis model, as explained in The Uncontrolling Love of God, falls short of providing an adequate framework for the relation between God and evil. Oord has the admirable goal of putting love first; the book e.g. criticizes an alternative view because it puts divine sovereignty first instead of love. However, Oord has failed to convince me that in his approach love comes first. To me it seems that, in his model of essential kenosis, it is not love that comes first, but freedom.

PS perhaps some of my concerns are addressed by Oord in his more recent books.

[Rick Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Uncontrolling God is a great example of how thought provoking theology in deep conversation with Christian scripture, the theological tradition, philosophy and contemporary science can result in a credible and honest response to the dilemma of God's care for creation and the presence of evil. I won't summarize the argument in detail because I encourage you to read it. The key to Oord's argument is the focus on understanding God's essential nature as uncontrolling love. Oord makes a compelling argument for what he names as God's "essential kenosis", i.e. God's essential nature as self-giving love that is by definition uncontrolling. All other attributes of God (especially power) are understood in light of this.

Oord's book is a needed corrective to the plethora of bad theology that hovers around these issues. We have too often been presented with a divine being we are told has coercive power to cause or stop anything so chosen. We uncritically accept the contradictions in this position until they affect us personally. Then we are often thrown into a state of disarray between our belief in the divine's love for us and what seems to be the intentional allowance of tragedy to strike us. Oord's core argument of "essential kenosis" offers a sound theological response along with important pastoral and counter cultural ethical implications. This book should be read not only in undergraduate and graduate settings but in small group settings as well. To follow an ongoing conversation with the contents of the book from a variety of perspectives check out uncontrollinglove.com.

[Ryan Dunbar · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Thomas Jay Oord's latest book; "The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence"; he offers a very plausible answer to the age old question of; "Why does God allow evil to occur". To answer this difficult question he begins by laying a strong foundation built on different scientific, philosophical, and theological concepts. Tom's defense of why God does not prevent evil is fully explained in the idea of Essential Kenosis, and how it relates to all of creation.
As a "lay person" in the church; it is often difficult to fully understand advanced theological concepts because it seems that those writing the materials often forget about their audience outside of their scholarly peers. However as a former youth pastor; renown theologian, Tom Oord very comfortably bridges the gap between the academy and local congregation.
Even though his writing style in the book is presented where anyone can understand it; the material and research put forth; leaves plenty to challenge even the most well versed of minds in Open and Relational Theology. Regardless of ones background in theology or the lack thereof; the reader will certainly not feel just academically challenged but also personally challenged in their faith and how they view God's eternal loving nature for all of creation.