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Pluriform Love: An Open and Relational Theology of Well-Being
A strong case can be made that love is the core of Christian faith. And yet Christians often fail to give love center stage in biblical studies and theology. And most fail to explain what they mean by love.
Why is this?
Thomas Jay Oord explores this question and offers ground-breaking answers. Oord addresses leading Christian thinkers today and of yesteryear. He explains biblical forms of love, such as agape, philia, hesed, and ahavah. We should understand love’s meaning as uniform, he says, but its expressions are pluriform.
Widely regarded as the world's foremost theologian of love, Thomas Jay Oord tackles our biggest puzzles about the nature and meaning of love, divine and creaturely. His proposals are novel. They align with love described in scripture and expressed in everyday experience. Oord also provides radical and yet persuasive answers to questions about evil, hell, the Big Bang, divine violence, divine abandonment, and more.
Pluriform Love changes the landscape of Christian love studies.
Why is this?
Thomas Jay Oord explores this question and offers ground-breaking answers. Oord addresses leading Christian thinkers today and of yesteryear. He explains biblical forms of love, such as agape, philia, hesed, and ahavah. We should understand love’s meaning as uniform, he says, but its expressions are pluriform.
Widely regarded as the world's foremost theologian of love, Thomas Jay Oord tackles our biggest puzzles about the nature and meaning of love, divine and creaturely. His proposals are novel. They align with love described in scripture and expressed in everyday experience. Oord also provides radical and yet persuasive answers to questions about evil, hell, the Big Bang, divine violence, divine abandonment, and more.
Pluriform Love changes the landscape of Christian love studies.
276 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2022
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February 25, 2022I just finished "Pluriform Love: An Open and Relational Theology," by Thomas Jay Oord.
I got a chance to advance read Tom Oord's new book. Here are some thoughts as I go.
Preface:
Pluriform, as is in the title, is the wording Oord uses to state that love has multiple dimensions and expressions.
"Pluriform Love points to diversity."
Huqmanity and Divinity both have Pluriform Love. Divine love is aimed at community rather than God's glory as an end.
Ch. 1, Love Neglected:
When one reads scripture one finds that God is, and God's actions are, most often referred to in "love" language. God truly is love. Some modern theologians and biblical scholarship want to find work-arounds to minimize or eliminate love as a driving motif in scripture by using word count, or modern day misuse, and things of this nature. The issue is they have to overcome the expression of God in Christ and the Spirit in the Apostles. The actions in both instances are love. Modern misuse is no reason to remove the driving motif of scripture. Some want this driving or integrative motif to be power and believe that anything less than power attributed to God as primary is speaking ill about God. But when thisnis the case, when God is controlling all outcomes and actions, then one can't but lay every existence of sin and evil at the feet of the one who John says "is love," or our understanding of "love" has been wrong all along.
Our understanding of love has to be thought out with a Jesus focus: romance and sex can show love but stalkers and rapists have misdirected romantic infatuations and sexual expressions. Jesus call to live God/others/enemies doesn't look this way (though a long term, monogamous relationship can). Happy feelings from the brain?--well, yes, that happens but there is more. Helping enemies usually doesn't immediately give one the good feelings.
Historically many have tried to nail down "love" with words like "agape" or "holy." The problem is that "agape is Greek for "love" and if God is love then love is by nature "holy." Rather what we need is a working definition of "love." If we have no definition of what love consists of then we could be imprecise--or worse--in how we see love and apply it. So what is love?
Ch. 2, Love Defined:
Love: to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.
Starting with the end first, love seeks to do good, it's value positive. And Oord continues in this direction backing this definition with scripture. He takes a moment to speak to "love as desire." This definition can trace its roots back to Plato (as can so much theology). But "desire" sees rape as an act of love. So we once more have to question how we define love. Likewise love being equated with worship falls short of the definition of love; one doesn't worship "neighbors" and "enemies." Oord does a thorough job in defining love and grounding it as where one must begin with one's theology.
Ch. 3, Anders Nygren and AGAPE:
Since Nygren wrote his unbelievably popular book, Agape and Eros, the word Agape has become familiar to the "Christian in the pew" and even non Christians alike. It is seen as the holy form of love.
(Sidebar: love is obviously the English word we use which Oord defines above as "to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being." But scripture uses "AGAPE" and "PHILIA" which when interpreted end up as "love." Also in Greek there is EROS which isn't in scripture but means a romantic or sexual love. What Oord is doing here is defining "love" and then fine tuning how we read these Greek words which are interpreted "love.")
Nygren caused a split between agape and eros. But he never defined eros. So he has agape up on a pedestal as Divine love but he believes eros can not be of like stature. In fact he believes that eros draws us away from the mode Divine agape. The theological point here is Nygren sees agape as Divinity giving while eros is humanity giving. According to this old paradigm Divinity needs nothing from humanity and humanity "giving" anything suggests that Divinity doesn't do all the work. Personally speaking this sounds somewhat Gnostic with the love of the Divine (spiritual) and the love of the physical (unspiritual). The two can't meet because the flesh is evil.
Nygren also says his work is scriptural but with AGAPE and EROS being Greek he is either limiting his research to just the New Testament or the NT and LXX (the Greek translation of the OT). So he forgets about Hebrew "love" (HESED and AHAVAH) in his love research. Nygren later says that love in Hebrew was different and specific to the covenant relational people whereas AGAPE is for all people. Further, AGAPE was only the love from God but it couldn't be the human love to the Divine. But in Hebrew love is diverse finding friendship, romance, sacrifice, covenant, forgiveness, delight, sensuality and loyalty baked into it. In the NT Nygren believes God is beyond EROS, a desiring love, and PHILIA, a friendship love. And in the end man's proper response to the AGAPE of God is faith, not love says Nygren. He cuts a relationship off at the knees. He also ignores the many times God is said to desire, which Oord classifies as EROS, and the many times that man to God and God to man relationships are referred to as PHILIA.
Ch. 4, doing good, essentially loving, and "in spite of" love:
Oord spends time diving deep into the use of AGAPE in the gospels, and Paul, pointing out how each functions while contextualizing it. This is where we get a better idea of what Jesus and the evangelists intended when they used the word. It is only once we see how this word functioned that can we ascribe to it the definition "to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being" with confidence that we are reflecting the person of Christ.
"Love is logically primary in Gods essence."
This was a good and thorough chapter which looked at love, especially AGAPE, in scripture from a synergistic viewpoint to counter Nygren's monergistic approach. The difference between the two would be asking "is one made to, or determined by, God to love God, or does one come to love God by God's grace, the love He shows, and who God is?" It makes a world of difference. Love can't be forced.
Ch. 5, Augustine and eros:
Augustine has influenced more Christians on Love than even Paul. This makes him one of the major players we want to investigate when exploring love. Because of Augustines definition of love as desire Oord is dealing with EROS here.
"Augustine's views offer assets and obstacles for a Christian theology of love."
The first key in understanding why love is desire in Augustine is that he believed:
"...there are two ways of relating to people and things: we either use them or enjoy them."
The things one uses serves them on the road to enjoyment. So what is to be enjoyed? God alone. What is to be desired? God alone. We should only seek to enjoy Him and all other things serve our being able to desire and enjoy God.
"'...we have to use this world, not enjoy it,'" sadly thought Augustine. One could use rocks or people to acquire this end. But you couldn't enjoy people or rocks. Personally I don't think Augustine had any friends.
Augustine's concepts seem strange to us if not just wrong. Scripture shows love as helping those in need, establishing friendships, forgiving wrongs--seeking the best for one--as loving. It wouldn't take long to discern from scripture that love as desire only for God is missing the intent. Sometimes one doesn't desire their neighbor or enemy.
This isn't to reject that desire can be in love, as Nygren did, but the totality of love is not desire.
"Love in scriptural typically pertains to doing good and seldom to desire."
Here's how we can locate desire in, not as, love: when we intend to seek/do the best for neighbor and enemy we can rightly say this intention is our desire, or, we desire the best for another. Nygren didn't have a problem rejecting desire because his theological determinism had God as the one who desired us to do X and predestined its happening before the world was created.
"Desiring God or the good is not the same as promoting well-being. We can long for God but kill our enemies. We can “put God first” while simultaneously destroying the creatures God cares about."
Ch. 6, classical theism and "because of" love:
Here Oord puts his eraser to Augustine's chalkboard upon which is scribbled his philosophical model of God. Augustine holds to a timeless (whatever that means), immutable (can't change), impassible (feels no emotion), and simple (not consisting of parts...so much for three persons).
Timelessness:
This view in classical theism believes the Divine experiences no sequence of events, moment by moment, or duration between events--pick your phrasing. Augustine actually says he doesn't know how to explain timelessness but "you got to trust me here, kid." OK, I created that last part like Augustine created the concept of timelessness. He thinks this leap is attributing extra glory to God when neglecting God's revelation in scripture and His self-revelation in Jesus.
"A time-full God interacts with time-full creatures in a time-full universe."
Immutability:
In keeping with Platonism Augustine believes that that which is permanent and eternal are ultimately good while that which can change is not. Or, if God is perfect then change would mean He is getting better or worse, in which case He wasn't perfect or He was but slid down. This view totally ignores any relational and incarnational view of God. This really begs for some nuance like "God's essence--His love...who God is--never changes while He does change in relationship and experience with His creatures."
Impassibility:
The above attribute against change logically leads to one against pain or joy. Augustine said that if God enjoys us He is in need of some of our good, but God can't need so we have nothing to offer the Divine. What can I say?--if God so loved the world then I'm afraid that is an emotion and the totality of the scriptural witness and the incarnation is against Impassibility.
Simplicity:
I guess this is easily understood as "God has no parts." In classical theism what it ends up meaning is that we can't say much about God, especially when impassibility, immutability and timelessness are dog piled on top. Where we end up is being able to say "God is." But there isn't much more about Him we can say.
"A simple God cannot do what love requires."
Here's where we land after all that: Classical theists must either stop making claims about God--Augustine noticed this--or give up these unscriptural concepts. Only when we see language about God as bi-directional where humans have a glimpse of what an attribute of God means, because there are similar concepts experienced by humanity, will we be able to speak meaningfully about (and to) God. And further: do you want to know what God is like?--look at the perfect reflection of Him in Jesus.
Oord wants us to expand our understanding of love--from God to us or from us to God--with EROS as "appreciating what is beautiful, worthwhile, or valuable." This fits nicely into "acting intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being."
Ch. 7, Open and Relational, essential Kenosis, and Amipotence:
In this chapter Oord gets into theodicy (all loving God exists and bad things happen, how/why?). This allows him to lay out a little background of Open and Relational Theology and what names it was classified under before coming into the mainstream around the 21st century before turning to the specifics of "open" and "relational."
He lands on God's love is the primary attribute and He is most fully revealed in Jesus. These are the two points one uses to establish an Open and Relational Theology and only once these two are established can one answer how evil things can happen if God is love.
God doesn't predestine or foreknowledge with certainty that evil will happen but he suffers with the victims when it does, and then he works to heal the wounded and hurting.
If Jesus reflects God and He is Kenotic (self emptying) then we see God as Kenotic. The question is "is God deliberately Kenotic or necessarily Kenotic?" If deliberately then during suffering we desire Him to not self empty and to "break through" to save us. If necessarily then He cant.
Where does Oord land?--Essential Kenosis. It answers the question of "where are you, God, when I'm suffering?" This is one place of tension between open and process theists. The important thing to remember in this tension is to be sympathetic to options you may one day find useful for people damaged by loss. Yep, tons of people going to disagree with this statement.
Ch. 8, Essential Hesed and "alongside of" love:
The Old Testament has a few words translated as love. The main players are AHAVAH and HESED. AHAVAH speaks to care, attachment, affection, love between friends or in a marriage, romantic feelings, human love for God (the shema) and love of neighbor. HESED speaks to continually doing good, covenantal love, devotion, faithfulness, goodwill, grace, love, loyal helpfulness, loyal kindness, mutual reciprocity, steadfast love, sure love, person to person love, and God's love.
We will stick with HESED for now. HESED mainly speaks to a covenant relationship. In that light, and similar to Essential Kenosis, can God freely break this, or should we take literally that "the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever?"
Pulling from Essential Hesed and the previous chapter Oord lands back at creatio ex nihilo, creation from nothing. Ex nihilo believes that there was a time when creation wasn't and God, using no preexistant matter (from nothing) made all that is. Oord, working from Essential Hesed, says if the live of the Lord endures forever then there was never a time when God wasn't creating. Eternally God has expressed His Hesed by loving His creation. This answer to ex nihilo creation is really speaking to "if God created the universe ex nihilo then why not a wall between an attacker and the victims?" Rather Oord believes in continual creation.
Turning back to the Greek of the New Testament Oord speaks to PHILIA. This form of love points strongly to friendship. As such, historically theology has avoided using this wors to speak to the God/human relationship because Impassibility eliminates changing to a friend from not-friend. The picture one gets in scripture is of God as friend and we should never hesitate to speak about Him as such.
Ch. 9, A Theology of Pluriform Love:
This is a summary chapter, but this caught my eye:
"Loves meaning is uniform, but it's expressions are Pluriform."
This was a great book to stress the love God has for us and our response to it in love. It is readable for process theists with much for the open theist. Or to be more specific, there wasn't so much process theology that an open theist would feel out of place. Not at all. The Christocentric and love focus would make this attractive to both schools of thought. (And both schools of thought need the other to keep challenging each other.)
#PluriformLove #OpenAndRelationalTheology #ProcessTheism #OpenTheism #ThomasJayOord #ThomasOord #TomOord
I got a chance to advance read Tom Oord's new book. Here are some thoughts as I go.
Preface:
Pluriform, as is in the title, is the wording Oord uses to state that love has multiple dimensions and expressions.
"Pluriform Love points to diversity."
Huqmanity and Divinity both have Pluriform Love. Divine love is aimed at community rather than God's glory as an end.
Ch. 1, Love Neglected:
When one reads scripture one finds that God is, and God's actions are, most often referred to in "love" language. God truly is love. Some modern theologians and biblical scholarship want to find work-arounds to minimize or eliminate love as a driving motif in scripture by using word count, or modern day misuse, and things of this nature. The issue is they have to overcome the expression of God in Christ and the Spirit in the Apostles. The actions in both instances are love. Modern misuse is no reason to remove the driving motif of scripture. Some want this driving or integrative motif to be power and believe that anything less than power attributed to God as primary is speaking ill about God. But when thisnis the case, when God is controlling all outcomes and actions, then one can't but lay every existence of sin and evil at the feet of the one who John says "is love," or our understanding of "love" has been wrong all along.
Our understanding of love has to be thought out with a Jesus focus: romance and sex can show love but stalkers and rapists have misdirected romantic infatuations and sexual expressions. Jesus call to live God/others/enemies doesn't look this way (though a long term, monogamous relationship can). Happy feelings from the brain?--well, yes, that happens but there is more. Helping enemies usually doesn't immediately give one the good feelings.
Historically many have tried to nail down "love" with words like "agape" or "holy." The problem is that "agape is Greek for "love" and if God is love then love is by nature "holy." Rather what we need is a working definition of "love." If we have no definition of what love consists of then we could be imprecise--or worse--in how we see love and apply it. So what is love?
Ch. 2, Love Defined:
Love: to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.
Starting with the end first, love seeks to do good, it's value positive. And Oord continues in this direction backing this definition with scripture. He takes a moment to speak to "love as desire." This definition can trace its roots back to Plato (as can so much theology). But "desire" sees rape as an act of love. So we once more have to question how we define love. Likewise love being equated with worship falls short of the definition of love; one doesn't worship "neighbors" and "enemies." Oord does a thorough job in defining love and grounding it as where one must begin with one's theology.
Ch. 3, Anders Nygren and AGAPE:
Since Nygren wrote his unbelievably popular book, Agape and Eros, the word Agape has become familiar to the "Christian in the pew" and even non Christians alike. It is seen as the holy form of love.
(Sidebar: love is obviously the English word we use which Oord defines above as "to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being." But scripture uses "AGAPE" and "PHILIA" which when interpreted end up as "love." Also in Greek there is EROS which isn't in scripture but means a romantic or sexual love. What Oord is doing here is defining "love" and then fine tuning how we read these Greek words which are interpreted "love.")
Nygren caused a split between agape and eros. But he never defined eros. So he has agape up on a pedestal as Divine love but he believes eros can not be of like stature. In fact he believes that eros draws us away from the mode Divine agape. The theological point here is Nygren sees agape as Divinity giving while eros is humanity giving. According to this old paradigm Divinity needs nothing from humanity and humanity "giving" anything suggests that Divinity doesn't do all the work. Personally speaking this sounds somewhat Gnostic with the love of the Divine (spiritual) and the love of the physical (unspiritual). The two can't meet because the flesh is evil.
Nygren also says his work is scriptural but with AGAPE and EROS being Greek he is either limiting his research to just the New Testament or the NT and LXX (the Greek translation of the OT). So he forgets about Hebrew "love" (HESED and AHAVAH) in his love research. Nygren later says that love in Hebrew was different and specific to the covenant relational people whereas AGAPE is for all people. Further, AGAPE was only the love from God but it couldn't be the human love to the Divine. But in Hebrew love is diverse finding friendship, romance, sacrifice, covenant, forgiveness, delight, sensuality and loyalty baked into it. In the NT Nygren believes God is beyond EROS, a desiring love, and PHILIA, a friendship love. And in the end man's proper response to the AGAPE of God is faith, not love says Nygren. He cuts a relationship off at the knees. He also ignores the many times God is said to desire, which Oord classifies as EROS, and the many times that man to God and God to man relationships are referred to as PHILIA.
Ch. 4, doing good, essentially loving, and "in spite of" love:
Oord spends time diving deep into the use of AGAPE in the gospels, and Paul, pointing out how each functions while contextualizing it. This is where we get a better idea of what Jesus and the evangelists intended when they used the word. It is only once we see how this word functioned that can we ascribe to it the definition "to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being" with confidence that we are reflecting the person of Christ.
"Love is logically primary in Gods essence."
This was a good and thorough chapter which looked at love, especially AGAPE, in scripture from a synergistic viewpoint to counter Nygren's monergistic approach. The difference between the two would be asking "is one made to, or determined by, God to love God, or does one come to love God by God's grace, the love He shows, and who God is?" It makes a world of difference. Love can't be forced.
Ch. 5, Augustine and eros:
Augustine has influenced more Christians on Love than even Paul. This makes him one of the major players we want to investigate when exploring love. Because of Augustines definition of love as desire Oord is dealing with EROS here.
"Augustine's views offer assets and obstacles for a Christian theology of love."
The first key in understanding why love is desire in Augustine is that he believed:
"...there are two ways of relating to people and things: we either use them or enjoy them."
The things one uses serves them on the road to enjoyment. So what is to be enjoyed? God alone. What is to be desired? God alone. We should only seek to enjoy Him and all other things serve our being able to desire and enjoy God.
"'...we have to use this world, not enjoy it,'" sadly thought Augustine. One could use rocks or people to acquire this end. But you couldn't enjoy people or rocks. Personally I don't think Augustine had any friends.
Augustine's concepts seem strange to us if not just wrong. Scripture shows love as helping those in need, establishing friendships, forgiving wrongs--seeking the best for one--as loving. It wouldn't take long to discern from scripture that love as desire only for God is missing the intent. Sometimes one doesn't desire their neighbor or enemy.
This isn't to reject that desire can be in love, as Nygren did, but the totality of love is not desire.
"Love in scriptural typically pertains to doing good and seldom to desire."
Here's how we can locate desire in, not as, love: when we intend to seek/do the best for neighbor and enemy we can rightly say this intention is our desire, or, we desire the best for another. Nygren didn't have a problem rejecting desire because his theological determinism had God as the one who desired us to do X and predestined its happening before the world was created.
"Desiring God or the good is not the same as promoting well-being. We can long for God but kill our enemies. We can “put God first” while simultaneously destroying the creatures God cares about."
Ch. 6, classical theism and "because of" love:
Here Oord puts his eraser to Augustine's chalkboard upon which is scribbled his philosophical model of God. Augustine holds to a timeless (whatever that means), immutable (can't change), impassible (feels no emotion), and simple (not consisting of parts...so much for three persons).
Timelessness:
This view in classical theism believes the Divine experiences no sequence of events, moment by moment, or duration between events--pick your phrasing. Augustine actually says he doesn't know how to explain timelessness but "you got to trust me here, kid." OK, I created that last part like Augustine created the concept of timelessness. He thinks this leap is attributing extra glory to God when neglecting God's revelation in scripture and His self-revelation in Jesus.
"A time-full God interacts with time-full creatures in a time-full universe."
Immutability:
In keeping with Platonism Augustine believes that that which is permanent and eternal are ultimately good while that which can change is not. Or, if God is perfect then change would mean He is getting better or worse, in which case He wasn't perfect or He was but slid down. This view totally ignores any relational and incarnational view of God. This really begs for some nuance like "God's essence--His love...who God is--never changes while He does change in relationship and experience with His creatures."
Impassibility:
The above attribute against change logically leads to one against pain or joy. Augustine said that if God enjoys us He is in need of some of our good, but God can't need so we have nothing to offer the Divine. What can I say?--if God so loved the world then I'm afraid that is an emotion and the totality of the scriptural witness and the incarnation is against Impassibility.
Simplicity:
I guess this is easily understood as "God has no parts." In classical theism what it ends up meaning is that we can't say much about God, especially when impassibility, immutability and timelessness are dog piled on top. Where we end up is being able to say "God is." But there isn't much more about Him we can say.
"A simple God cannot do what love requires."
Here's where we land after all that: Classical theists must either stop making claims about God--Augustine noticed this--or give up these unscriptural concepts. Only when we see language about God as bi-directional where humans have a glimpse of what an attribute of God means, because there are similar concepts experienced by humanity, will we be able to speak meaningfully about (and to) God. And further: do you want to know what God is like?--look at the perfect reflection of Him in Jesus.
Oord wants us to expand our understanding of love--from God to us or from us to God--with EROS as "appreciating what is beautiful, worthwhile, or valuable." This fits nicely into "acting intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being."
Ch. 7, Open and Relational, essential Kenosis, and Amipotence:
In this chapter Oord gets into theodicy (all loving God exists and bad things happen, how/why?). This allows him to lay out a little background of Open and Relational Theology and what names it was classified under before coming into the mainstream around the 21st century before turning to the specifics of "open" and "relational."
He lands on God's love is the primary attribute and He is most fully revealed in Jesus. These are the two points one uses to establish an Open and Relational Theology and only once these two are established can one answer how evil things can happen if God is love.
God doesn't predestine or foreknowledge with certainty that evil will happen but he suffers with the victims when it does, and then he works to heal the wounded and hurting.
If Jesus reflects God and He is Kenotic (self emptying) then we see God as Kenotic. The question is "is God deliberately Kenotic or necessarily Kenotic?" If deliberately then during suffering we desire Him to not self empty and to "break through" to save us. If necessarily then He cant.
Where does Oord land?--Essential Kenosis. It answers the question of "where are you, God, when I'm suffering?" This is one place of tension between open and process theists. The important thing to remember in this tension is to be sympathetic to options you may one day find useful for people damaged by loss. Yep, tons of people going to disagree with this statement.
Ch. 8, Essential Hesed and "alongside of" love:
The Old Testament has a few words translated as love. The main players are AHAVAH and HESED. AHAVAH speaks to care, attachment, affection, love between friends or in a marriage, romantic feelings, human love for God (the shema) and love of neighbor. HESED speaks to continually doing good, covenantal love, devotion, faithfulness, goodwill, grace, love, loyal helpfulness, loyal kindness, mutual reciprocity, steadfast love, sure love, person to person love, and God's love.
We will stick with HESED for now. HESED mainly speaks to a covenant relationship. In that light, and similar to Essential Kenosis, can God freely break this, or should we take literally that "the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever?"
Pulling from Essential Hesed and the previous chapter Oord lands back at creatio ex nihilo, creation from nothing. Ex nihilo believes that there was a time when creation wasn't and God, using no preexistant matter (from nothing) made all that is. Oord, working from Essential Hesed, says if the live of the Lord endures forever then there was never a time when God wasn't creating. Eternally God has expressed His Hesed by loving His creation. This answer to ex nihilo creation is really speaking to "if God created the universe ex nihilo then why not a wall between an attacker and the victims?" Rather Oord believes in continual creation.
Turning back to the Greek of the New Testament Oord speaks to PHILIA. This form of love points strongly to friendship. As such, historically theology has avoided using this wors to speak to the God/human relationship because Impassibility eliminates changing to a friend from not-friend. The picture one gets in scripture is of God as friend and we should never hesitate to speak about Him as such.
Ch. 9, A Theology of Pluriform Love:
This is a summary chapter, but this caught my eye:
"Loves meaning is uniform, but it's expressions are Pluriform."
This was a great book to stress the love God has for us and our response to it in love. It is readable for process theists with much for the open theist. Or to be more specific, there wasn't so much process theology that an open theist would feel out of place. Not at all. The Christocentric and love focus would make this attractive to both schools of thought. (And both schools of thought need the other to keep challenging each other.)
#PluriformLove #OpenAndRelationalTheology #ProcessTheism #OpenTheism #ThomasJayOord #ThomasOord #TomOord
September 23, 2023
This Amazing Book was released today, by my friend and mentor, Thomas Jay Oord. His books "The Uncontrolling Love of God”, God Can't" and "Open and Relational Theology" have helped shape and form my own theology of love.
In "Puriform Love", Oord contributes another groundbreaking element in Open and Relational theology, a definition of love that enables us to put love first, to make love primary, and to help fulfill the Christian goal to love. Love is central, and God is always loving.
I highly recommend this book for those who desire to understand and to pursue God's revolutionary love.
A few important quotes from the book:
"Most Christian theologies restrict divine love. According to many, God only expresses agape. According to others, God only expresses eros. Some theologies may say God expresses hesed but cannot affirm divine ahavah. Other theologians mix and match loves, depending on their philosophical and theological assumptions.
The theology I propose says God expresses agape, eros, philia, kenosis, ahavah, hesed, and more. Divine love is pluriform. Creatures can express these loves too. A theology of pluriform love aligns with how biblical writers use these love words and others. Rather than portraying God’s love as restricted or altogether different from creaturely love, the broad biblical witness points to similarities between God’s love and the love creatures express."
"Although love takes various forms, each shares the goal of promoting well-being. This means, for instance, God’s love for creation is action that seeks to promote creation’s well-being. Loving one another, neighbors, enemies, ourselves, strangers, and all creation means acting to promote overall well-being.
Love’s meaning is uniform, but its expressions are pluriform."
In "Puriform Love", Oord contributes another groundbreaking element in Open and Relational theology, a definition of love that enables us to put love first, to make love primary, and to help fulfill the Christian goal to love. Love is central, and God is always loving.
I highly recommend this book for those who desire to understand and to pursue God's revolutionary love.
A few important quotes from the book:
"Most Christian theologies restrict divine love. According to many, God only expresses agape. According to others, God only expresses eros. Some theologies may say God expresses hesed but cannot affirm divine ahavah. Other theologians mix and match loves, depending on their philosophical and theological assumptions.
The theology I propose says God expresses agape, eros, philia, kenosis, ahavah, hesed, and more. Divine love is pluriform. Creatures can express these loves too. A theology of pluriform love aligns with how biblical writers use these love words and others. Rather than portraying God’s love as restricted or altogether different from creaturely love, the broad biblical witness points to similarities between God’s love and the love creatures express."
"Although love takes various forms, each shares the goal of promoting well-being. This means, for instance, God’s love for creation is action that seeks to promote creation’s well-being. Loving one another, neighbors, enemies, ourselves, strangers, and all creation means acting to promote overall well-being.
Love’s meaning is uniform, but its expressions are pluriform."
June 8, 2022
Following in the tradition of The Uncontrolling Love of God and Open and Relational Theology, Pluriform Love contributes a definition of love to Oord's larger body of work. Though others have attempted to include love in their theology, Oord may be the first to do so in such a systematic fashion. As such, we need to be clear what love is. To understand love is the driving force of this book.
Pluriform Love is a helpful and much needed contribution both to Oord's larger body of work and to Christian theology as a whole.
Pluriform Love is a helpful and much needed contribution both to Oord's larger body of work and to Christian theology as a whole.
May 2, 2025
I honestly liked this better than the last one of Oords. I would maybe even agree with a lot of his conclusions and how he defines love from a biblical standpoint is super helpful. His critiques of the Augustinian view of love were very thought provoking. Overall enjoyed and super helpful book for an interesting way to view love as the mode with which God operates at at all times.
February 27, 2022
How central should love be to Christian theology? Is it at the core, the essence, or is it more peripheral? Down through the ages different theologians have emphasized different aspects of the theology so that with Luther and much of Protestantism, the core message is justification by grace through faith. Or is it obedience to the ways of God? Or is it love? After all, in 1 John, we're told that God is love. That should settle it. Of course, it doesn't, but that doesn't mean love is not the core.
One theologian who has placed love at the center of his theology is Tom Oord. Love is, for him, the essence of an open and relational theology. I have been reading and making use of Tom's works on love for many years. I regularly turn to his books Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement and The Nature of Love: A Theology. I have quoted these works in sermons, wedding homilies, and my own writings. More recently Tom has expanded his theological work, building on these earlier works to provide definitions of the nature of God from an Open and Relational Perspective and engage in theodicy -- God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. Now, Tom has expanded this conversation even further in Pluriform Love.
In many ways, this effort brings together all of what Oord has been working on for the past several decades. He addresses those who would either question the centrality of love (Richard Hays) or tries to define love in terms of Classical Theism, which Oord believes is untenable. How can you love if you are impassible, that is incapable of suffering or being in a relationship with another. Thus, he argues with Millard Erickson (an evangelical of Reformed background) and of course Augustine. This isn't the first time that Tom has engaged with Augustine whom he believes sets the tone for much Christian theology. In many ways that is true, but I will raise some questions about this later on. He also once again takes on Anders Nygren's take on Agape (Nygren insists that agape is the distinctively Christian form of love and rules out any other form).
As in other works, Tom offers a very definitive definition of love. He laments that the Bible does not do so, and thus we are left without foundations. So, he once again defines love in this way: "To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being." (p. 28). From there he adds modifiers so as to distinguish between agape, eros, and philia.
The structure of the book follows a definite line. We begin with Oord's charge that too often love is ignored or neglected -- see Hays and Erickson. Thus, he offers us a definition of love because Scripture is often unclear. From there we move to Nygren's work on agape, which Oord believes is insufficient because it's too narrow (ch. 3). Since Nygren's work on love is deemed insufficient for Oord's purposes, he spends chapter 4, expanding on his own thinking on agape, which he calls "in spite of love." He concludes that in the vast majority of cases in the New Testament, agape is understood in terms of "promoting well-being." His exploration of love also leads to the conclusion that God is "essentially loving." That is, God doesn't choose to love, but that love is God's essence so God loves of necessity.
As we move forward, things get trickier. In chapter 5, Tom takes on Augustine's definition of love as desire, and thus Augustine's use of eros. Tom's concern is that as Augustine lays things out, love is part of the equation, but defined in a way that Tom finds unworkable. In essence, the problem lies in Augustine's apparent belief that we do not love others for others' sake but for God's sake. In other words, in Augustine's hands love does not have to do with promoting well-being, which stands at the center of Oord's theology of love. Now Tom embraces the possibility of eros, but he feels that this definition by Augustine doesn't promote well-being. Instead, it envisions love as enjoying or using others. Yes, for God's sake, but not for the sake of others. That is not, in his mind, appropriate. I should note that in his discussion of Augustine, Oord also engages with James K. A. Smith, who speaks of us being what we love. That is, what we desire. Again, this is not about well-being. This line of discussion continues in chapter 6, where Oord engages more broadly the problem of classical theism, a task that is prominent in open and relational theology. Classical theism is understood to have roots in Greek/Hellenistic philosophy, especially forms of Platonism. Thus, in this view, God is timeless, immutable (unchanging), impassible (passionless and incapable of being influenced/affected from outside), and simple (God is one, without parts). In Oord's view to adopt Classical Theism is to rule out love in any true form. It is impossible to love as love requires a relationship.
These opening chapters that define and detail and argue for love being the essence of God form the foundation of the rest of the book in which Oord brings together other elements of his view of theology. So, in chapter 7, he brings into the conversation the broader concept of open and relational theology, "essential kenosis," and amipotence. The first piece has to do with the overall trajectory of his work, and that of others. He admits that it's a broad tent and not everyone is of the same mind (I count myself in this community, but I have my own differences as I'll relay later). When it comes to "essential kenosis," Oord offers it up as the key to his theodicy. He seeks to answer the question of the presence of evil but suggests that God, who is love, is not self-limited by choice, but by essence. In his view, love is noncoercive, thus God must respond to evil, not through force but persuasion. God opposes evil but needs our participation in order to respond. Finally, in order to address the charge that his view of God is impotent, he offers amipotence as the counter to omnipotence. God's power is love, which is noncoercive.
Early on, Tom makes it clear that he views the question of love through the lens of Jesus. At one point he seems to suggest that the understanding of love in the Old Testament is underdeveloped, but everything gets sorted out with Jesus. I was worried that some supersessionism would creep in, as I've seen it present in some forms of open and relational theology that focus on the supposed violence of the Old Testament God. Fortunately, that doesn't get developed too much here. Finally, in chapter 8, Tom engages with the Hebrew word Hesed, and he does so in conversation about the use of the word philia. The focus here is on the way in which hesed is defined in terms of everlasting love. That is, God's love endures forever, which is a constant refrain in the Psalms. Oord suggests that the way the word is used, suggests that "God always and necessarily loves creation." Therefore, he calls this "essential hesed." (p. 175). You will notice that Tom has a penchant for using the modifier "essential" when it comes to love and things related to love. It is here that he discusses love in the Old Testament. As part of this discussion, Tom turns to creation, more specifically his rejection of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). In his view, this view of theology lays the blame for evil at God's feet, for if God creates out of nothing then why doesn't God create in such a way that evil is not present. Thus, we see the importance of theodicy in this discussion. I'm not going to engage too deeply with this portion as I'm not well enough informed, and I find that Tom's construction of a theology of creation out of love difficult to get my head around. In other words, I'm not sure it solves the problem he's trying to deal with. Having worked through this concept, he concludes by looking at philia as "alongside of love." I would have liked to have seen these three topics separated into three different chapters since I think philia got short-changed.
The final chapter is a summation of what Oord has laid out, trying to pull together his Pluriform Love. In his view there is one love, that takes different forms (agape, eros, and philia). The goal here is offering a view of God that expresses itself as love.
I appreciate all that Tom has done here. He has worked hard to develop a distinctive theological vision that he believes is both biblical and theological sound. For the most part, I believe he is on the right track. I'm comfortable putting myself within the circle. However, I do have some concerns.
My first concern has to do with definitions. They are helpful and I regularly turn to them. But, they can become too restrictive. Could both Tom's vision of love as concerned about well-being and James Smith's view of desire or longing both be true. I must admit I found Smith's book You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit rather compelling. While I agree that Augustine's definition is restrictive, he does have some good things to say about love in some of his works, so it's not all bad. If felt that Tom was a bit unfair in his description of Paul Tillich's definition of love as "the drive towards the unity of the separated." (p. 35). I'm not sure that Tillich would disagree with Tom's concern for well-being. I could be wrong, but I felt he was unfair.
Secondly, I wonder about the audience. When dealing with Reformed theology, why choose Millard Erickson. He may be a popular evangelical, but I wouldn't put him at the top of the list of influential Reformed theologians. Why only mention Barth a time or two when Barth goes into great detail about love, including exploring 1 Corinthians 13. On the same track, I found it odd that Tom spoke of the Apostle John when it comes to the Gospel and Letters of John. Most scholars believe that the author of the Gospel and the author of the letter are not the same person, and most likely not the Apostle. This felt a bit too much like conservative evangelicalism. The question really here is the audience.
Finally, I would like to push on Tom's conversation partners. In this book and in previous ones he has taken on Augustine. That's understandable for Western Christians. That said, I believe that there is much to gain from engaging with eastern Christian writers. They are rooted in Greek thought but in ways different from Western Christians. When it comes to eros, it is interesting that a theologian as important as Maximus the Confessor makes great use of eros, even equating it with agape. So, I would suggest looking at Maximus and a more recent theologian/philosopher -- Christos Yannaras, especially, his book Person and Eros. I'm not saying that looking east will change Tom's trajectory, but it could enrich it. That is especially true of the idea prominent in orthodox thought about the distinction between the divine essence, which is unknowable/transcendent, and the uncreated divine energies. It is the divine energies, through which we encounter the love of God.
So, once again we can be glad at Tom's engagement with the centrality of love, even if we don't embrace every element of his project. If nothing else, as Christians we should be known by love as revealed in and through Jesus.
.
One theologian who has placed love at the center of his theology is Tom Oord. Love is, for him, the essence of an open and relational theology. I have been reading and making use of Tom's works on love for many years. I regularly turn to his books Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement and The Nature of Love: A Theology. I have quoted these works in sermons, wedding homilies, and my own writings. More recently Tom has expanded his theological work, building on these earlier works to provide definitions of the nature of God from an Open and Relational Perspective and engage in theodicy -- God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. Now, Tom has expanded this conversation even further in Pluriform Love.
In many ways, this effort brings together all of what Oord has been working on for the past several decades. He addresses those who would either question the centrality of love (Richard Hays) or tries to define love in terms of Classical Theism, which Oord believes is untenable. How can you love if you are impassible, that is incapable of suffering or being in a relationship with another. Thus, he argues with Millard Erickson (an evangelical of Reformed background) and of course Augustine. This isn't the first time that Tom has engaged with Augustine whom he believes sets the tone for much Christian theology. In many ways that is true, but I will raise some questions about this later on. He also once again takes on Anders Nygren's take on Agape (Nygren insists that agape is the distinctively Christian form of love and rules out any other form).
As in other works, Tom offers a very definitive definition of love. He laments that the Bible does not do so, and thus we are left without foundations. So, he once again defines love in this way: "To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being." (p. 28). From there he adds modifiers so as to distinguish between agape, eros, and philia.
The structure of the book follows a definite line. We begin with Oord's charge that too often love is ignored or neglected -- see Hays and Erickson. Thus, he offers us a definition of love because Scripture is often unclear. From there we move to Nygren's work on agape, which Oord believes is insufficient because it's too narrow (ch. 3). Since Nygren's work on love is deemed insufficient for Oord's purposes, he spends chapter 4, expanding on his own thinking on agape, which he calls "in spite of love." He concludes that in the vast majority of cases in the New Testament, agape is understood in terms of "promoting well-being." His exploration of love also leads to the conclusion that God is "essentially loving." That is, God doesn't choose to love, but that love is God's essence so God loves of necessity.
As we move forward, things get trickier. In chapter 5, Tom takes on Augustine's definition of love as desire, and thus Augustine's use of eros. Tom's concern is that as Augustine lays things out, love is part of the equation, but defined in a way that Tom finds unworkable. In essence, the problem lies in Augustine's apparent belief that we do not love others for others' sake but for God's sake. In other words, in Augustine's hands love does not have to do with promoting well-being, which stands at the center of Oord's theology of love. Now Tom embraces the possibility of eros, but he feels that this definition by Augustine doesn't promote well-being. Instead, it envisions love as enjoying or using others. Yes, for God's sake, but not for the sake of others. That is not, in his mind, appropriate. I should note that in his discussion of Augustine, Oord also engages with James K. A. Smith, who speaks of us being what we love. That is, what we desire. Again, this is not about well-being. This line of discussion continues in chapter 6, where Oord engages more broadly the problem of classical theism, a task that is prominent in open and relational theology. Classical theism is understood to have roots in Greek/Hellenistic philosophy, especially forms of Platonism. Thus, in this view, God is timeless, immutable (unchanging), impassible (passionless and incapable of being influenced/affected from outside), and simple (God is one, without parts). In Oord's view to adopt Classical Theism is to rule out love in any true form. It is impossible to love as love requires a relationship.
These opening chapters that define and detail and argue for love being the essence of God form the foundation of the rest of the book in which Oord brings together other elements of his view of theology. So, in chapter 7, he brings into the conversation the broader concept of open and relational theology, "essential kenosis," and amipotence. The first piece has to do with the overall trajectory of his work, and that of others. He admits that it's a broad tent and not everyone is of the same mind (I count myself in this community, but I have my own differences as I'll relay later). When it comes to "essential kenosis," Oord offers it up as the key to his theodicy. He seeks to answer the question of the presence of evil but suggests that God, who is love, is not self-limited by choice, but by essence. In his view, love is noncoercive, thus God must respond to evil, not through force but persuasion. God opposes evil but needs our participation in order to respond. Finally, in order to address the charge that his view of God is impotent, he offers amipotence as the counter to omnipotence. God's power is love, which is noncoercive.
Early on, Tom makes it clear that he views the question of love through the lens of Jesus. At one point he seems to suggest that the understanding of love in the Old Testament is underdeveloped, but everything gets sorted out with Jesus. I was worried that some supersessionism would creep in, as I've seen it present in some forms of open and relational theology that focus on the supposed violence of the Old Testament God. Fortunately, that doesn't get developed too much here. Finally, in chapter 8, Tom engages with the Hebrew word Hesed, and he does so in conversation about the use of the word philia. The focus here is on the way in which hesed is defined in terms of everlasting love. That is, God's love endures forever, which is a constant refrain in the Psalms. Oord suggests that the way the word is used, suggests that "God always and necessarily loves creation." Therefore, he calls this "essential hesed." (p. 175). You will notice that Tom has a penchant for using the modifier "essential" when it comes to love and things related to love. It is here that he discusses love in the Old Testament. As part of this discussion, Tom turns to creation, more specifically his rejection of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). In his view, this view of theology lays the blame for evil at God's feet, for if God creates out of nothing then why doesn't God create in such a way that evil is not present. Thus, we see the importance of theodicy in this discussion. I'm not going to engage too deeply with this portion as I'm not well enough informed, and I find that Tom's construction of a theology of creation out of love difficult to get my head around. In other words, I'm not sure it solves the problem he's trying to deal with. Having worked through this concept, he concludes by looking at philia as "alongside of love." I would have liked to have seen these three topics separated into three different chapters since I think philia got short-changed.
The final chapter is a summation of what Oord has laid out, trying to pull together his Pluriform Love. In his view there is one love, that takes different forms (agape, eros, and philia). The goal here is offering a view of God that expresses itself as love.
I appreciate all that Tom has done here. He has worked hard to develop a distinctive theological vision that he believes is both biblical and theological sound. For the most part, I believe he is on the right track. I'm comfortable putting myself within the circle. However, I do have some concerns.
My first concern has to do with definitions. They are helpful and I regularly turn to them. But, they can become too restrictive. Could both Tom's vision of love as concerned about well-being and James Smith's view of desire or longing both be true. I must admit I found Smith's book You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit rather compelling. While I agree that Augustine's definition is restrictive, he does have some good things to say about love in some of his works, so it's not all bad. If felt that Tom was a bit unfair in his description of Paul Tillich's definition of love as "the drive towards the unity of the separated." (p. 35). I'm not sure that Tillich would disagree with Tom's concern for well-being. I could be wrong, but I felt he was unfair.
Secondly, I wonder about the audience. When dealing with Reformed theology, why choose Millard Erickson. He may be a popular evangelical, but I wouldn't put him at the top of the list of influential Reformed theologians. Why only mention Barth a time or two when Barth goes into great detail about love, including exploring 1 Corinthians 13. On the same track, I found it odd that Tom spoke of the Apostle John when it comes to the Gospel and Letters of John. Most scholars believe that the author of the Gospel and the author of the letter are not the same person, and most likely not the Apostle. This felt a bit too much like conservative evangelicalism. The question really here is the audience.
Finally, I would like to push on Tom's conversation partners. In this book and in previous ones he has taken on Augustine. That's understandable for Western Christians. That said, I believe that there is much to gain from engaging with eastern Christian writers. They are rooted in Greek thought but in ways different from Western Christians. When it comes to eros, it is interesting that a theologian as important as Maximus the Confessor makes great use of eros, even equating it with agape. So, I would suggest looking at Maximus and a more recent theologian/philosopher -- Christos Yannaras, especially, his book Person and Eros. I'm not saying that looking east will change Tom's trajectory, but it could enrich it. That is especially true of the idea prominent in orthodox thought about the distinction between the divine essence, which is unknowable/transcendent, and the uncreated divine energies. It is the divine energies, through which we encounter the love of God.
So, once again we can be glad at Tom's engagement with the centrality of love, even if we don't embrace every element of his project. If nothing else, as Christians we should be known by love as revealed in and through Jesus.
.
February 24, 2022
I got an advanced copy of this book.
It is a continuation of the ideas in “Uncontrolling Love of God” by the same author.
Oord invites the reader to reconsider their presuppositions of love. This is a scholarly work, with many arguments against long held beliefs about love held by notable theologians, such as Augustine. The theodicy presented is the most compelling I’ve read.
“I propose we understand eros as a form of love that appreciates value. It acts intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being when appreciating what is beautiful, worthwhile, or valuable.”
Chapter 6
It is a continuation of the ideas in “Uncontrolling Love of God” by the same author.
Oord invites the reader to reconsider their presuppositions of love. This is a scholarly work, with many arguments against long held beliefs about love held by notable theologians, such as Augustine. The theodicy presented is the most compelling I’ve read.
“I propose we understand eros as a form of love that appreciates value. It acts intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being when appreciating what is beautiful, worthwhile, or valuable.”
Chapter 6
March 23, 2022
I appreciate much of Oords thoughts and his sharpness of argument. I love his aim towards a Theology of Love (personally I propose a Theology of Relationship, which is very close) and appreciate his focus on defining love well.
However, I still struggle with his most controversial claims - not mainly because they are not „orthodox“, but to me, in the last consequences, they do not make sense and I deem them unnecessary to his overall point towards a Theology of Love:
1. God MUST love seems to contradict his own claim/definition that love comes out of freedom, is uncontrolling and an intentional act. As such his „God cannot not love“ instead of „God will not not love“ in my view makes God‘s love smaller. (However, I think it is an interesting thought experiment)
2. God did NOT CREATE out of NOTHING. To me most of his thought-line makes sense - but not in the final consequence. Philosophically then - at least to my mind - there has to be at the very beginning (whenever that is) something other than God that existed alongside God that was not created. To me this is a problem. Furthermore, I think this toughtline is not necessary for a consequential theology of love.
However, I still struggle with his most controversial claims - not mainly because they are not „orthodox“, but to me, in the last consequences, they do not make sense and I deem them unnecessary to his overall point towards a Theology of Love:
1. God MUST love seems to contradict his own claim/definition that love comes out of freedom, is uncontrolling and an intentional act. As such his „God cannot not love“ instead of „God will not not love“ in my view makes God‘s love smaller. (However, I think it is an interesting thought experiment)
2. God did NOT CREATE out of NOTHING. To me most of his thought-line makes sense - but not in the final consequence. Philosophically then - at least to my mind - there has to be at the very beginning (whenever that is) something other than God that existed alongside God that was not created. To me this is a problem. Furthermore, I think this toughtline is not necessary for a consequential theology of love.
February 25, 2022
A compelling social ethic
Envisioning cosmic flourishing through the more excellent way
Make no mistake: this book is far more than a just a sequel to Oord’s past works; though it immediately builds on his 2015 monograph The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (IVP Academic). In what follows, I describe four main aims this book pursues as a historically watershed, constructive theology of love. These I call its pastoral, apologetic, constructive theology, and visionary social ethic aims.
Pastoral aim
First, Oord’s book provides a helpfully pastoral framework for not only making sense of life’s painful experiences, tragedies and losses, but moreover suggests practical steps towards lovingly ministering healing actions towards those suffering such experiences, while laboring with God for a more flourishing world.
Apologetic aim
Second, this persuasively articulated theology of God’s pluriform love provides a timely apologetic for Christian faith and its unique beliefs about God and creation in manners highly resonant with contemporary scientific cosmology and emerging understandings of the universe.
Constructive theology aim – theology of pluriform love
This book’s third aim significantly forwards earlier developments within what is commonly known as open/relational theism coupled with Oord’s earlier thesis that uncontrolling love characterizes an open theistic theology of God, into two new directions. First a christologically grounded theology and second, as I would describe it— a missional practice of love that synergistically labors with God towards human and creational flourishing.
Visionary social ethic aim
Finally, Oord presents a visionary social ethic grounded in his theology of pluriform love. For, “To love is to promote overall well-being in . . . many ways” as varied social needs before us, call us towards discerning the most wisely appropriate, loving action. He thus concludes his book stressing that, “Thanks to God’s pluriform love, we can” – and should as co-laborers with Him –– “express pluriform love”.
Let me elaborate a bit more here. Early on as I was reading through the book’s first two chapters where Oord delineates his definition of love, I realized that Oord has essentially constructed a theology of love within or against the backdrop of Aristotelian philosophical tradition.
How Oord is surely going in directions counter to Aristotle, who posited excellence (virtue) as a “mean between extremes” with all people flourishing as far as they can within their own designated social roles/statuses. For what I see him doing, particularly when he discusses “common good flourishing,” is envisioning a communally held notion of flourishing that breaks those commonly instituted boundaries; though he has not actually explored this trajectory. Yet, I find his arguments implicitly reaching towards this theme, and that it is his book’s logical outcome of pluriform love.
If I have rightly discerned Oord’s envisioned social ethic, then he is thereby clarifying love as wisdom (phronesis): learned virtuous behaviors that make for common good flourishing. Hence, he calls us to recognize love as the way of excellence.
As I consider his definition of "love" ("To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being"), that Oord is in fact offering a very significant new proposal to the field of virtue-ethics and its focus on what makes for human/creational flourishing. As I see it, the specific thing he is doing is envisioning love as and its telos as— the chief "virtue" that makes for flourishing.
Therefore, in Aristotelian language, Oord’s pluriform love theology posits love as "the more excellent way”; namely, those virtuous practices that best make for common good flourishing. Presuming that "pluriform" designates a never-ending plethora of diverse "love practices" each wisely discerned contingent to emerging needs, challenges, yet also historically emerging possibilities and potential for flourishing that thereby sets forth a "practical wisdom" (phronesis) for common good flourishing.
Concluding thoughts
Let me close by stating that it seems to me that when framed within Oord’s passionately pursued broader agenda towards mainstreaming core theological themes of open/relational theology, we can readily see how a robust theology and missional practice of pluriform love is indeed on one hand the logical outcome of open/relational theology, while open/relational theism thus appears as the logical outcome of this love theology. Both thus seem thoroughly integrated and necessary facets to the positing love as the chief and one true immutable attribute of God. God’s uncontrolling love is indeed— His almighty power for healing and perfecting creation towards His saving aims.
Finally, notice the name, SacraSage; publisher of this book and an expanding array of similar open/relational theological works; a name that signifies, holy wise one. Moreover, its website states its publishing aim as “the service of wisdom.” Hence, its very name confirms my observation that Oord envisions pluriform love as the wise way of excellence that shall lead us to cosmic common good flourishing. He is indeed doing all he can for fostering a global “love movement” for healing the world and perhaps cause a rising “civilization of love.” In the way of Jesus, may his movement across the earth— flourish.
Envisioning cosmic flourishing through the more excellent way
Make no mistake: this book is far more than a just a sequel to Oord’s past works; though it immediately builds on his 2015 monograph The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (IVP Academic). In what follows, I describe four main aims this book pursues as a historically watershed, constructive theology of love. These I call its pastoral, apologetic, constructive theology, and visionary social ethic aims.
Pastoral aim
First, Oord’s book provides a helpfully pastoral framework for not only making sense of life’s painful experiences, tragedies and losses, but moreover suggests practical steps towards lovingly ministering healing actions towards those suffering such experiences, while laboring with God for a more flourishing world.
Apologetic aim
Second, this persuasively articulated theology of God’s pluriform love provides a timely apologetic for Christian faith and its unique beliefs about God and creation in manners highly resonant with contemporary scientific cosmology and emerging understandings of the universe.
Constructive theology aim – theology of pluriform love
This book’s third aim significantly forwards earlier developments within what is commonly known as open/relational theism coupled with Oord’s earlier thesis that uncontrolling love characterizes an open theistic theology of God, into two new directions. First a christologically grounded theology and second, as I would describe it— a missional practice of love that synergistically labors with God towards human and creational flourishing.
Visionary social ethic aim
Finally, Oord presents a visionary social ethic grounded in his theology of pluriform love. For, “To love is to promote overall well-being in . . . many ways” as varied social needs before us, call us towards discerning the most wisely appropriate, loving action. He thus concludes his book stressing that, “Thanks to God’s pluriform love, we can” – and should as co-laborers with Him –– “express pluriform love”.
Let me elaborate a bit more here. Early on as I was reading through the book’s first two chapters where Oord delineates his definition of love, I realized that Oord has essentially constructed a theology of love within or against the backdrop of Aristotelian philosophical tradition.
How Oord is surely going in directions counter to Aristotle, who posited excellence (virtue) as a “mean between extremes” with all people flourishing as far as they can within their own designated social roles/statuses. For what I see him doing, particularly when he discusses “common good flourishing,” is envisioning a communally held notion of flourishing that breaks those commonly instituted boundaries; though he has not actually explored this trajectory. Yet, I find his arguments implicitly reaching towards this theme, and that it is his book’s logical outcome of pluriform love.
If I have rightly discerned Oord’s envisioned social ethic, then he is thereby clarifying love as wisdom (phronesis): learned virtuous behaviors that make for common good flourishing. Hence, he calls us to recognize love as the way of excellence.
As I consider his definition of "love" ("To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being"), that Oord is in fact offering a very significant new proposal to the field of virtue-ethics and its focus on what makes for human/creational flourishing. As I see it, the specific thing he is doing is envisioning love as and its telos as— the chief "virtue" that makes for flourishing.
Therefore, in Aristotelian language, Oord’s pluriform love theology posits love as "the more excellent way”; namely, those virtuous practices that best make for common good flourishing. Presuming that "pluriform" designates a never-ending plethora of diverse "love practices" each wisely discerned contingent to emerging needs, challenges, yet also historically emerging possibilities and potential for flourishing that thereby sets forth a "practical wisdom" (phronesis) for common good flourishing.
Concluding thoughts
Let me close by stating that it seems to me that when framed within Oord’s passionately pursued broader agenda towards mainstreaming core theological themes of open/relational theology, we can readily see how a robust theology and missional practice of pluriform love is indeed on one hand the logical outcome of open/relational theology, while open/relational theism thus appears as the logical outcome of this love theology. Both thus seem thoroughly integrated and necessary facets to the positing love as the chief and one true immutable attribute of God. God’s uncontrolling love is indeed— His almighty power for healing and perfecting creation towards His saving aims.
Finally, notice the name, SacraSage; publisher of this book and an expanding array of similar open/relational theological works; a name that signifies, holy wise one. Moreover, its website states its publishing aim as “the service of wisdom.” Hence, its very name confirms my observation that Oord envisions pluriform love as the wise way of excellence that shall lead us to cosmic common good flourishing. He is indeed doing all he can for fostering a global “love movement” for healing the world and perhaps cause a rising “civilization of love.” In the way of Jesus, may his movement across the earth— flourish.
February 24, 2022
Pluriform Love by Tom Oord is a work of academic theology. Oord is in dialogue with Christian thinkers, past and present, about the nature of love, the nature of God, and the meaning of human and divine life. Some of the details and players in this debate won’t interest most people, but the topics are vital for us all.
I remember the first time I heard someone suggest that what God most loved was God’s own glory. I was in my very early twenties, just a few faltering years into consciously seeking to follow Jesus as a beloved child of God. I was shocked. That self-absorbed image of God didn’t seem right for a God who in the scriptures so often seemed devoted in love to God’s creation. It didn’t fit my experience or hopes of God either. The person continued, though, saying that God seeks others’ good so we will give God glory. And if this sounds selfish to us, we are misunderstanding God’s worth. God is right to love first because God is the only one who is worthy of this form of self-love, or truly worthy of any complete love or worship. In this logic, human destiny is to join God in adoration of God’s perfect beauty. While this argument had a kind of logical coherence, it struck me as ugly and cold. Still does. I could see how one would make this case from parts of the Bible, but it evoked neither love nor worship in me. Still doesn’t.
We can talk about God, and we can talk about love, and we can use the Bible as we do so but miss the mark badly.
Tom Oord’s latest book Pluriform Love helps us talk and think about God and love better. Oord centers love in his reading of the scriptures, his understanding of God, and his sense of the opportunity and call of humanity as well.
In his centering of love, Oord helps us understand God better, welcome God’s love more fully, and live with wholehearted love ourselves more deeply.
Oord describes New Testament teaching on love, which is often captured in three Greek words - agape, eros, and philia. Broadly, these three words correspond to self-giving love, desire or romantic love, and affection or friendship love. Much traditional teaching has claimed that only agape is truly Christian love. This teaching says that while God seeks creation’s highest good, God doesn’t desire creation, need creation, or experience friendly affection toward creation. Oord teases out some of the roots of this dysfunctional, degrading view of both love and God in critiques of a couple of enormously influential Christian theologians.
Instead, Oord discusses how love is not only central in scripture but it is pluriform - present in different types and qualities, both in God and in the rest of creation. Oord brings this New Testament teaching into harmony with Old Testament teaching on love, particularly in the beautiful word hesed, referring to the loyal, affectionate, heartfelt love God shares with creation.
Oord also centers love as the central quality of God. “Love is a necessary attribute in the divine nature,” he writes, meaning God can not be anything other than loving. While God’s experience changes in relationship with creation, God’s essential quality as loving is unchanging.
Oord critiques Augustinian understandings of love and of God as limited. Augustine, and most Christian theologians following, have believed God to be timeless, immutable, and impassible.
In contrast, Oord argues God is time-full, living in time in relationship with all of creation that definitionally experience time as well. While God’s essential qualities may not change, God’s experience does change, as love and relationship require change. God feels and suffers, is the “most moved mover”, not the “unmoved mover.”
While this is a work of philosophical theology, focused on the nature of God and definitions of love, we are also invited to participate in the same pluriform love expressed by God.
Oord defines love this way. “To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.” The emphasis on action, relationship, and well-being all characterize God’s love as well as true love among people. We are all invited in our lives to pluriform love: to live in rich relationships of giving and receiving in which we act intentionally to promote overall well-being, our own, others, God’s, and all of creations. This love will take many qualities and forms, but is always our best and most joyful call.
There are things that Pluriform Love is not but perhaps could be. Oord presents an almost exclusively Christian read on hesed in Ch. 8, rather than engaging Jewish scholars on this critical word and the themes and qualities of the divine it evokes in the Hebrew scriptures.
Oord also doesn’t meaningfully engage the contributions of liberation theology, integrating a theology of love with modern theologies of liberation and justice.
These are important issues, and so - as with all good things, even perfectly good things - this book could grow in its perfection.
As what it is, though. Pluriform Love is an insightful, helpful, even beautiful book on the nature of God and the nature of the love God has for us all and to which we are invited to receive and give and express in many ways our whole lives long.
I remember the first time I heard someone suggest that what God most loved was God’s own glory. I was in my very early twenties, just a few faltering years into consciously seeking to follow Jesus as a beloved child of God. I was shocked. That self-absorbed image of God didn’t seem right for a God who in the scriptures so often seemed devoted in love to God’s creation. It didn’t fit my experience or hopes of God either. The person continued, though, saying that God seeks others’ good so we will give God glory. And if this sounds selfish to us, we are misunderstanding God’s worth. God is right to love first because God is the only one who is worthy of this form of self-love, or truly worthy of any complete love or worship. In this logic, human destiny is to join God in adoration of God’s perfect beauty. While this argument had a kind of logical coherence, it struck me as ugly and cold. Still does. I could see how one would make this case from parts of the Bible, but it evoked neither love nor worship in me. Still doesn’t.
We can talk about God, and we can talk about love, and we can use the Bible as we do so but miss the mark badly.
Tom Oord’s latest book Pluriform Love helps us talk and think about God and love better. Oord centers love in his reading of the scriptures, his understanding of God, and his sense of the opportunity and call of humanity as well.
In his centering of love, Oord helps us understand God better, welcome God’s love more fully, and live with wholehearted love ourselves more deeply.
Oord describes New Testament teaching on love, which is often captured in three Greek words - agape, eros, and philia. Broadly, these three words correspond to self-giving love, desire or romantic love, and affection or friendship love. Much traditional teaching has claimed that only agape is truly Christian love. This teaching says that while God seeks creation’s highest good, God doesn’t desire creation, need creation, or experience friendly affection toward creation. Oord teases out some of the roots of this dysfunctional, degrading view of both love and God in critiques of a couple of enormously influential Christian theologians.
Instead, Oord discusses how love is not only central in scripture but it is pluriform - present in different types and qualities, both in God and in the rest of creation. Oord brings this New Testament teaching into harmony with Old Testament teaching on love, particularly in the beautiful word hesed, referring to the loyal, affectionate, heartfelt love God shares with creation.
Oord also centers love as the central quality of God. “Love is a necessary attribute in the divine nature,” he writes, meaning God can not be anything other than loving. While God’s experience changes in relationship with creation, God’s essential quality as loving is unchanging.
Oord critiques Augustinian understandings of love and of God as limited. Augustine, and most Christian theologians following, have believed God to be timeless, immutable, and impassible.
In contrast, Oord argues God is time-full, living in time in relationship with all of creation that definitionally experience time as well. While God’s essential qualities may not change, God’s experience does change, as love and relationship require change. God feels and suffers, is the “most moved mover”, not the “unmoved mover.”
While this is a work of philosophical theology, focused on the nature of God and definitions of love, we are also invited to participate in the same pluriform love expressed by God.
Oord defines love this way. “To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.” The emphasis on action, relationship, and well-being all characterize God’s love as well as true love among people. We are all invited in our lives to pluriform love: to live in rich relationships of giving and receiving in which we act intentionally to promote overall well-being, our own, others, God’s, and all of creations. This love will take many qualities and forms, but is always our best and most joyful call.
There are things that Pluriform Love is not but perhaps could be. Oord presents an almost exclusively Christian read on hesed in Ch. 8, rather than engaging Jewish scholars on this critical word and the themes and qualities of the divine it evokes in the Hebrew scriptures.
Oord also doesn’t meaningfully engage the contributions of liberation theology, integrating a theology of love with modern theologies of liberation and justice.
These are important issues, and so - as with all good things, even perfectly good things - this book could grow in its perfection.
As what it is, though. Pluriform Love is an insightful, helpful, even beautiful book on the nature of God and the nature of the love God has for us all and to which we are invited to receive and give and express in many ways our whole lives long.
February 22, 2022
Thomas Jay Oord’s new book, Pluriform Love, does what is desperately needed—it systematizes an open and relational logic of love in a succinct and academic fashion. Open and relational theism, as Oord himself says, fits into a multiplicity of gloves—but, most notably, adherents of process thought, panentheism, and forms of liberation theology will find themselves resonating with this particular work (though he does mention that putting love first has the ability “transform” both the above expressions and more fundamentalist Evangelical theologies).
For those unfamiliar with open and relational thought, Oord’s book is a welcome introductory voice. While this present volume is framed as an academic work, it is a rather small book and makes use of short paragraphs containing an average of only two sentences, keeping it relatively accessible to unfamiliar audiences. “Open,” in essence, relates to God’s openness to future events (meaning neither God’s nor the world’s futures are predestined). And “relational” refers to God’s willingness to act within the open timeline of reality. Practically speaking, things like prayer are valuable in such a framework because God has the ability to move within the openness of reality in a relational fashion.
While this book is one that frames open and relational thought, it primarily focuses in on love as the lynchpin which binds the framework. More specifically, the plurality of forms which love can take (hence the book’s apt title). That said, Oord, as a Christian, is interested not only in love's present philosophical status, but also in the forms it takes in the Bible and, subsequently, modern theology. He points out, however, that what the Christian scriptures say about love is “not as straightforward as many think.” Oord presents two major categories for love, saying that a “holistic account of [human] love includes, but goes beyond, sacrifice, sex, desire, friendship, generosity, compassion, and more.” While “divine love is compassionate, involves forgiveness, repays evil with good, delights in beauty, rejoices in the good, and enjoys a good joke.” A key here to understanding Oord’s persuasion comes, however, right after these definitions—"God’s love is not altogether different from ours,” as love is, in essence, something which “aims to do good.” Beautiful stuff.
The meat of Pluriform Love is entangled in tangling various literary versions of love (generally in their Greek form) from their oft-separated situations into a single thesis encapsulated by the book’s title. Like any academic work, Oord takes ample time to debate with the work of others: Millard Erickson, Richard Hays, Saint Augustine, and even Martin Luther, just to name a few of the most enjoyable—it is here that Oord makes a clear division between himself and these other thinkers.
It is worth noting that Oord cites my recent book, Only Love, as an accessible account of the primacy of love, so I feel at liberty to disagree, in part, with a parameter of love he defines: that “Love is inherently relational.” Now, I don’t disagree with the parameter in and of itself, love that does not expand (i.e. is relational) to include more and more of what is to be loved, on an infinite scale, is not really love. But Oord goes on to say that love requires at least two “individuals” to operate. Frankly, I understand why he included this caveat to his definition, as it will aid in his appeal to classical theists, so perhaps that is why he has included it. But for my part, I could easily live alone, entirely isolated, deep in the mountains of, say, the Yukon, and find that I love the tree which provides me with summertime shade, the stream from which I draw water, or the birds who provide me with song. I understand Oord’s focus on human and/or divine love (heck, that’s all I really mentioned in Only Love), as I suppose no one wants to sound too panentheistic, but I don’t think a panentheistic reading underpins the “relational” aspect of the case being made in the book—perhaps it would even accentuate it.
All said, while I thoroughly enjoyed his new book, having read some of Oord’s other work, this volume isn’t particularly groundbreaking; which means perhaps it shouldn’t receive a perfect five-stars. Yet, I have given it that chief rating as what it does is succinctly gather much of his past work together into an accessible companion on the matter. Meaning that, if I had to pick only one of Oord’s many books to recommend to curious readers, be they the scholarly type or no, Pluriform Love would take the cake.
— Niq Ruud, niqruud.com/remarks
For those unfamiliar with open and relational thought, Oord’s book is a welcome introductory voice. While this present volume is framed as an academic work, it is a rather small book and makes use of short paragraphs containing an average of only two sentences, keeping it relatively accessible to unfamiliar audiences. “Open,” in essence, relates to God’s openness to future events (meaning neither God’s nor the world’s futures are predestined). And “relational” refers to God’s willingness to act within the open timeline of reality. Practically speaking, things like prayer are valuable in such a framework because God has the ability to move within the openness of reality in a relational fashion.
While this book is one that frames open and relational thought, it primarily focuses in on love as the lynchpin which binds the framework. More specifically, the plurality of forms which love can take (hence the book’s apt title). That said, Oord, as a Christian, is interested not only in love's present philosophical status, but also in the forms it takes in the Bible and, subsequently, modern theology. He points out, however, that what the Christian scriptures say about love is “not as straightforward as many think.” Oord presents two major categories for love, saying that a “holistic account of [human] love includes, but goes beyond, sacrifice, sex, desire, friendship, generosity, compassion, and more.” While “divine love is compassionate, involves forgiveness, repays evil with good, delights in beauty, rejoices in the good, and enjoys a good joke.” A key here to understanding Oord’s persuasion comes, however, right after these definitions—"God’s love is not altogether different from ours,” as love is, in essence, something which “aims to do good.” Beautiful stuff.
The meat of Pluriform Love is entangled in tangling various literary versions of love (generally in their Greek form) from their oft-separated situations into a single thesis encapsulated by the book’s title. Like any academic work, Oord takes ample time to debate with the work of others: Millard Erickson, Richard Hays, Saint Augustine, and even Martin Luther, just to name a few of the most enjoyable—it is here that Oord makes a clear division between himself and these other thinkers.
It is worth noting that Oord cites my recent book, Only Love, as an accessible account of the primacy of love, so I feel at liberty to disagree, in part, with a parameter of love he defines: that “Love is inherently relational.” Now, I don’t disagree with the parameter in and of itself, love that does not expand (i.e. is relational) to include more and more of what is to be loved, on an infinite scale, is not really love. But Oord goes on to say that love requires at least two “individuals” to operate. Frankly, I understand why he included this caveat to his definition, as it will aid in his appeal to classical theists, so perhaps that is why he has included it. But for my part, I could easily live alone, entirely isolated, deep in the mountains of, say, the Yukon, and find that I love the tree which provides me with summertime shade, the stream from which I draw water, or the birds who provide me with song. I understand Oord’s focus on human and/or divine love (heck, that’s all I really mentioned in Only Love), as I suppose no one wants to sound too panentheistic, but I don’t think a panentheistic reading underpins the “relational” aspect of the case being made in the book—perhaps it would even accentuate it.
All said, while I thoroughly enjoyed his new book, having read some of Oord’s other work, this volume isn’t particularly groundbreaking; which means perhaps it shouldn’t receive a perfect five-stars. Yet, I have given it that chief rating as what it does is succinctly gather much of his past work together into an accessible companion on the matter. Meaning that, if I had to pick only one of Oord’s many books to recommend to curious readers, be they the scholarly type or no, Pluriform Love would take the cake.
— Niq Ruud, niqruud.com/remarks
March 17, 2022
I found Thomas Oord's discussion of love thoroughly fascinating and compelling. If God is love, then we can study no other thing as important as love. And Oord does a marvelous job working through many nuances of this most important topic.
Although I agree with much of his conclusions about love, he did not convince me on all of the various scaffolds he used to build his conclusions about love (such as essential kenosis, and our universe existing eternally). Those points aside, this book has added important insight and texture to my understandings of agape, eros, hesed, and philia.
Great work!
Although I agree with much of his conclusions about love, he did not convince me on all of the various scaffolds he used to build his conclusions about love (such as essential kenosis, and our universe existing eternally). Those points aside, this book has added important insight and texture to my understandings of agape, eros, hesed, and philia.
Great work!
May 29, 2022
A great book on the multi aspects (Pluriform) of love from an open and relational perspective. He tackles topics like defining love (To love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being), agape and critiques of classical descriptions, criticisms of Augustine’s approach to love, examines shortcomings in classical theism. Then he examines essential kenosis love and introduces essential hessed love (alongside of love). I found the book well reasoned, thorough and easy to follow along the arguments.
March 1, 2022
What is the definition of God's love?
Thomas Jay Oord does it again with this excellent book. Do we dare more into a theology based in the love of God without defining what that even means? Thomas deftly dismantles some misconceptions of the nature of God's love and how it has been defined by both "church fathers" and "contemporary theologians". Thomas takes us on a journey through some misguided ideas of the nature of God's love for us, others, and the cosmos. Love is a combined effort that invites us to along the journey. Love is relational. Love is intentional. Love mus at its core promote an overall well-being for all humanity.
Thomas Jay Oord does it again with this excellent book. Do we dare more into a theology based in the love of God without defining what that even means? Thomas deftly dismantles some misconceptions of the nature of God's love and how it has been defined by both "church fathers" and "contemporary theologians". Thomas takes us on a journey through some misguided ideas of the nature of God's love for us, others, and the cosmos. Love is a combined effort that invites us to along the journey. Love is relational. Love is intentional. Love mus at its core promote an overall well-being for all humanity.
July 19, 2022
God is Love!
This book took me awhile to get through, but it was so worth it! I agree with Oord that if God is love, love should be at the center of our theology. He does a great job of showing the different forms of love throughout scripture and the relational aspect of God’s love.
This book took me awhile to get through, but it was so worth it! I agree with Oord that if God is love, love should be at the center of our theology. He does a great job of showing the different forms of love throughout scripture and the relational aspect of God’s love.
May 25, 2022
Excellent book ,describing all the ways God loves us. For those who don't usually read theological books, read the last chapter first and then start back at the beginning . You will feel loved after reading this book.
December 30, 2024
An overview of the words used in Scripture that we translate as "love," and a well thought-out argument for God's love being inclusive of these traits. God's love is pluriform, and our love is (or should be) a reflection and imitation of God's love.
March 7, 2022
An excellent and much needed open and relational corrective to the defects of classical theism and its concepts of love, especially as expressed by Augustine and Nygren.
May 9, 2023
Really good book. I gave it four stars because for me it was a bit redundant at times, rather like flogging a dead horse. Other than that, it was oitstanding!
October 2, 2025
Love
What is Gods love and how do we separate the different types of love. A book that makes clear the difference when it comes to viewing ours and Gods love.
What is Gods love and how do we separate the different types of love. A book that makes clear the difference when it comes to viewing ours and Gods love.
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