Roger Olson - Is God Infinite or Personal? The Rise of Boston Personalism as Foundation to (but different from) Process Theology and Revival in Open and Relational Theology

Is God Finite?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2017/07/is-god-finite/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=BRSS&utm_campaign=Evangelical&utm_content=259#

by Roger Olson
July 23, 2017

Most Christians in the middle or to the “right” of the middle of the Christian theological spectrum will automatically recoil at the question “Is God finite?” The knee-jerk reaction even I feel is “No, of course not. What a silly question.” On the other hand, when asked to explain God’s infinity many such Christians (middle to right of the theological spectrum) have some difficulty. “Unlimited?” “Eternal?” “Omnipotent?” All are answers one hears as attempts to pin down what “infinite” means in relation to God.

To the best of my knowledge, however, nobody thinks or can show that the Bible itself actually says God is “infinite.” The word itself simply means “not finite.” But what does “finite” mean?

This became a divisive issue among European Christians especially during the so-called “Atheismusstreit” (atheism controversy) that broke out in German universities in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The person who launched it was philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte who argued that God can either be infinite or personal but not both. Fichte’s claim possibly cloaked an atheistic intention; it’s somewhat difficult to tell as atheism was illegal at that time and place.

Perhaps the most important legacy of Fichte was G. W. F. Hegel who, after Fichte, tried to “fix” the problems Fichte and others raised about God and defined God as “Absolute Spirit” and the “wahrhaft Unendliche” (“true infinite”) that includes the finite in itself.

Now jump to the early 20th century. One of the nearly forgotten but very influential Christian philosophers of religion throughout the early and middle 20th century was Edgar Sheffield Brightman (d. 1953) who taught at Methodist-related Boston University. Brightman was very interested in theology and sought to reconstruct the Christian idea of God to make it fit the facts of experience more adequately. He launched a brief movement called “Boston Personalism” that was eventually replaced, for most liberal-leaning Protestants in the U.S., by Process Theology. (Here it might be helpful to note that Brightman was Martin Luther King’s mentor at BU during his doctoral studies there.)

Over the years I have heard of Brightman and Boston Personalism and read some secondary sources (book chapters, journal articles) about him and it. But I never, until recently, actually dipped into a primary source. Because of a recent challenge to do so, by a philosopher of religion influenced by Brightman and Boston Personalism, I bought the “classic” of Boston Personalism at a used bookstore and read it. The book is The Problem of God by Brightman published by Abingdon Press (the Methodist publishing house) in 1930.

Here I do not have space to go into all the “ins” and “outs” of Brightman’s (and Boston Personalism’s) idea of God. I will just mention a few points I found interesting and say that I found them interesting partly because I think they left a lasting impression that is not directly connected with Process Theology. (Most scholars of modern theology seem to think that Brightman laid the foundation for Process Theology’s later rise and replacement of Boston Personalism as the “theology of choice” among liberal-learning Protestants in America.) In other words, I “hear” and read echoes of Brightman’s view of God as “finite” elsewhere—not only among Process theologians and those influenced by A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

In The Problem of God Brightman argues at some length, but in winsome style (the book is really very easy to read), that throughout the history of thought about God (especially but not only Christian) there has been a back and forth tendency that he calls “expansion” and “contraction.” The expansion tendency has been to think of God as so different from humanity as to make God useless for human religious need. (And Brightman does argue that God is necessary for humanity and includes in the book some strong arguments against atheism in all its forms including secular humanism.) One notable example of that, he argues, is the attribution to God of “infinity” which does lead, as Fichte argued, toward a de-personalizing of God. Pushed to its logical conclusion, “infinity” is incompatible with personality and we need a personal God because our basic religious need is for God to deal with suffering. (I will leave that there and challenge doubters to read the book which is available on line through Amazon and other re-sellers of out-of-print books.)

The contraction tendency has been to think of God as so similar to humanity, so anthropomorphic, as to be also useless religiously. Another human religious need is to have someone to worship and be powerful enough to bring value out of evil.

In true Hegelian style (although Fichte actually said this before Hegel), Brightman’s thinking is about “thesis” and “antithesis” searching for “synthesis.” The “thesis” would be the expansion tendency and the antithesis would be the contraction tendency. So what is the “synthesis?” That God is finite and personal but supreme above all other finite and personal beings.

So, in what sense is God “finite” for Brightman (and his Boston Personalism followers—a few of which are still around)? And why do I care?

Well, first of all—to why I care. I long ago rejected the notion that God is “infinite.” I rejected it when I first heard it articulated which was probably in some seminary class. I immediately thought that the concept itself was beyond comprehension (except perhaps in mathematics) and that attributing it to God led away from thinking of God as personal, present, involved, loving and able to be affected by us. With Brightman (who I only learned about later) I thought of that attribute of God in traditional theology as an inappropriate expansion of the concept of God brought into Christian thought through philosophy, not the Bible.

On the other hand, I have never felt comfortable with saying that God is finite. That “feels” to me like too much of a contraction of God. So I have preferred to think of God as not infinite but also not finite—insofar as the latter implies a God who is limited in knowledge and power. I have long, perhaps always, preferred to think of God as self-limiting in relation to the world he created. I kept looking for some serious discussion of that concept in Brightman’s book but did not find it. That is interesting because, around the time Brightman wrote The Problem of God the great Baptist theologian Augustus Hopkins Strong was advocating (or had been advocating) the solution (to the same problems Brightman identifies) as “God’s Self-Limitations.” (I do not know the exact date of that essay; it is included in a volume of Strong’s essays published by Judson Press in 1899.) I can’t believe Brightman knew nothing about Strong’s alternative and I wish he had responded to it. Perhaps he did in another publication.

Anyway, my preferred alternative to the problem Brightman identified in historical Western thinking about God—going back to the Greeks—is God’s self-limitations. That, of course, has become one of the major themes of non-Process Christian theologians such as Emil Brunner and Jürgen Moltmann.

So what did Brightman mean by God’s finitude? A careful reading of The Problem of God reveals that he did not mean that God is pathetic, or “evolving,” or powerless. He did mean, however, that there is inherent in God’s eternal being “the Given” which is a particular nature that governs what God can and cannot do. Clearly Brightman was no nominalist/voluntarist! He was a realist with regard to God. He believed God has a specific nature and it includes certain limitations that are not voluntary on God’s part. Among those limitations are that God cannot know the future insofar as it contains events not yet knowable because they will be determined by free will beings other than God and that God cannot coerce free creatures to do his will. According to Brightman, these denials/affirmations about God are necessary “contractions” apart from which the “expansion” would make God religiously unavailable if not irrelevant.

Well, it should be obvious to all readers who pay any serious attention to conversations about God taking place in even evangelical Christian theology how Brightman’s influence may have “trickled down”—even where his name is not known.

Here are a few things about which I agree with Brightman—after reading The Problem of God:

1. First, he was not afraid to think about God metaphysically.
2. Second, he recognized and articulated one of the main problems in Western theism including much traditional Christian thinking about God—the problem of the continual alternation between expansion and contraction.
3. Third, he affirmed that God’s personhood is primary for religion. An impersonal God is of no religious interest or use.

Here are a few things about which I disagree with Brightman—after reading The Problem of God:

1. First, I would not go so far as to call God “finite.” I think that at least strongly hints at too much contraction in the doctrine of God.
2. Second, I think all the problems he identifies can be solved by replacing “the Given”—as he thinks of it—with God’s loving self-limitation in relation to creation.
3. Third, as a philosopher, not a theologian, Brightman relied too heavily on reason and experience to the neglect of revelation and tradition (the four parts of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral).

In some ways my recent book Essentials of Christian Thought turns out to be an alternative to The Problem of God although not entirely in disagreement with the latter.

I found reading Brightman’s The Problem of God a satisfying exercise even as I found myself disagreeing with many of its point. One quandary left over from reading the book is whether Brightman believed in an eventual triumph of good over evil. I find hints in the book that he did, but I’m not sure how his “finite God” could bring that about.

One thought I had was more of a “wonder,” a question, whether my friend Thomas Jay Oord ever read the book or any of the writings of the Boston Personalists and whether he was influenced by them. I think I see certain real points of congeniality there—especially Oord’s basic idea that God cannot coerce free will beings. Tom does not seem to me to “fit” into the category of Process Theology (even though he studied with Cobb at Claremont). Might his theology “fit” more closely into the category of Boston Personalism?

I know of one other theologian who is working to revive Boston Personalism—Gary Dorrien who teaches theology at Union Theological Seminary. (Which is not to say Dorrien follows Brightman or anyone else slavishly; I have just heard him say publicly that he feels a special affinity for Boston Personalism and wishes to breathe new life into it as a live option for liberal Protestant theology.)

By no means do I intend this question as a criticism of Tom Oord or Gary Dorrien; as a historical theologian who focuses especially on modern theology I’m always curious about connections—especially ones not known or recognized. I believe there can be connections, strings of influence, that are not conscious or even known. This is what I call my “trickle down theory” of historical theology. Thinkers like Brightman can “release,” as it were, ideas into the theological “atmosphere” that later re-appear even where he is not known or his influence recognized.

Catherine Keller - Parenting & the Uncontrolling God

Catherine Keller on the Uncontrolling God

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/catherine-keller-uncontrolling-god

Guest Post by Catherine Keller

November 15th, 2016

A friend describes a process she learned as a mother: “I never did try to control my kids, there were too many of them to do that. I had three children in two years, and it became very clear early on (such as day one), that control was not possible. Instead of getting in their way and trying to run their play, I had to arrive at some other mode of being with them as they are.”

So she invited friends over for them to play with, and chaos mounted. But this is what she observed: “If I were willing and able to let the four or five very young children jostle, master round, explore for about 45 minutes-with the ground rules of not hurting each other or the home-if I just let them go through whatever procedures they needed to go through, they would come up with something that they loved to do together. They would arrive at some game, project, make-believe… That would keep them positively, joyfully engaged for up to three hours. All of them.”

This is a humble parable of creation from chaos. It illustrates uncontrolling love.

Parents and all who relate in love have to “let be.” So do good teachers, pastors, and leaders. As Elohim italicized “Let be” the light? John McQuarrie defines “letting be” as something much more positive than just leaving alone: “as enabling to be, empowering to be, or bringing into being.” Thus our experience of “letting be” may serve as an analogy of “the ultimate letting-be.”

Love does not control. It opens up the space of becoming. The space is not without protective boundaries, not without rules.

The healthy parent is not merely permissive, but constantly teaching ideals of fairness, cooperation, and creative development. This space comprises neither rampant disorder nor imposed order. It opens at the edge of chaos, without plunging into the abyss. It supports the free play of relations — and satisfies desires of both parent and children. This uncontrolling care empowers the children to construct their own “complex self-organizing system.” At least temporarily!

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If I may push our parable a bit further, the desired into play is not about a private “me and my God” relation but I love open and out into a fuller sociality. “Two or more gathered in my name.” In the communality of genesis things are risky, noisy, messy. But fresh order continues to emerge from the chaos. And while its equilibria do not last forever — “love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:8).

Does God just choose not to interfere with our freedom? The so-called free-will defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence tries that middle road: God permits, but does not cause evil, and so leaves us our freedom. This is close to the chilly deism Calvin railed against.

But usually those who hold this reasonable view also hold out for occasional special or miraculous interventions on God’s part. But then: Why didn’t God manipulate the vote just a bit so that Hitler would lose the election? Or, for that matter, heal my friend’s little sister’s leukemia? Or excise that bad gene in the first place? Or all bad genes?

The free-will defense only works if held consistently. But that is hard to do. To say God “permits” evil for the sake of our freedom implies that God could step in at any time, and as far as history demonstrates, just chooses not to.

The alternative to omnipotence lies in the risky interactivity of relationship. It does not toss the creatures into a deistic void, chilled but autonomous. It continues to call them forth, to invite… The power of God, if it is response-able power, empowers the others – to respond. In their freedom.

In what sense then is the divine powerful? It can perhaps even be called all-powerful, if that language for the biblical God seems indispensable to some, in this sense: God has “all the power” that a good God, a God who fosters and delights in the goodness of the creation, could have or want to have.

But the point is that this is not the unilateral power to command things to happen out of nothing and then to control them under threat of nothingness. It is another kind of power all together, a qualitatively different power — a power that seems weak when dominance is the ideal.

The metaphor of “power perfected in weakness” tried to make comprehensible the difficult alternative to coercive force: the contagious influence that flows from a radically vulnerable strength. Two thousand years later, we have made limited collective progress in its realization. Perhaps experiments in social democracy, in which persuasion is favored over coercion, and care valued as a supreme public strength, hint at the alternative. Perhaps experiments in gender equality and nonviolent parenting are also advancing, here and there, our metaphoric reservoir.

The One who calls forth good even from the ashes of evil, a good that requires—indeed commands—but cannot coerce our cooperation. A power that makes possible our response.

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From On the Mystery: Discerning God in Process pp. 88-90 copyright © 2007 Fortress Press. Reproduced by permission. For a more complete treatment of the subject consider purchase of the book, which may be found at the following link: http://fortresspress.com/product/mystery-discerning-divinity-process

Catherine Keller is Professor of Constructive Theology at The Theological School of Drew University. She’s the author or editor of more than a dozen books, her latest being Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Thomas Jay Oord - God Can’t Stop Evil Singlehandedly

Thomas Jay Oord - God Can’t Stop Evil Singlehandedly

May 9, 2019

IanRamseyCentre

Wed 1 May 2019, 5:00pm – 6:15pm

God Can’t Stop Evil Singlehandedly

Thomas Jay Oord

Blackfriars Main Aula, Oxford

Nearly everyone wonders why a good and powerful God doesn't prevent evil. But the usual answers are unsatisfactory. In his best-selling book, God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils, Thomas Jay Oord offers an answer to solve the problem of evil. This solution has five aspects, including a rethinking of God's relation to humans, other creatures, and all creation. Drawing from science, personal experiences, scripture, theology, and more, Oord lays out the heart of his solution in this lecture.

Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. Oord is a best-selling and award-winning author, having written or edited more than twenty-five books. A twelve-time Faculty Award winning professor, Oord teaches at institutions around the globe. A gifted speaker, Oord is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, and the implications of freedom and relationships for transformation.

Benjamin L. Corey - No, This Isn’t All Part Of God’s Plan

No, This Isn’t All Part Of God’s Plan (So Let’s Stop Blaming It On Him)

link here

by Dr. Benjamin L. Corey

May 24, 2016

Comments

Lately I’ve been thinking about life. A lot.

I’ve also been thinking about the the line we tell people when they’re going through sad chapters in life: “Well, this is all part of God’s plan.”

But is it, really? Is all this part of God’s plan? Looking back at the times people have said this to me in the midst of suffering, I find myself shaking my head that we’d believe such a thing.

Not only does that line fail to bring me comfort, it also seems to impugn God’s character. The idea that a loving God would have a “plan” that involved wiping out thousands in earthquakes and tsunamis, giving people cancer, parents losing children, car accidents, trauma, abuse, and all manner of pain and suffering, is an insane idea.

Think about it: if this is all “according to God’s plan” and every life event is being directed and controlled by him, he’s really bad at making plans.

In some of my saddest seasons of loss, people have come along side of me and said, “Well, we’ll never really understand God’s plan.”

And every time I hear it, through my tears and suffocating sadness I just want to reply, “No shit, Sherlock.” How could a plan that involves so much heartache be understood?

Sure, I understand what we’re trying to do when we say it. We’re trying to make ourselves or others feel better, and trying to make sense of sadness and suffering. The best way we know how? Apparently it’s to believe that our suffering was all planned by God, and thus must have some deeper, mysterious beauty we haven’t discovered yet.

Sometimes we’ll say God planned the suffering for our benefit. Other times we’ll be tricked into believing that God planned the suffering to chastise us for not measuring up. Yet, no matter how we try to rationalize or explain it, we end up at the same spot: if this is all part of God’s plan, God is the author and cause of evil and suffering.

As well meaning or desperate for answers as we may be, trying to fit all of the tragedies and sadness of life into some supposed master plan that God has, creates far more problems than it solves.

I am convinced that any belief or worldview that makes God the agent of causation for our suffering, ought to be rejected. This includes the idea that God has a giant master plan where everything that happens in life is divinely willed and ordained as part of it. In a world of such brokenness, this simply cannot be true.

Instead of saying that God has a “plan,” I am growing more fond of saying that God has a certain desire, a certain will– a certain heart. And that this will, this desire, and this heart, is always love. It’s never anything but love. This means that whatever God wills, and whatever God desires to bring into reality, is always beautiful and never evil.

God does not will our heartache and suffering. He doesn’t will our losses, and the broken chapters we experience in this life.

Those things have nothing to do with God, and are so far outside of his will, his desire, and his heart, that it’s indescribable.

Instead of trying to rationalize our suffering as being from the hand of God– thus making God an agent to be petrified of instead of a creator to be loved, I think we should be quicker to acknowledge that, no, a lot of what we experience in life isn’t God’s plan at all.

And honestly, we really need to stop blaming him, because we pin some really horrible and tragic life events on him. I can’t imagine it makes him feel good when we actually believe that he caused that car accident, sent the tornado, or gave the cancer in order to fulfill his own really twisted “plan.”

Instead, when we acknowledge that really hard and sad life events did not come from the hand of God, and were not in any way planned by or ordained by God, I believe we’re invited to get to know a God who joins in our suffering instead of causing it.

Because you see, if it’s outside of God’s heart and desires, God grieves that loss and brokenness with us– because it’s his hopes and dreams for our lives that end up getting smashed as well.

I don’t know how to have a relationship with a God who comes along side me in sadness and suffering and says, “You’re going to have to trust my reasons for making your world explode.”

But I am learning (I’m trying Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard), how to have a relationship with a God who sits beside me and says, “Yeah, man… this whole thing totally sucks.“

Instead of this idea of God having a master plan that meticulously dictates and controls what happens in our lives (often referred to a blueprint theology), I believe that God has hopes, dreams, and desires for our stories. When those things come true, he rejoices and celebrates with us.

But when those hopes and dreams get smashed to bits, instead of saying “Oh, by the way– I actually did that,” I believe God sits in the dark and mourns those broken dreams with us.

And when the tears have subsided long enough to begin to hear his voice clearly, I’m convinced he’s also whispering, “And I know this can’t replace your loss, but when you’re ready I’d love to partner with you to try to make something good come out of all this.”

Shorts - PostChristianity & Christian Eschatology, Part 1/2

I don't speculate on the after-life all that often. But this morning a thought crossed my mind.

It is only a thought, nothing more. What if 'heaven' is where we seek forgiveness from

those we have harmed...and always receive it? - Michael Hardin, January 18, 2016

Says a religious editor to an editorial review, "...My reaction to being assigned a book on millinnial positions... RUN!!"

LOL. I can sympathize.

In both "Open and Relational Theism" and "Radical Christianity" (which is more an a/theistic philosophy than it is a theology) there is no such thing as a "tribulation or millennial outlook" because in these systems the future is either "open and unpredictable" or "of no consequence."

In the first system God does not control anything nor can there be any prophecy because God does not know the future (which is a major difference with classical theological dogmas built upon differing doctrinal emphases and philosophies).

Why?

Because its how God created the world by fiat and decree with infinite opportunity and probability. As such, the future cannot be known nor can it be controlled. But this doesn't mean the future is without redemptive design because creation is imbued with divinity as an extension of God's very Being.

A great example of this is in the design of divine evolution - though random and chaotic (as one would expect) it still always moves forward towards life as far as it can go within any unlivable or unsustainable or hostile environment.

We may think of the same thing in terms of spiritual life - that against all hell and evil a spiritual life will seek divine fellowship with both the Creator-Redeemer as well as with all creation (at least, as far as it is possible).

Given these parameters then, the only future which can be predicted is one predicated upon the Person and Being of the One who made all life/living possible.

Thus, on an evolutionarily cosmological time scale the biology of all life will come to an end as gravity propels the universe away from itself (the Big Rip). But on a spiritual dimension it will persist eternally in the God of All Creation.

R.E. Slater

January 18, 2016

References - Wikipedia - Open Theism

References - Wikipedia - Ultimate fate of the universe

Shorts - PostChristianity & the Death of God, Part 2/2

I don't speculate on the after-life all that often. But this morning a thought crossed my mind.

It is only a thought, nothing more. What if 'heaven' is where we seek forgiveness from

those we have harmed...and always receive it? - Michael Hardin, January 18, 2016

Following up on an earlier post re God's immutability and impassibility (both of which are denied here as unbiblical by both "relational process theology" as well as by "open and relational theology") a postmodern, postsecular, postChristian theology will also assert the following.... That the postChristian Death of God movements must grant a more positive outcome than is typically admitted to these systems by both it opponents or proponents. Namely that the evolution of Christianity has exploded away from its delimiting forms of secularized Western modernity cemented in fatalistic pessimism, meaningless existence, and consumptive materiality to a more positive outcome. Thus allowing historical Judeo-Christianity to not only survive through these stages of itself but also thrive across all nations - and especially non-Westernized, non-Cristian nations - in actively expanding its redemptive influences into the world of men.

Theologically this would then refer to Jesus' transformative death and resurrection as one that not only dynamically "insists" across all human and cosmic structures (as versus competing with, or subsisting within, humanity's socio-economic existential structures) but persists in God's empowered missional outreach. This means that Jesus' rule and reign is now occurring with an even greater force than before His death and resurrection. So that in this view God both dies and lives as an ontic Being and as a dynamic/living redemptive force regardless of the persistence of sin and evil.

Consequently, the DOG position would leave God in the grave at the Cross while raising His re-creative force as an affective transformative residue of His past conscious Being. However, for both the "open and relational"and "relational process" theologian God not only profoundly dies but also profoundly lives in renewed redemptive transformative event/power that re-enlivens creation from its own moribund state of sin and evil (in consequence to its profound state of free will). Now creational free will is redemptively enlivened with Spirit-filled force and power which both "insists against" and not simply "subsists with" sin and evil. The redemption of God through Christ Jesus is what gives hope, purpose, and meaning to a postmodern world seeking truths beyond secular Western modernity's fatalism, consumption, and materiality.

R.E. Slater

January 18, 2016

References: Wikipedia - PostChristianity

Thomas Jay Oord - Did God Allow the Paris Attacks?

Did God Allow the Paris Attacks?

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/did-god-allow-the-paris-attacks

by Thomas Jay Oord

November 16, 2015

Most theologians would say “yes.” I say “no.”

If current reports are correct, ISIS planned various attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 people and injured about 500. An attack occurred in Beirut, and other acts of terror have been committed. The death, pain, and suffering are immense.

Those like me who believe in God are wondering how we ought to think theologically about this. We’re wondering what we should do. We’re wondering what love asks of us now.

I join those believers who offer heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of victims. These are dark days. Our hearts rightly go out to those in pain and grief.  And I’m pondering what more I can do to help.

But I’m also thinking about God.

Many believers will rightfully say God is present with all people in times of horror and tragedy. God suffers with victims and survivors. The Christian God consoles and suffers with those in pain.

I agree. But I don’t think that goes far enough.

Other believers will say God is angry when people choose violence in this way. They will say God opposes such terror-oriented activity. God hates injustice and evil.

I agree that God hates sin. But I don’t think that goes far enough.

Some believers will ask what proactive steps can be taken to prevent further attacks. A number of proposals will surface, I’m sure. Some may be wise; others not.

I agree with those who say that we must find a way to respond in love to prevent more suffering. But I don’t think that goes far enough.

Too few believers will go so far as to ask themselves this question: “Could God have stopped the Paris attacks?”

Perhaps many who believe in God will not ask this question, because the answer they have likely been told is not comforting. Most theologians in the past and present, after all, would say God allowed the Paris tragedies. They believe God has the kind of power to prevent this death and suffering. But according to most theologians, God permitted this pointless pain in Paris and elsewhere.

I disagree.

According to most theologians, God permitted

the attacks in Paris and elsewhere. I disagree.

It is true that a few theologians may say it is logically impossible for God to both give free will and not give free will. So in choosing to give free will to the ISIS terrorists, God was self-constrained.

But these same theologians will say that if God wanted to do so, God could interrupt the entities, agencies, molecules, and atoms involved in these events. These aspects of reality do not have full-blown freedom.

These theologians would also say God could interrupt natural laws, if God saw fit. They believe God could intervene among entities and atoms in ways that would not involve overriding the free will of those who perpetrate evil.

For instance, this view of God’s power among entities and atoms says God could have jammed the rifles the terrorists used. It says God could have made the bombs fail to detonate. Or God could have controlled the weather or environment to thwart the attacks. In the minds of these theologians, God can control all parts of creation that don’t involve free will, if God so chose.

But if God can control non-free agents and entities, why didn’t God do so to prevent the Paris attacks?

The uncomfortable truth is that most theologians and Christians today and throughout history have said God permits genuine evil. God allows pointless suffering. And they appeal to mystery when asked questions like, “Did God allow the Paris attacks?” They say, “Don’t ask me, I’m not God!”

By contrast, I think theologians and Christians in general need to rethink God’s power. This means rethinking what it means to say God can control creatures and creation, whether these existing things have freedom or not.

In my new book, I’ve carefully laid out an argument that says God’s uncontrolling love prevents God from being able to prevent genuine evil unilaterally. God is still almighty, I argue. God is omnipresent and loving too. God knows everything that can be known. But the uncontrolling God I describe should not be blamed for tragedies like those in Paris, because God cannot stop them acting alone.

The key to my answer is my claim that God’s self-giving, others-empowering love comes first in God’s nature. This means God must give freedom, agency, self-organization, being, or law-like regularities to creation.

The Paris attacks were awful. While we ponder how we ought to act, how to console those in grief, and how to affirm that God is with all who suffer, let us also take a moment to consider the possibility that God’s power is not controlling.

A God who cannot control others entirely is not culpable

for failing to prevent the Paris attacks. I believe in that God.

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To read more of The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence go to the Amazon link here - http://www.amazon.com/The-Uncontrolling-Love-God-Relational/dp/0830840842.

Thomas Oord - Ways to Think about Providence

As an introduction to today's topic let me ask the following questions: Is God omni-controlling? Or, put another way, is God omni-determining? If so, then do we have free will or are our lives predestined? If they are not predestined then what does free will mean in relation to God's ruling sovereignty? Is God sovereign? Can He be? If not, than in what way is God sovereign?

Or, put another way, is our future open or closed? If our future is determined and free will is a fiction then it is closed. But if our future is open and we do have free will then what does this mean in relation to God's rule of sovereignty?

These questions and many more all fall under the general category of "God's Creative Providence" which is explored in today's article by a fellow friend and theologian who continues to think about what it means for God to be a God of love.

R.E. Slater

May 29, 2015

Ways to Think about Providence

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/ways-to-think-about-providence

by Thomas Jay Oord

May 25th, 2015

Comments

Christians have many ways to think about how God acts in creation (providence). Each way has implications for making sense of life in light of God’s love, power, and other attributes. But some ways are better than others.

In my forthcoming book, The Uncontrolling Love of God, I identify seven models of providence. Among them is the model I call “essential kenosis,” which I find most satisfactory overall.

One chapter of my book explores the powerful proposals on providence from John Sanders, The God Who Risks. Although I find much in Sanders’s proposal that I appreciate, I also offer some criticisms and counterproposals.

The Kenotic Love of God

Essential Kenosis Table of God's Sovereignty vs. God's Love
(A Scale of Religious Systems and Doctrines: Calvinism-Wesleyanism-Deism/Mysticism)

Three Ways

When offering his open and relational model of providence, Sanders seems to think Christians choose among three options when thinking about how God creates and acts providentially.

1 - The first option is a form of process theology. Sanders is wary of process theologies that say, as he puts it, God is “pervasively conditioned by creatures.” He wants to avoid saying God, by necessity or by nature, depends on the world. Sanders believes God can unilaterally act on the world, and he doubts process theologians can affirm this (p. 162).

Let’s call the first option, “The world conditions God.”

2 - The second option Sanders wants to avoid is a form of Calvinism. He is wary of Calvinist theologies that say, as he puts it, “the divine nature necessarily must create a world in which God is omni-determining.” This view says God’s ongoing providential control is “a manifestation of the divine nature” (p. 231). Creatures are not really free, and randomness and chance are illusions.

Let’s call this second option, “God constantly controls the world.”

3 - The [third] option Sanders prefers says God sovereignly gives freedom but allows evil. Sovereign activity lays the framework of the creation project. “The divine nature is free to create a project that involves loving relations with creatures,” says Sanders (p. 231). But God could have created a world without free creatures. And God could (and perhaps occasionally does) control creatures or situations to bring about some outcome.

Let’s call Sanders’s third option, “God sovereignly, not of necessity, decided to create a world with free creatures.”

Questioning God’s Love and Power

In general, open and relational theology says a relational God of love collaborates with creatures. God’s love takes risks in relationship, as Sanders puts it. Because love does not control others, the risk model of providence does not offer the guarantees divine determinism does.

God’s relationship with creatures, says Sanders, “is not one of control and domination but rather one of love and vulnerability” (p. 71). God “does not force [creatures] to comply” (p. 174). In sum, Sanders believes “love does not force its own way on the beloved” (193).

I agree with the statements in the above paragraph. Most open and relational theologians would also agree.

But these statements invite important questions. After all,

• if God’s preeminent attribute is love and love invites cooperation without forcing its own way, it makes little sense to say sovereign freedom allows God to create in an unloving way.

• It makes little sense, for instance, to say God voluntarily decided against exercising meticulous providence.

• If love comes first and love does not force others to comply, it makes little sense to say, as Sanders does, that “God is free to sovereignly decide not to determine everything.” If love comes first, God cannot exercise meticulous providence or determine everything.

Hence,

• Why should we think a loving God who “does not force the beloved” is truly free “to tightly control every event that happens?”

• Why should we think a loving God is free to control others entirely, even if God never exercised that freedom?

If love doesn’t force the beloved and God is love, God can’t force the beloved.

A Fourth Way

I prefer a fourth option. We might call my view, “God’s loving nature requires God to create a world with creatures God cannot control.”

My option is part of the essential kenosis model I describe in my forthcoming book. At the heart is the idea that love logically precedes power in God’s nature. To put it differently, God’s love always preconditions God’s creating and providential activity.

In my view, it was out of love that God decided to create a world. And because love is God’s primary attribute, it is necessary that God creates.

Because God’s essential nature is self-giving, others-empowering love, God cannot control creatures. God cannot, to use Sanders’s language, “sovereignly decide not to determine everything.” God cannot “force the beloved.” God cannot “tightly control every event that happens.”

This limitation on God’s part does not come from something imposed upon God from the outside. Like Arminius and Wesley, I say God’s limitations come from God’s love. And in God, love comes first.

Conclusion

There is obviously more that must be said. And I offer further explanation in The Uncontrolling Love of God. I hope you look for it this fall.

Thomas Jay Oord - Does It Make Sense to Believe in Miracles?

Owyhee hike and flowers, June 2011 | Thomas Jay Oord

Does it Make Sense to Believe in Miracles?

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/does_it_make_sense_to_believe_in_miracles/#.VJAGLCvF-QA

by Thomas Jay Oord

December 5, 2014

Fewer people today seem to believe in miracles. This seems especially true of those living in “first-world” countries and especially true of scholars. For various reasons, I can understand their skepticism. But I think we have good grounds to affirm miracles, properly understood.

In the final chapter of my current book on providence, I address the issue of miracles. This book project is funded as part of a larger grant I received to explore what it means to believe God acts providentially in a world of randomness.

Much of my discussion in this last chapter revolves around various reasons many people today reject miracles. A major part of the problem is the definition given miracles.

It has become common in the past few centuries (since David Hume) to define miracles as supernatural violations of the laws of nature or divine interventions. But these definition are laden with problems.

1. The category of “laws of nature” is ill-defined and unnecessary. Besides those who witness miracles – whether the miracles reported in the Bible or witnessed today – rarely if ever say, “Wow! I just observed a law of nature violated!”

2. The idea of “intervention” suggests that God must come to a closed system of nature from the outside. But Christians ought to believe God is omnipresent. And that means God is always already present to the natural world, never needing to “inter–vene.”

3. The idea of “supernatural” leads implicitly to views in which God is thought to coerce, override, interfere, overpower, or in some way totally control a creature or situation. But if God has that kind of coercive power, the problem of evil is insuperable.

---

I believe in miracles. I don’t think they are simply “in the mind of the religious believer.” I think miracles are objective events that occur in the world.

Of course, I don’t think all claims about miracles are legitimate. Some are hoaxes, wishful thinking, the effects of hysteria, or coincidences. But I do think some miracles actually occur, and those of us who believe in God need to account for them if we are to witness well to hope that we have in God.

Defining Miracles

In the concluding chapter of my current book on providence, I offer this definition of a miracle:

"A miracle is an unexpected and good event that occurs through God’s special

action in relation to creation. This definition has three essential elements. Miracles

are: (1) unexpected events, (2) good events, (3) involve God’s special action in

relation  to creation."

1. The signs and wonders we read about in the Bible, in history, or encounter today are noteworthy, in part, because they are surprising. They are unusual or extraordinary. As Augustine put it, a miracle is an “unusual” event “beyond the expectation or ability of the one who marvels at it.”

Some unexpected events leave us awestruck and impressed by the power they display. But these occurrences may not be positive, loving, or good. They may cause harm, destruction, or evil. Sheer power is not miraculous, and some awe-filled events are awful.

2. We should reserve “miracle” to describe unexpected events (whether powerful or not) that we believe promote well-being in some way. Miracles are beneficial. Miracles are events we deem good.

3. In addition to being unexpected and good, miracles involve special divine action. I believe that the special divine action that makes miracles possible occurs when God provides new possibilities, forms, structures, or ways of being to creatures. These gifts for the miraculous may reflect dramatic or awesome ways of existing should they be embodied or incorporated.

Miracles are possible when God provides good and unexpected forms of existence. God sometimes desires well-being through diverse forms and multifarious dimensions.

Of course, I go into all of these issues in much more detail in my book. I’m sending the completed book manuscript to Intervarsity Academic Press before Christmas. I’ve signed a contract, and I expect the book to be available in the fall of 2015.

If you have some comments on miracles that you think I should consider before submitting the manuscript, I’d love to hear from you. If I really like your comment, I'll include your name in a footnote or in the book's acknowledgement section!

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 3

Milky Way on Leslie Gulch Reservoir, Owyhees, Idaho

A few weeks ago I made the following observations:

"God is holy. God is good. God is love. But the greatest of these is love. Love is how God makes one holy and good through Jesus. Not of human will but divine.

God's love cannot be preached enough. All Christian doctrine must proceed on God's love. All missions of the church must go at this sublime thought. No other church dogma must be higher than the grace of God. And all church doctrine must revolve around this one thought.

The holiness of God is meaningless without the grace of God. The goodness of God has no affect if it isn't bathed in God's atoning grace. Holiness without grace is austere. It proceeds in judgment first, last, and always. Goodness is without effect if not given in love. It is wholly utilitarian and bare of God's mindful relation to His creation if not met in love.

The love of God is the most sufficient descriptor of the Christian faith, of God Himself, and God's relationship to His creation. None else may proceed above this thought."

- R.E. Slater, June 2, 2014

In due consideration of today's article I think it is important to remind ourselves that open and relational theology rests in the entirety of its subject upon this sublime thought. Should it stray even an iota from the love of God than it ventures from the intentional (and some will now say, insistent) heart of God into the schemes and pretensions of men and their doctrines.

Today's article will be one of several to come. Here, we focus on what is meant by open and relational theologies when speaking to the subject of God's {open and relational} divine providence.

We will continue to discuss this important subject in the days and weeks to come.

Enjoy,

R.E. Slater
June 23, 2014

The God Who Risks

The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence

Book Blurb

If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, can he in any way be vulnerable to his creation? Can God be in control of anything at all if he is not constantly in control of everything? John Sanders says yes to both of these questions. In The God Who Risks, he mounts a careful and challenging argument for positive answers to both of these profound theological questions. In this thoroughly revised edition, Sanders clarifies his position and responds to his critics. His book will not only contribute to serious ongoing theological discussion but will enlighten pastors and laypersons who struggle with questions about suffering, evil and human free will.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Preeminence of Love in God

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/the_preeminence_of_love_in_god/#.U9LGh_ldVrM

by Thomas Jay Oord

July 23, 2014

Comments

My version of open and relational theology says love is the preeminent attribute in God’s nature. As I read John Sanders’s work, he seems to think sovereignty precedes love in God’s nature.

In two previous blogs, I explored Sanders’s ideas in his excellent book, The God Who Risks. The first blog offers a summary of his thought, and I personally agree with all claims in my summary of his work. 

The second blog was critical of one aspect of Sanders’s thought: the way he thinks about God’s power and love in relation to evil. I argued he does not solve the problem of evil. He says God allows evil that God could prevent. Without a solution to this problem, we cannot make sense of numerous events in our world. I believe my version of open and relational theology can retain what I find helpful in Sanders, while also solving the problem of evil.

What (Logically) Comes First in God’s Nature?

In my current book project, I offer a solution to the problem of evil. In particular, I focus on the random events that cause unnecessary suffering and the free will choices creatures make to do evil.

I conclude this blog series on Sanders’s thought, however, by arguing that the reason he cannot solve the problem of evil is...

Sanders does not regard love the foremost and governing attribute in God’s nature.

This charge may seem odd. Like most open and relational theologians, Sanders says love is God’s chief attribute. “Love is the preeminent characteristic of God,” as he puts it. And “the way of God is love.” Sanders talks often of the priority of love in The God Who Risks.

But Sanders’s other statements suggest that when God decides to create, divine sovereignty comes prior to, and is preeminent over, [God's] love. Sanders presupposes that God’s power logically precedes God’s love in divine decision making.

Quotes from Sanders on the Preeminence of Sovereignty

Here are statements from The God Who Risks that reveal the preeminence of sovereignty:

• “If God wants a world in which he tightly controls every event that happens, then God is free to do so.”

• “God sovereignly chooses not to govern the world without our input.”

• “It was solely God’s decision to do things this way instead of exercising meticulous providence.”

• “God is free to sovereignly decide not to determine everything that happens in history.”

• “God, in sovereign freedom, decided not to tightly control human affairs…”

• “In sovereign freedom, God has decided to make some of his actions contingent upon our requests and actions.”

The point Sanders makes is that nothing essentially constrains God’s decisions, at least when initially creating. This fits his view, which we saw earlier, that God has the power to prevent genuine evil but instead allows it.

Three Providence Options

Sanders apparently believes we must choose among three options when thinking about God creating and acting providentially. The first option is a form of process theology. Sanders is wary of process theologies that say, as he puts it, God is “pervasively conditioned by creatures.” He wants to avoid saying God, by necessity or by nature, depends on the world. Sanders believes God can unilaterally act on the world, and he doubts process theologians can affirm this.

Let’s call the first option, “The world conditions God.”

The second option Sanders wants to avoid is a form of Calvinism. He is wary of Calvinist theologies that say, as he puts it, “the divine nature necessarily must create a world in which God is omnidetermining.” This view says God’s ongoing providential control is “a manifestation of the divine nature.” Creatures are not really free, and randomness and chance are illusions.

Let’s call this second option, “God totally controls the world.”

The option Sanders prefers says God’s sovereignly gives freedom but allows some evil. Sovereign activity lays within the framework of the divine project. “The divine nature is free to create a project that involves loving relations with creatures,” says Sanders. But God could have created a world without free creatures. And God could (and perhaps occasionally does) unilaterally control creatures or situations to bring about some outcome.

Let’s call Sanders’s third option, “God sovereignly, not of necessity, decided to create a world with free creatures.”

A Fourth Providence Option

I prefer a fourth option to these three.

We might call my view, “God’s loving nature requires God to create a world with free creatures that God cannot control entirely.” This option is part of the essential kenosis model I describe in the next chapter. But let me explain my preferred option here by comparing it with Sanders’s view that God sovereignly, not of necessity, decided to create a world with free creatures.

In our exploration of open and relational theology, we discovered this theology says a relational God of love collaborates with creatures. God’s love takes risks in relationship, as Sanders puts it. Because love does not control others, the risk model of providence does not offer the guarantees divine determinism offers. God’s relationship with creatures, says Sanders, “is not one of control and domination but rather one of love and vulnerability.” God “does not force [creatures] to comply.” In sum, Sanders believes “love does not force its own way on the beloved.”

If God’s preeminent attribute is love and love invites cooperation without forcing its own way, it makes little sense to say “sovereign freedom” would allow God to create in an unloving way. It makes little sense, for instance, to say God voluntarily decided against “exercising meticulous providence.” It makes little sense to say “God is free to sovereignly decide not to determine everything.”

To put it in question form, why should we think a loving God who “does not force the beloved” is free “to tightly control every event that happens?” Why should we think a loving God is free to control others entirely, even if God never actually exercised that freedom?

Mermaids Can’t Ride Unicorns

Let me illustrate my point: mermaids cannot ride unicorns.

Mermaids cannot actually ride unicorns, because mermaids and unicorns are fantasy creatures. We may imagine what mermaids and unicorns look like and do. But they do not exist in the real world. So while we may dream of mermaids riding unicorns (presumably sidesaddle!) or abstractly conceive of such, it makes no sense to believe mermaids actually ride unicorns. Neither creature actually exists.

Likewise, it makes no sense to say a God whose preeminent attribute is love could tightly control every event. If God’s love cooperates rather than controls and if God takes risks rather than forcing guarantees, love as the preeminent attribute prevents God from determining everything. God cannot force the beloved, because, as Sanders says, love does not force its own way. A loving yet controlling God can’t actually exist.

To put the analogy succinctly: mermaids cannot actually ride unicorns, because these beings are fictional. A perfectly loving God cannot create controllable creatures, because this God is fictional.

Sanders’s main problem is that he does not take love as the preeminent attribute in God’s nature, at least when he thinks about initial creation. Unfortunately, Sanders believes God’s “nature does not dictate the sort of world God must make.”

By contrast, I do think God’s nature dictates the sort of world God must make. God must act according to the divine nature, and the preeminent attribute of God’s nature is love. For this reason, I think love is God’s ultimate guide when creating any world.

If love seeks collaboration instead of control, takes risks instead of forcing guarantees, and does not force others to comply, a perfectly loving God could never sovereignly control every event, exercise meticulous providence, or absolutely determine everything. God cannot control others entirely, because, as Sanders rightly says, love does not force its own way on the beloved. Rather than saying God sovereignly decided to create a free world, we should say God’s loving nature requires creating undetermined creatures in any world God might choose to create.

Conclusion

Although I agree with the vast majority of Sanders’s version of open and relational theology, his ultimate misstep, as I see it, is failing to follow through on his claim that God’s preeminent attribute is love. He believes God’s sovereign will logically precedes God’s loving nature, at least when it comes to initial creation.

Given Sanders’s statements that God sometimes acts alone to bring about outcomes and allows genuine evil, his view also implies the sovereign will logically precedes love in the history of creation. Love does not come first.

My criticism of Sanders leads to my alternative version of open and relational theology, which I call essential kenosis. I have outlined some of aspects of essential kenosis in my book, The Nature of Love. I develop it further in my new book project.

A few footnotes for those who care about some additional issues:

(1. Sanders is aware of the possibility that God’s nature may prevent God from doing some things. He notes biblical passages supporting this view. But in response to such passages, Sanders says, “although there is no attempt by biblical writers to reconcile the notion that God can do anything with the idea that God does not get everything he wants, it must be remembered that both sets of statements occur within the framework of God’s relationship with the people to whom these particular statements are made.” This seems to mean he believes such statements are relative to certain times and places. At the least, it means he believes statements in scripture pertaining to God’s inabilities do not describe conditions in God’s eternal nature.)

(2. My view, “God’s loving nature requires God to create a world with free creatures that God cannot control entirely,” can apply either to the traditional view that God initially created something from absolutely nothing (creatio ex nihilo) or the view that God always creates from that which God previously created because God’s nature is love (creatio ex creatione a natura amoris). I explain the latter view in my essay, “God Always Creates out of Creation in Love: Creatio ex Creatione a Natura Amoris,” in the forthcoming book, Theologies of Creation: Creatio Ex Nihilo and Its New Rivals [New York: Routledge, 2014], 109-122.)

(3. In a footnote, Sanders admits he engages in speculation when he talks about whether or not God’s nature requires God to create a world. He says he bases his speculation on his prior doctrine of creation. Because Sanders affirms creation ex nihilo, I assume he is referring to this theory of initial creation when he speaks of his prior creation doctrine. My alternative position to the three I outlined is essentially neutral on this issue of creation ex nihilo. One can affirm creation out of nothing or deny it, while agreeing with me that God’s love is the preeminent attribute of God’s nature, and therefore God could not create a world devoid of freedom and/or agency.)

- TJO

go to part 1 -

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 1

go to part 2 - 

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 2

go to part 3 - 

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 3