New Christian Terms to Know in Process Jargon

 New Christian Terms to Know in Process Jargon

What in the World is Process Theology?

CORT link

Thomas Jay Oord - What Is Process Theology?

Fundamentals of Process Theology

David Ray Griffin -

An Introduction to Process Theology

Majorie Suchocki -

An Introduction to Process Theology

Process Theology -

God According to Alfred North Whitehead

Process Theology - Being & Becoming

Process Theology & Politics:

Amanda Gorman - Healing the World

One Act at a Time

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Panentheism & Process Theology

Amazon Link

Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism: Rethinking Evil, Morality, Religious Experience, Religious Pluralism, and the Academic Study of Religion (Toward Ecological Civilization) (Volume 2) Paperback – August 8, 2014, by David Ray Griffin (Author)

Can scientific naturalism, according to which there are no interruptions of the normal cause-effect relations, be compatible with divine activity, religious experience, and moral realism? Leading process philosopher of religion David Ray Griffin argues that panentheism provides the conceptual framework to overcome the perennial conflicts between these views, with important implications for religious pluralism, the problem of evil, and the academic study of religion. Panentheism—God as the soul of the world—explains how theism can be fully natural while still portraying God as distinct from and more than the world. Griffin’s Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism is an essential source for philosophers of religion and others seeking to reconcile faith with science and Christianity with other religions.

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Intro to Process Theology - Prayer

Intro to Process Theology - Prayer from Trinity Lutheran Church, Stillwater, MN

 Intro to Process Theology - Prayer

1. 1. Intro to Process Theology
2. 2. Intro to Process TheologyScience and Religion Evil and SufferingJesus and Creative TransformationPrayer (and Pluralism)
3. 3. Do you pray? Why do you pray? How do you expect God torespond to your prayers?
4. 4. Gods Power in Process Theology Omnipotent Omnipresent Almighty PersuasiveAll-powerful Love-power God World
5. 5. Shared Power in Process Theology Power of beingOmnipresent Power to affect Persuasive Power to chooseLove-power Power to love God World Interdependence
6. 6. Supernaturalism Why didnt God answer my God prayer? God answers prayers the way God wants to, World but it may not be what you want.
7. 7. In Gods Presence
8. 8. Prayer is...Prayers is the act of bringing our moment-by-moment connectedness to God into ourconsciousnessPrayer is opening ourselves to Gods owncreative energy and offering back to God thegift of ourselves Prayer is joining with God in willing the well-being of ourselves, friends, enemies...the wholeworld
9. 9. Prayer in Process Prayer changes us,the world, and God.God works with the world as it is inorder to bring it to where it can be. The real prayer is the one who prays.
10. 10. "Prayer is a partnership with God, not a manipulation of God." -MS"Prayer is prompted by God and released to God." -MS
11. 11. Mortality and healingPrayer cannot eliminate our mortality.Not-yet-irreversible Irreversible Vs. illness illness Healing is always possible.
12. 12. Pray
13. 13. You?
14. 14. Process theology sees the universe as creative, interrelational, dynamic, and open to the future. In process theology, God is relational, present in every moment of our lives and in all entities and levels of being. The world isinterconnected, in effect a giant ecosystem where what harms orblesses one, harms or blesses all.
15. 15. April-MayPluralismTrinitySin and ForgivenessEvolution

Palm Sunday Readings, Poems & Observances

 

Palm Sunday

http://www.seedbed.com/scripture-quotes-poems-palm-sunday/

The Gospel of John notes that Jerusalem welcomed him with palm branches (John 12:13). Palm trees were in abundance in the Mediterranean and were even found on ancient coins. After the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 AD), the Jews rededicated the temple carrying palm branches (1 Macc. 13:51). In Revelation 7:9, people from all nations use palm branches in their worship of Jesus. All four Gospels provide an account of Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

Matt. 21:1–11

Mark 11:1–10

Luke 19:28–38

John 12:12–18

Many churches initiate the Palm Sunday service with a procession that represents Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem. This practice is attested to as early as in the 4th century in the Pilgrimage of Egeria.

"Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in." - Psalm 24:7

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us." - Psalm 118:26-27a

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." - Zechariah 9:9

Palm Sunday Observances & Poems

Within the very liturgy of Palm Sunday, the tension is evident; traditionally, it is the only day with two Gospel readings—the enervating triumphal entry, and the tragic narrative of crucifixion. Palms turn to passion. It is the way God has designed it, for he did not count equality with God something to be grasped. - Brian Rhea

O Christ our God

When Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead before Thy Passion,

Thou didst confirm the resurrection of the universe

Wherefore, we like children,

carry the banner of triumph and victory,

and we cry to Thee, O Conqueror of love,

Hosanna in the highest

Blessed is He that cometh

in the Name of the Lord.

- Toparion of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread garments in the way: when He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet but even trample upon it ourselves. - Augustus Toplady

No pain, no palm;

no thorns, no throne;

no gall, no glory;

no cross, no crown.

- William Penn

Rest for my soul -- REST! Admidst fears,

Doubts, insecurities -- REST! For my anxious

Heart REST! You made the flower of the field and clothed it --

REST! FOR MY WORK-A-HOLIC

BUSY WAY OF AVOIDING YOU -- rest! FOR TIRED

FEET AND TIRED HANDS.

YOU ARE THE ONE UNRAVELING ME --SLOWING ME

DOWN SO I CAN FEEL AGAIN -- SO I CAN FIND Hope

IN SOMETHING MORE reliable than my own success -- 

YOU ARE SETTING ME free

Healing my wounds

Purifying my desires

Pushing back the effects of the fall

And you are coming soon

I can feel it every time I see the flowers.

- Samantha Wedelich

The smell of church reminds me of my childhood

but over the years, the priest becomes a foolish man.

I've pondered over my faith for so long -

sometimes I reach into my conscious and

pull out steaming fistfuls of pop culture like,

watching Rosemary's Baby on Saturday.

Was God dead in the 50s?

Not nearly as much as he is now.

Today was Palm Sunday, and I felt like a baby,

so naked in the desert sand.

Delicate church, how do you reel me in?

- Kyra Rae

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.

- from a Christian Lectionary

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A Collection of Palm Sunday Observances

http://happyvalentineimages.com/palm-sunday-quotes-poem-for-god-from-bible/

Palm Sunday is also known as a "Movable Feast" as the church celebrates on the Sunday before Easter. It celebrates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

1. "Palm Sunday is like a glimpse of Easter. It’s a little bit joyful after being somber during Lent." - Laura Gale

2. "What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured." - Kurt Vonnegut

3. "Palm Sunday tells us that it is the cross [where] is the truer tree of life." - Pope Benedict XVI

4. "Palm Sunday is like a glimpse of Easter. It’s a little bit joyful after being somber during Lent." - Laura Gale

5. "Then I saw heaven opened and a white horse appeared. Its rider is the Faithful and True; he judges and wages just wars." - Revelation 19:11

6. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." - Zechariah 9:9

7. "It is wiser to build our dependence on God than building it on people because people can choose to leave us at any moment. But only we can choose to leave God because He is ever present and there for those who need and seek Him with a sincere Heart. Happy Palm Sunday!" - Anon

8. "The great gift of Easter is hope – Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake." - Basil Hume

9. A Palm Sunday’s thought: "Life is full of ups and downs. Glorify God during the ups and fully trust in Him during the downs." - Anon

10. "Anyway - because we are readers, we don’t have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next - and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis - at any time of night or day." - Kurt Vonnegut

11. "What’s with this final curtain? When God-disturbed churches are packed Palm Sunday, Easter, and Christmas, but not in-between? Will we feel the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword? Is this Armageddon?" - Buck Malachi

12. "Jesus found a donkey and sat upon it, as Scripture says: Do not fear, city of Zion! See, your king is coming, sitting on the colt of a donkey!" - John 12:14

13. "There would be no Christmas if there was no Easter." - Gordon B. Hinckley

14. "Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, ‘Christ has risen,’ but ‘I shall rise.’" - Phillips Brooks

Evangelicals are teaching false doctrine. Who says so? Jesus Christ.

Service at Lakewood Church in Houston, where Pastor Joel Osteen preaches to some 25,000 people each week. There are currently 842 mega churches that host an excess of three million people on any given Sunday. Mega churches are loosely defined as non-Catholic churches with at least 2,000 weekly attendants. (Timothy Fadek/Corbis via Getty Images)

Evangelicals are teaching false doctrine.

Who says so? Jesus Christ.

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/20/evangelicals-are-teaching-false-doctrine-who-says-so-jesus-christ/?fbclid=IwAR2ZjD_KeuYH61ZbFF6bKCMDT2z8tHW98hCq8aSwhd8l8MwonSWNo-wUcsY

I've spent my life around evangelical theology — and most of it

is exactly the hypocrisy Christ warned us about

by NATHANIEL MANDERSON

MARCH 20, 2021

I was raised by a pair of wild hippies, so my heart has always been committed to liberal ideology. As a Bible-believing Christian, however, I was surrounded by evangelical theology throughout my youth, in various churches, Bible camps and so on. When I decided to enter the ministry to attempt to change that conservative theology, I attended an evangelical seminary. It was clear on my first day on campus that no reform was going to occur. 

If I happened to mention voting for Al Gore, I was told by my classmates that God keeps a record of my voting history and that I had voted for a man who endorses baby-killing and tearing down the American family. Honestly, I was just hoping that President Gore might help save the planet and not make up a reason to go to war in Iraq. Anyway, in my 10 years in ministry I had even less luck making any changes, which is why I left the formal ministry a couple of years ago. 

The truth then, and even more so now, is that we cannot separate Republicans, and now the Trumpists, from the evangelicals. I have seen my fellow "Christian left" types attempting to reform the God vote — in fact, I've done it myself — but I feel we have been too timid in our approach. Stronger language and a pure rejection of evangelical theology is needed. From a purely Christian point of view, the evangelical leadership are false teachers teaching a false doctrine. Trumpism cannot be defeated without first facing down evangelicalism. Jesus Christ, who these people claim as their savior, himself provided a warning against these religious hypocrites in Matthew 23:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 

The only real threat to Christianity is Christianity itself. Leading evangelical pastors like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress made a passionate plea for Christian voters to ignore Trump's shortcomings as a man because he stands with the Christian church on all things that are right and true. Apparently, that means Christians must shut the door to all LGBTQ people, abortion providers, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and anyone who happens to mention taxing the wealthy.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Many of the false American evangelical teachers demonize and look down upon the people in poorer countries. I have seen these "missionaries" in places like Haiti building their churches and making sure "proper doctrine" is followed. It is this type of modern-day colonialism that has provided foreign governments the religious authority to enact terrible anti-LGBTQ laws and restrictions on reproductive rights for women.

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, "If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath." You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 

False teachers have always believed that their financial wealth means favor with God. I have seen many Christian leaders give praise to God for their big homes, nice cars and million-dollar sanctuaries. This belief that God has blessed them with great stuff prevents them from ever understanding the need to fund programs that provide equality in the education, health care, justice and economic systems.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

These false evangelical leaders may have stayed within the law, but they know nothing about being merciful. They could never understand the message to reach out to undocumented immigrants because of God's call to treat the foreigner as native born — because we were once foreigners ourselves. They only understand the language of rules and law without mercy and grace.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Many of these false evangelical leaders have spent a lot of time and money making sure their public image is clean. Ideal marriages, wonderful children, kind and loving people who are financially affluent and pay their taxes. Christ reminded his followers to be careful of such a well-crafted persona. Behind the curtain there are many filled with hypocrisy and wickedness.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

Many of these current evangelical leaders love to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message of love and forgiveness. Many would like to forget that most conservative Christian leaders rejected Dr. King's message while he was alive, and some believed he was a communist. It is no mystery to me why there is no picture of the great Rev. Billy Graham marching with Dr. King. These false evangelical leaders expose themselves again as they reject the Rev. William J. Barber II's message about honoring and uplifting the poor, which is far more clearly based in Christian doctrine than anything they preach. These false evangelical Christian leaders never understood Dr. King's message to follow Jesus into those places in America where poor people struggle and suffer and too often die, and they never will.

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Nathaniel Manderson was educated at a conservative seminary, trained as a minister, ordained through the American Baptist Churches USA and guided by liberal ideals. Throughout his career he has been a pastor, a career counselor, an academic adviser, a high school teacher and an advocate for first-generation and low-income students, along with being a paper delivery man, a construction worker, a FedEx package handler and whatever else he could do to try to take care of his family.

Original Sin or Original Blessing? How Does One Approach the Cross of Christ?

Original Sin or Original Blessing?

How Does One Approach the Cross of Christ?

Original Sin is much discussed in a literal bible reading of the Adam & Eve story but what do we do with the subject within an Evolutionary story of Process Creation? This was something I attempted some years ago when finally leaving it to the role of freewill + consciousness. But it didn't address the larger issue of free agency beauty and orientation of the Cross of Christ as blessing rather than as condemnation to all who refused Jesus' sacrifice.

"Here’s the thing: people know they sin. What they don’t know is what to do about it. I don’t think the best answer is admitting you are irrevocably bad. I think it’s realizing your home has been in God all along, and it’s time you head that direction, because abundant life is waiting.

"Original sin hinders us from seeing the world as created for connection—to God, to each other, to all created things. It forces us instead to begin with the notion that humans are separate from God. It forces us to be at odds with our bodies and desires and gives no solvable way to integrate them. And it can make our view of salvation small: mostly self-focused, and mostly about the afterlife. So Jesus becomes the solution to a sin problem, not the life of the world. I think it’s an incredibly limiting perspective, at odds with the cosmic scope of the gospel." - Jonathan Merrit

I think Jonathan is on to something here as well as the author he's reviewing, Danielle Shroyer. Every since I started in the direction of open and relational process theology I've been looking for a different way to approach original sin and to express humanity and salvation in a more positive way.

This is a great beginning. It doesn't say there is "no sin" but that the Christian understanding of "sin has overtaken the larger theme" of God's gracious salvation in the mystery of cosmic connection to Himself and to one another.

And when we remove the literalism of the Genesis story it leaves us with the question of how to work in the factual story of evolution and how sin enter therein. For myself, I see evolution as part of the process picture of God's creation: God being the first process of all succeeding or subtending processes. Processes which, like the Father-Creator-Redeemer, are birthed from God's essence of relatability (all things are relational) and free agency (all things are entrusted with goodness and grace, wellbeing and novelty).

Having started with Arminianism and removing all portions of Calvinism from my evangelic faith I've come from the bible side upwards to these positions. And if Whiteheadian Process Philosophy and Theology are added from the metaphysical / ontological side, well, we have a a fairly complete contemporary picture of divine creation which comports very well with a non-literal reading of the bible substituting Hebraic legends for non-mystical science, theology, and philosophy.

So I think Danielle Shroyer's proposition of recontextualizing salvation away from original sin and towards original blessing comes from a healthy view of God's grace and love and the connected universe we live in.

Read these thoughts below and you tell me what you think. I should always like to go with the idea that "Whatever the Lord does is always purposely driven... valuatively driven." Not as mistake, but in congruency with God's beauty and light, love and grace, which He imparted essentially and deeply into His creation.

R.S. Slater

March 30, 2021

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Author: Jesus didn’t believe in ‘original sin’ and neither should we

https://religionnews.com/2017/01/13/author-jesus-didnt-believe-in-original-sin-and-neither-should-we/?fbclid=IwAR0XQf8aaFC-z970O_xAr6T_lP7vX1cRtPlvnRfMcIYzHXeUWm1ggPrnt88

One theologian says that Jesus didn't believe this doctrine, and we shouldn't either.

Image by Simson Petrol via unsplash

January 13, 2017

By 

Jonathan Merritt

For many traditionalist Christians, the doctrine of “original sin” is a sacred cow. But author Danielle Shroyer hopes to send it to the slaughter house with her book, “Original Blessing: Putting Sin in Its Rightful Place.”

The doctrine of “original sin” asserts that human nature was corrupted due to the first sin by Adam and Eve and, therefore, all humans are inherently sinful. It is a “theological construct,” which means it isn’t explicitly laid out in the Christian scriptures, but rather derives from quilting together various passages. The first formulation of the doctrine arises with Augustine around the late 4th Century AD.

According to Shroyer, a former pastor and theologian, Jesus didn’t believe this doctrine and neither did the early church. And if Jesus didn’t believe it, maybe we shouldn’t either. Given the importance of this doctrine and Shroyer’s provocative claim, I decided to take time to chat with Shroyer about why she rejects original sin and what she believes instead.

RNS: Some people say they believe in the doctrine of original sin because of the Bible. But the doctrine developed hundreds of years into the common era. Tell us about the origin of this doctrine.

DS: It’s fair to say Augustine popularized the idea, and by the time of the Reformation it had become widespread in the West. While the early church talked about sin as an action or an illness, Augustine and others shifted language to an inborn sin nature. Once that happened, all the theological focus went toward trying to fix the problem of sin. The cross was seen differently, and salvation became primarily about sin management, and human bodies became suspect, and on and on. So I call original sin the red sock in our theological laundry, because it has the potential to discolor everything.

Image courtesy of Fortress Press

RNS: Why is this doctrine so important that you felt you needed to write a book about it?

DS: As a pastor and now a writer, I want to help people grow into a mature relationship with God. I just don’t think original sin is helpful in doing that; in fact I think it’s very often harmful. The most faithful and centered people I know have a healthy sense of dignity and an honest view of their own shortcomings, and that’s exactly what original blessing gives us. If you want short-term obedience, scare or shame people. If you want transformation, anchor them to God’s unconditional love.

Here’s the thing: people know they sin. What they don’t know is what to do about it. I don’t think the best answer is admitting you are irrevocably bad. I think it’s realizing your home has been in God all along, and it’s time you head that direction, because abundant life is waiting.

RNS: But what is the scriptural basis for the doctrine of original sin?

DS: Scripture certainly talks about the universal reach of sin. But no passage or verse in scripture speaks definitively to the concept of an inborn sin nature. We can take sin seriously without going there. After all, Jesus didn’t believe in original sin, and the disciples and the early church didn’t either. What we see in scripture is a story of people sometimes behaving terribly and people sometimes behaving righteously. It’s often the same people. Some call that a sin nature. I think we simply call it human nature.

RNS: How do you think this doctrine affects the perspectives of most Christians?

DS: Original sin hinders us from seeing the world as created for connection—to God, to each other, to all created things. It forces us instead to begin with the notion that humans are separate from God.  It forces us to be at odds with our bodies and desires and gives no solvable way to integrate them. And it can make our view of salvation small: mostly self-focused, and mostly about the afterlife. So Jesus becomes the solution to a sin problem, not the life of the world. I think it’s an incredibly limiting perspective, at odds with the cosmic scope of the gospel.

RNS: What is “original blessing?”

DS: We are in a relationship with God, and God started it, and God is sticking with it. While original sin is centered on human action, original blessing is centered on God’s sovereign choice to love us. God gives us this relationship at first breath, and when we respond by anchoring ourselves to God’s steadfast love, we find right relationship/shalom/wholeness with everything else. The deepest truth of the world is that we find our home in God because God is our home.

Danielle Shroyer is the author of “Original Blessing.”

RNS: Is this an overly optimistic view of humanity? People have done more terrible things throughout history than we have space to name here. 

DS: I don’t know any power other than the steadfast love of God that can conquer evil and reconcile those terrible things. So, to me, it feels risky to try to ground our humanity in anything less than that power. I think original sin is overly pessimistic, and belief in human progress is too naive. Original blessing wisely reminds us we are all capable of both remarkable good and horrifying evil. It reminds us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. You could say it’s a grace-filled view of humanity, but I wouldn’t call that optimistic. I’d call it the good news. 

RNS: Some might say that original blessing makes light of sin. How do you respond?

DS: I think original blessing actually takes sin more seriously, because it tells us we are actually capable of being faithful… and yet loved when we are not. That kind of unwavering love gives us courage to be honest about our sins and the sins of the world, and empowered to do something about it. It gives us permission to practice, which is all we can do anyway. I’m honest about my flaws with my husband because I know he loves me despite them. And that’s why I can move from self-pity or guilt to repentance and action. God has designed us to be transformed by love. That is how we take sin seriously.

RNS: What about the understanding that Jesus’ death and resurrection “reversed the curse?” Doesn’t your view change the way we think about the cross and tomb?

DS: Well if you read closely, it’s the snake and the ground that are cursed, not Adam and Eve. So I’m not a huge fan of that saying. I think it’s impossible to explain what happened in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection with any simple formula. He came to be God-with-us. He came as the Messiah. He came to embody faithful humanity. He came to be the Way and to make a way. He came to glorify God and to empty himself. He came to share in our deepest sufferings, and to bless us even as we killed him. He came to defeat death, and to bring abundant life. I don’t think there’s any bottom to that well of mystery. But I think original blessing gives us more room to explore it. 

Thomas Jay Oord - What Kind of Universe Should We Expect?

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[The Universe Exhibits]

Precisely the Properties We Should Expect If…

by Thomas Jay Oord

We know Richard Dawkins for his provocative claims. After examining both simple and complex life, Oxford’s former Professor for Public Understanding of Science reaches this conclusion:

The universe has “precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pointless indifference.” - Richard Darwkins

Because he’s an atheist, it’s no surprise Dawkins thinks the universe is without ultimate meaning. As a biologist, he points to randomness, suffering, and evolutionary dead ends to support his view. As an observer of history, he points to harm religious people and institutions sometimes cause.

But does science require us to reject God? Or consider life meaningless?

Another British intellectual, William Paley, offers a different conclusion. Because of the design he observes in the universe, Paley says there must be Something “more than what we see… amongst the invisible things of nature, there must be an intelligent mind concerned in its production, order, and support.”

For Paley, design points to God. Some contemporary biologists agree, especially those who believe life to be intelligently designed. Many believers in God say what seems disordered, ugly, purposeless, and evil is not so. From God’s perspective, it’s all part of a divine blueprint.

Does theology require us to reject disorder, randomness, and evil in nature? 

Many people feel they must choose between science and theology. They must choose between a scientific view that says existence is purposeless, meaningless, and ultimately random. Everything’s up for grabs. Or they can choose a theological view that says everything is part of a divine plan. It’s all what God wants.

But must we choose between “everything’s up for grabs” and “it’s all what God wants?”

Let me offer a third alternative. It looks at research in the natural and social sciences and at our experiences in everyday life. From these observations, this alternative concludes that some occurrences in life have purpose. Others do not. Sometimes we see good, and love wins. Other times, we encounter genuine evil. Some events are random; others are intentional. And so on. 

Instead of thinking it’s all meaninglessness or meaningful, random or ordered, good or evil, the third alternative says we live in a both/and universe.

What kind of God creates a both/and universe? 

In my view, a both/and universe points to a God who creates and loves in uncontrolling ways. To put it another way, an omnipresent Spirit acts in the universe without controlling anyone or anything.

In widely diverse ways, this uncontrolling Spirit lures, calls, and woos creation toward goodness, beauty, and order. This Spirit wants the well-being of all. It offers specific purposes to each entity, creature, or world without singlehandedly determining any. 

The genuine evil, ugliness, and pointless death we witness are not part of a predetermined divine plan. Evolutionary dead-ends are not necessary evils pre-orchestrated by a God outside the flow of history. Pandemics, cancer, and moral evils are not part of a divine blueprint. Evil is evil from our perspective and God’s.

This uncontrolling Spirit inspires creaturely acts of goodness, truth, beauty, and love. “Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above,” as St. James puts it. But creation plays a necessary role in whether goodness becomes a reality. God always works for well-being, but God can’t secure it alone. Creatures may not cooperate with this work. Or the conditions of inanimate creation may not align for goodness, beauty, and order to manifest.

From an uncontrolling love perspective, the world we observe makes sense. Both order and disorder, design and chaos, good and evil will be features of a world God creates but cannot control. The world we study is consonant with believing an uncontrolling God creates.

So… what kind of God fits what science tells us and the world we experience? It’s a complex question with many nuances. Good and wise people have different intuitions and different answers. 

I think the best insights of science and everyday life point to a God who loves everyone and everything but can’t control anyone or anything. A Spirit of love acts in our universe and every universe that might exist.

Let me close by changing Richard Dawkins’s words. In my view:

"The universe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, a loving but uncontrolling God who creates and interacts with all creatures, great and small, and all creation, simple and complex." - Thomas Jay Oord

- TJO

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What Is Love And Why It’s Essential To Understanding The Universe

God Acts And Calls All Creation,

From The Simplest To The Most Complex,

To Diverse Expressions

Of Love, Beauty, And Well-Being.

- Thomas Jay Oord

Some have claimed God creates through love, because God is love. The argument sometimes considers love an energy, some “stuff,” desire, relationship, or well-being. Diverse love proposals confuse, because love is understood variously. In this Zoom webinar, I begin by looking at various ways humans have understood love on the way to offering my own definition that incorporates what I think are the positive aspects of the diverse understandings. Building from this, I argue for a love-centered beginning to the universe, in which God creates but not from nothing.

Believing God creates, calls, and empowers others without controlling anyone or anything provides an answer to the problem of evil. I call this answer “the uncontrolling love of God” view. It helps make sense of evolutionary puzzles like species dead ends (extinction) and surplus killing among various species today. I believe God acts and calls all creation, from the simplest to the most complex, to diverse expressions of love, beauty, and well-being. We live in an open and relational universe and world in which an open and relational God loves as a genuine participant.

This perspective guides my view of the future as well. I close by offering a “relentless love” view of life beyond bodily death. In this view, God does not damn anyone to eternal conscious torment but also never forces anyone to eternal bliss. Instead, the God of uncontrolling love continues to invite creatures to loving relationships after they die. Because this love is relentless, we have the hope but not a guarantee of universal reconciliation.

Join us online on March 25th for an thrilling conversation with Thomas where we will a explore why love is essential to understanding the universe.

About Thomas Jay Oord

Thomas Jay Oord, Ph.D., is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. Oord directs the Center for Open and Relational Theology and doctoral students at Northwind Theological Seminary. He is an award-winning author and has written or edited more than twenty-five books. A gifted speaker, Oord lectures at universities, conferences, churches, and institutions. He is known for his contributions to research on love, science and religion, open and relational theology, the problem of suffering, and the implications of freedom for transformational relationships. Website: thomasjayoord.com