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This book is the second in a projected three-volume set proposing a systematic theology of love. I’ve been very happy with the sales of the first volume and the feedback from readers. Many people sent notes expressing appreciation that I am undertaking a sustained exploration of love from a systematic perspective.

 Most reviews of the first volume have been positive and constructive. As I expected, some reviewers disagreed with points here and there. Others wished I had expanded on particular points. And, not surprisingly, some asked questions about topics I aim to address in volumes two and three. But the overall response to Volume One has been extremely positive.

I’m grateful!

The second volume begins by addressing divine revelation. It moves to issues surrounding incarnation and the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. A chapter on the Trinity comes after my discussion of Jesus. Following a sequence common to systematic theologies, the issues of sin and salvation are then addressed.

As I did in the first volume, I address these topics from the perspective of love. My claims about divine and creaturely love are brought to bear on topics in following volumes.

Before exploring these topics, let me recap ground I covered in volume one.

An Open and Relational Systematic Theology of Love

I began the first volume by saying that, to my knowledge, I am writing the first book with the title, A Systematic Theology of Love. That this is the first book with that title should surprise us, given the centrality of love in scripture and the witness to love by people of faith. Many people consider love primary to understanding life and establishing healthy relationships with one another and creation. Because Jesus of Nazareth lived a life of love and made love central in his teachings, Christians have additional reasons to prioritize love in their theological reflection. Love matters most.

  Rather than love, most systematic theologians take sovereignty, glory, grace, or a related issue as their orienting concern. But most themes taken as central clash with love, because most theologians assume God is impassible, timeless, and omnipotent. Those systematic theologies fail to resolve the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and say God determines our destinies. An impassible and timeless deity does not engage in give-and-receive relations with creatures.

  Admittedly, the word “love” has many meanings. Biblical writers use love words in diverse ways, and we find diverse theological visions in sacred writ. For instance, sometimes New Testament writers use the Greek word agape to describe divine love, but other biblical passages they use agape in ways that don’t describe what’s good and godly. The same is true of other biblical words translated “love.” Confusion reigns.

  If a systematic theologian is to make love their regulative idea and propose consistent doctrines in light of that idea, defining love well proves crucial. I define an act of love as acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, with the aim to promote overall well-being. This definition differs from other definitions on offer. For instance, Augustine equated love with desire, and many theologians have not thought love essentially relational. Defining love as active and relational distinguishes this systematic theology from those that portray God in all respects unchanging, non-personal, and essentially independent.

  This systematic theology of love operates from an open and relational perspective. While open and relational theologies come in many forms, they champion the idea that God is relational, and the future is open to everyone, including God. These theologies are known for rethinking divine power, affirming genuine creaturely agency, and taking experiences of life seriously. This theological framework is ideal for those who prioritize love, both creaturely and divine.

  It doesn’t do much good to write a systematic theology of love if there are not good reasons to think God exists. People of faith appeal to various sources and arguments to justify belief in divinity, however. Scripture, religious traditions, personal experiences, and nature are among these sources, but none successfully prove that God exists. Arguments from creation’s design, beauty, causation, morality, and more have merit, but are not, in themselves, convincing as proofs.

  A fair assessment of God’s possible existence includes arguments against the existence of deity. The two strongest are the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness. These problems and others underscore the importance of asking what kind of God might exist. The best arguments against belief in God assume deity is omnipotent. If we deny omnipotence, the case for God’s existence grows stronger.

  We can make a good abductive case for God’s existence. Drawing from experiences, various sources, reason, and more, we can make better sense of reality as we experience it if we posit a divine Lover. Such positing gives us ground to affirm ultimate meaning and make sense of our intuitions about love. Put another way, it’s plausible that an uncontrolling God of love exists, but we can’t be certain.

God is the Universal Spirit Who Always Loves

  Love is the orienting concern of this systematic theology, and God is considered the universal Spirit who always loves. Although few systematic theologies prioritize love, most theologians say God loves. But what they mean by this statement is often inconsistent with their other claims about God, and it fails to match love as we know it. When addressing divine love, I use the same definition I use for creaturely love, although God’s love differs in scope, mode, degree, and so on. In other words, God loves by acting intentionally, in relations with creatures, to promote overall well-being.

  Biblical writers repeatedly speak of God as an agent who loves. But the Apostle John goes further and says, “God is love.” This succinct phrase is best understood as meaning love is God’s primary attribute, and the personal Spirit loves by necessity. Divine love is self-giving, others-empowering, uncontrolling, and pluriform. God is also gracious, merciful, compassionate, and just, although not in the way many traditional theologies have understood these words.

  One of my unusual claims is that God loves freely in one sense but necessarily in another. Love is an essential attribute of the divine nature, so deity must love. That’s necessary. But how God loves is freely chosen in ongoing relations with creatures who move into an open and unknown future. Those expressions of love are contingent. In short, divine freedom bows to love’s logical supremacy in God’s nature.

  Closely related to love as God’s primary attribute is the common claim that the divine ontology is spirit. Jesus described God as spirit, and deity is often compared to breath, wind, mind, gravity, breath, and the spark of life. As an active and universal agent, the universal Spirit of love does not have a localized divine body. But this Lover of all is active, receptive, intentional, living, and universal.

  To say that God is spirit does not mean divinity is entirely immaterial. As the living God, deity has both material and mental dimensions. These dimensions are required to make sense of how a universal God intentionally affects all creation and is affected by it. The material dimension causally influences creatures, and the mental aspect intentionally does so in loving ways. Material-mental creatures respond.

  Saying God is a Spirit who loves assumes God has a personal dimension. The writers of Christian scripture often portray God as a personal being among other beings. But saying God is personal leads many (wrongly) to assume deity must have a localized divine body that is geographically in one place but not others.

  To overcome problems that arise from thinking God has a localized divine body, theologians like Paul Tillich say God is being-itself. This move carries its own problems, however. It’s impossible to make good sense of God as a giving-and-receiving, personal lover if deity is being-itself. Other theologians say God is beyond the categories of being. But this also makes it difficult to think or talk about the Spirit as a lover.

  At the heart of the problems that arise from considering God as being itself or beyond being is that, philosophically, “being” is a static word. Static portrayals of deity are at odds with the dynamic activity of giving-and-receiving love. We better describe the universal, dynamic Spirit as always “becoming.” The universal Spirit who always loves is an everlasting series of divine occasions of experience. Rather than onto-theology, we should embrace what I call “gino-theology.”

God as Amipotent not Omnipotent

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I’m beginning to write the second volume of what I anticipate will be a three-volume systematic theology of love. The first volume — on God and Creation — was published earlier in 2026. Here’s a link to it.

I’ll be posting chapters for volume two on Substack starting in September. Paid subscribers get each full chapter when I post them, and paid subscribers can offer corrections, additions, and other comments for me to consider.

Paid subscribers will have their names added to the printed book’s acknowledgements when it’s published. They get a free, signed copy too. And that signed copy is a hardcover version of the book. It’s a great deal!

More than 200 people signed up as paid subscribers and received signed copies of volume one. I added some other freebies to their packages when I sent the books.

As you can see, this is a particularly good deal. Especially because subscriptions are only $8(US) a month or $80 for the year.

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Tom

“No, I believe against Him.”

It was a clever retort. If to “believe in” something is to support it, we shouldn’t believe in a Devil. We should oppose sin and evil, and we should believe against them.

But my professor didn’t address the question being asked. He was sidestepping, as many scholars must do when teaching in conservative institutions.

In this essay, I want to address the question head-on: Does an ontological being called “the Devil” (or some similar name like “Satan”) actually exist?

The Devil and Demons?

In my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love, I address the question of the devil and demons. I do it in the context of considering issues of evil.

Exploring evil leads naturally to considering the possible existence of a devil and demons. For many people of faith, these evil characters seem ontologically real and at least partly why evil occurs. Belief in evil spiritual beings predates scripture, can be found in the Bible, and continues today.

Like N. T. Wright, I reject the idea of an eternal dualism of good and evil. I think an essentially good God exists and creates everlastingly. I also reject the eternal dualism of good and evil found in some forms of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. Elements of these ancient belief systems permeate some theologies and persist to this day.

A Devil Can’t Have Divine Attributes and Abilities

If the devil exists, I don’t believe it has the unique divine abilities I mentioned in earlier chapters. For instance, the devil isn’t all-knowing. He isn’t universal, isn’t maximally powerful, isn’t all-wise, isn’t everlasting, and so on. If the devil and demons exist, they have limits typical of creatures.

The devil and demons would be unable to control others, for instance, in the sense of being sufficient causes. Claims about demon “possession” would be inaccurate, if by this some mean demonic forces control us or others.

Many people think the devil and demons are spiritual agents, primarily due to their being invisible. Although localized, they apparently have a composition like the invisible, divine Spirit. Material-mental monism stipulates that the devil and demons, if they exist, have mental and material dimensions that can’t be seen.

People also believe demonic beings influence creatures negatively. As spiritual beings, however, they don’t have the physical capacity to pick up objects like we and other creatures have. They wouldn’t be able to control the weather through bodily impact, for instance. Their influence would primarily be mental or psychological, by luring or threatening. They might induce those with bodies to do evil.

Evidence for the Devil?

Beyond scripture, the evidence for a devil and demons typically comes from experiencing profoundly negative events or strangely harmful behavior in creatures. Some people attribute hallucinations, temporary changes of voice, flying objects, predictions, extraordinary strength, and other strange activities to demonic influence.

Some people who believe in a devil or demons attribute all evil to them. But others agree with St. James that “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires” (1:16).

All this remains highly speculative, of course. And the biblical witness doesn’t settle these questions. Biblical writers can be wrong about various aspects of nature and cosmology, so they could be wrong about the existence of a devil or demons. Scriptural references to them could be metaphors. There’s good reason to think the idea of a Devil only emerged in Jewish consciousness after having being introduced to it by other cultures.

In assessing their possible existence, however, we should ponder fairly the possibility that a devil and demons exist as ontological beings. And we should consider the possibility that their existence partly accounts for profoundly negative and odd occurrences. It’s an open question.

How should we respond to the question of the Devil and demons?

I’ve offered a description of what these negatively-inclined beings could be like, and we can see how they’re generally described in the Bible. But this systematic theology is agnostic on whether they actually exist.

When it comes to a devil, demons, or even angels, I find the words of the cosmologist Laplace appropriate: “I have no need for that hypothesis.” This systematic theology of love doesn’t outright reject the possibility of a literal devil, demons, or angels, but it doesn’t require them to make sense of reality.

If a devil or demons do exist, these spiritual beings would be negative influences in creation. Their negativity and tempting are freely chosen and likely have become habitual. But like all creatures, demonic beings could repent and, thereby, join in God’s salvation. They are not inherently evil; even the devil is redeemable.

If the devil and demons don’t exist, we can account for unusual and strangely negative behaviors in other ways. The material-mental monism model I’ve proposed in various places in A Systeamtic Theology of Love provides a conceptual framework for this accounting. In an enchanted and unpredictable world of dynamic creatures, strange things can happen.

Events some think the result of demonic spirits might instead be the influence of dynamic entities and creatures with unusual mental and material dimensions. The more we explore the implications of material-mental monism, in fact, the greater its ability to account for the diverse and unusual expressions of existence. The world can be a strange place.

Conclusion

A growing awareness of how systems lead to evil has prompted many theologians to appeal to the demonic not as ontological beings, but as a way of describing negative systems, habits, and propensities. I’ll address this issue in later chapters of A Systematic Theology of Love when I explore sin.

Invisible systemic forces do incline us toward injustice. But those forces don’t need to be actual demons or a Devil.

When it comes to the Devil, I don’t need that hypothesis.

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Some books make arguments. Others attempt to reimagine an entire theological landscape. Thomas Jay Oord’s A Systematic Theology of Love: God and Creation, Volume 1 belongs firmly in the latter category.

This opening volume of what promises to be a landmark systematic theology represents perhaps the most comprehensive articulation to date of Open and Relational Theology (ORT), while also offering Oord’s most mature argument that Christian theology ought to be organized not around divine sovereignty, omnipotence, or immutable perfection, but around the confession that stands at the heart of the Christian story: God is love.

This is an ambitious undertaking. Oord is not merely revising one doctrine among many. He is asking whether every major locus of Christian theology might be reimagined if love were allowed to function not simply as one divine attribute but as the interpretive center from which all theological reflection proceeds. Whether one ultimately embraces his conclusions or not, the breadth of the project and the consistency with which Oord pursues it make this one of the most significant contributions to contemporary systematic theology in recent years.

The book’s central claim is both elegant and demanding. Love, Oord argues, is not merely something God does. Love is who God eternally is. Consequently, every theological claim must be evaluated according to whether it coheres with God’s unwavering commitment to loving relationship and the flourishing of creation. Throughout the volume, Oord defines love as acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being. This deceptively simple definition becomes the grammar through which doctrines of God, creation, providence, freedom, prayer, suffering, and divine action are reconsidered.

One of the volume’s greatest strengths is its remarkable accessibility. Oord has long possessed the rare ability to write serious theology without unnecessary technical obscurity, and this work continues that pattern. Despite sustained engagement with biblical scholarship, philosophy, historical theology, and contemporary science, the prose remains inviting. The “Big Ideas” that introduce each chapter orient readers without oversimplifying the material. This is a substantial academic work that nevertheless remains teachable—a quality too often absent from systematic theology.

The conceptual center of the volume is not simply a new doctrine but a new theological orientation: love becomes the organizing principle for every subsequent doctrine. Arguing that God’s self-giving love is not merely a voluntary restraint of otherwise coercive power but the very character of God’s eternal life, God’s love is essentially kenotic. God does not choose, on occasion, to act non-coercively; rather, coercion is incompatible with who God is. Divine power is therefore always amipotent—expressed through uncontrolling, others-empowering, relational love that faithfully accompanies creation rather than overriding it.

This vision shapes Oord’s treatment of creation, providence, creaturely freedom, petitionary prayer, and the reality of evil and suffering. It also undergirds one of the book’s most significant achievements: a morally coherent account of divine love in the face of tragedy. Rejecting appeals to inscrutable providence or hidden divine purposes, Oord insists that God is always working for healing, reconciliation, and flourishing, even when those divine purposes are resisted by the genuine agency woven into creation itself. Whether or not readers embrace every aspect of Oord’s Open and Relational proposal, they will encounter a theological vision marked by remarkable internal coherence, intellectual courage, and profound pastoral sensitivity.

Among the book’s most groundbreaking contributions is Oord’s sustained rejection of creatio ex nihilo. In its place, he proposes that God is the “Ever Creator,” eternally bringing forth new creation in loving relationship with an everlasting creation (creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore). While many readers will find this among the volume’s most controversial proposals, it is also one of its most important. Oord argues that the doctrine of creation out of nothing has long sustained theological assumptions about unilateral divine power. His alternative seeks to preserve both God’s unwavering love and the genuine agency of creation, thereby offering a more coherent account of providence, freedom, and suffering.

For me, however, the significance of this volume extends beyond its doctrinal claims. As a practical and public theologian, I find myself continually asking not only whether a theology is internally coherent, but what kind of communities it forms. Every doctrine carries within it an imagination of human flourishing. Every vision of God quietly shapes our practices of leadership, our understanding of power, our posture toward neighbors, and our capacity for welcome.

This is where Oord’s work becomes especially generative.

If God’s power is fundamentally noncoercive, then Christian leadership cannot ultimately be sustained through domination or control. If God eternally acts through persuasive love, then communities formed in the way of Jesus must likewise resist manipulation, fear, and exclusion. If God’s deepest desire is the flourishing of all creation, then the church’s vocation cannot be reduced to preserving institutional survival or defending theological boundaries. Instead, Christian communities become living signs of God’s peaceable dream for the world—places where reconciliation is practiced, strangers become neighbors, enemies become conversation partners, and belonging is extended as gift rather than reward.

Although Oord does not explicitly develop such ecclesial implications at length, they pulse beneath nearly every page of this volume. Oord’s theology invites us to imagine congregations that embody what I have elsewhere called a shalomic imagination—communities learning to participate in God’s ongoing work of nurturing the flourishing of all and everything. In an age marked by polarization, nationalism, ecological crisis, and profound loneliness, such an imagination is not peripheral. It is urgently needed.

Perhaps this is where Oord’s insistence upon love proves most disruptive. Love, as he describes it, is never sentimental. It is active, relational, responsive, and relentlessly oriented toward the well-being of others. Such a vision unsettles theological systems that prioritize certainty over relationship or power over presence. More importantly, it unsettles churches tempted to measure faithfulness by doctrinal precision while neglecting the relational practices through which the love of God becomes visible in the world.

The volume’s engagement with the Christian theological tradition is equally noteworthy. Oord converses generously with Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Wesleyan theology, process thought, open theism, analytic philosophy, and biblical scholarship. He critiques classical theism without caricature, demonstrating both scholarly fairness and intellectual humility. Readers from more traditional theological commitments will undoubtedly challenge aspects of his conclusions, particularly regarding divine omnipotence and the implications of Essential Kenosis for divine freedom. Others may question whether certain biblical portrayals of miraculous intervention or judgment receive sufficient theological weight.

These are important conversations, and Oord neither avoids nor dismisses them. Yet even readers who remain unconvinced by portions of his constructive proposal will likely recognize the significance of the questions he raises. Too often systematic theology has assumed metaphysical commitments inherited from Greek philosophy or post-Reformation scholasticism without asking whether they adequately reflect the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Oord’s project is a sustained invitation to revisit those assumptions through the lens of divine love.

That invitation feels particularly important within our present cultural moment. Public perceptions of Christianity are too often associated with exclusion, certainty, domination, or fear. Against these distortions, Oord offers a theological vision in which God’s very being is endlessly relational, faithfully present, and oriented toward healing. His work reminds us that theology is never merely speculative reflection about God. Theology forms imagination. Imagination shapes practice. And practice, over time, becomes public witness.

The enduring gift of this first volume, then, may not simply be that it places love at the center of systematic theology. It is that Oord refuses to allow love to remain an abstraction. Love becomes the criterion by which doctrines are judged, power is understood, suffering is interpreted, and creation itself is cherished.

For those of us concerned with the future of the church, this is where the conversation becomes especially fruitful. If Oord is right that God’s life is eternally characterized by generous, noncoercive, relational love, then our congregations are called to become more than communities of shared belief. They are invited to become ecologies of belonging—places where the radically hospitable love of God is practiced in ways that contribute to the flourishing of neighbors, neighborhoods, and the whole creation.

Whether one finally agrees with every aspect of Oord’s constructive theology is, in one sense, secondary. The larger achievement of this remarkable volume is that it compels us to ask whether our own theological systems, ecclesial practices, and public witness genuinely reflect the God whom Christians confess is love. Few questions are more urgent. Few contemporary systematic theologies pursue them with greater scholarly care, theological imagination, and pastoral hope.

(Review of Thomas Jay Oord. A Systematic Theology of Love: God and Creation. Volume 1. Collector’s Edition. Grasmere, ID: SacraSage Press, 2026.)

Some people think of God as personal, others as impersonal, some as a force, others as a concept or set of relations. I like to say God is spirit. But what does that mean?

Below is an excerpt from my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love. It addresses this issue.

God’s Spiritness

Theistic traditions speak of deity as Spirit or a spirit.[1] We find this true to varying degrees in Christianity (pneuma, ruach, spiritus), Judaism (ruach and shekinah), and Islam (ruh), although the meanings of “spirit” vary greatly in these traditions.[2] Those in Bahai, Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions also use spirit language to talk about deity, and many indigenous peoples and animistic traditions speak of the Great Spirit.[3] Theologian Jay McDaniel rightly concludes that “Spirit isn’t reducible to Christianity.”[4]

How each tradition understands “spirit” varies, of course, and this diversity increases when one looks at movements and figures within each religion.[5] But the fact that many religions think of God as spirit is highly significant for making sense of divine universality, incorporeality, and invisibility.[6] Conceiving of God as Spirit also orients us toward our experiences of the divine within history. A universally interactive Spirit can’t be contained by any person, any tradition, any creature, or even any universe.

Using “Spirit” as a word for God involves speculating about divine ontology or God’s being. Spirit language prompts us, says Sharon V. Betcher, to think of God “within the planetary and cosmic milieu.”[7] As a self-described “crip” theologian of disability, Betcher argues that emphasizing God as Spirit points us to present realities, including our suffering and embodiment.[8] This same Spirit, says Betcher, can be seen as an “ever newly emergent force for making the world go on” despite suffering, disability, empire, and more.[9] The language of God as a loving and wise Spirit supports diverse forms of flourishing here and now.

Many others speak of God’s spiritness.[10] Biblical scholar Marcus Borg says divine spiritness “stresses relationship, intimacy, and belonging.”[11] Feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson says Spirit “evokes a universal perspective and signifies divine activity in its widest reaches.”[12] Reformed Theologian Jürgen Moltmann says divine spiritness “means that God is present in creation and in history in the ungraspable, life-giving energy.”[13] Womanist theologian Deloris Williams says, “the Spirit is the sustaining presence of God who enables survival, giving Black women energy to endure and resist.”[14] And Amos Yong, the preeminent theologian of Spirit, says, “God is Spirit, and . . . ​the Spirit is the one who creates, renews, and empowers all cultures to respond to God in their own tongues.”[15]

In this chapter, I address these key dimensions of God as Spirit. Note I’m exploring God’s composition as a universal and incorporeal spirit. I’m not yet addressing what some Christians call the Holy Spirit as the third member of the trinity.[16] I’ll address trinitarian issues in a later chapter.[17] Here, I’m exploring the ontological “stuff” of which divinity consists: spirit.[18]

Jesus Describes God as Spirit

Although various scriptures call God “Spirit,” Jesus identifies the very stuff of the divine as spirit. The writers of John’s gospel record Jesus saying, “God is spirit” (4:24). I read this not as a reference to the third person of the Trinity but apparently a statement about the composition of the divine.

This statement comes in Jesus’ conversation with a woman from Samaria. The woman has come to this conversation alone, and she’d been married many times. Jesus’ disciples would have considered her a foreigner and a member of a false religion. In other words, in this story this Samaritan was of the “wrong” faith, at a place not considered holy, without community—and also female, while not maintaining the primary relationship of wife that society expected.

Jesus tells her that worshiping God isn’t confined to mountains or Jerusalem. He twice says believers “worship God in spirit and truth” (4:23, 24). Then Jesus says, “God is spirit.” The point seems to be that true worship will be possible anywhere and for anyone, because God is a universal spirit rather than a localized object or regional deity. The Spirit of Love, it’s implied, isn’t confined to sacred spaces, groups, genders, social expectations, or religions. God is uncontainable.

What is Spirit?

Like “love,” biblical writers use the Hebrew and Greek words we translate “spirit” in diverse ways. The two most common words for spirit are ruach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek). Each word occurs about 400 times in scripture. Later, the Latin spiritus was used for both words.

Biblical writers often use “spirit”’ when referring to God,[19] but sometimes they use it for air, wind, or breath.[20] Other times, “spirit” refers to a spiritual being[21] other than God, such as angels, demons, or other deities. Sometimes “spirit” refers to minds, hearts, or souls.[22] Other times, it denotes a general way of thinking, an attitude, or pattern of living.[23] The diversity of meanings can be bewildering!

Unfortunately, the context of the biblical word translated “spirit” doesn’t always indicate clearly which meaning applies. Consequently, biblical translators make choices when rendering the ancient languages. Wise people can nevertheless disagree on how to interpret the biblical passages in which we find the word for “spirit.”[24] The word is slippery.

The diversity of meanings should remind us that biblical writers are grasping to give an account of themselves, the world, and God.[25] Their accounting has always been influenced by various experiences, cultures, theologies, and more. Accounts of God and reality will never be perfect—even in the Bible. We have license, therefore, to draw from ancient descriptions without being wholly constrained by them.

Although analogies and metaphors can’t ever account for God fully, I turn to four analogies I believe help make sense of God as an invisible, incorporeal, and universal spirit.

God is like wind or breath

We find comparing God to wind or breath typical in scripture, and this analogy has several advantages. A common word for God in the Hebrew scriptures, yahweh, is pronounced as if breathing in and out. Jesus compared God to the wind and said it influences us without our knowing from where it comes (Jn. 3:8). We can see the wind’s effects, because we observe tiny particles whisked about, see trees swaying, or feel a gust. These effects point to the fact that wind and breath have causal force and a physical dimension.

Just as we can’t directly see wind and breath, however, we can’t see God. In fact, we seem unable to perceive God with any of our senses. People of faith typically say at least some events reflect divine causation. But most can’t articulate well how God’s causal influence works, even though they perceive themselves as affected by an unseen Friend, Comforter, Presence, or Force. The Spirit influences.

We can find at least two downsides to comparing God to wind or breath. First, airy entities don’t typically have intentionality. We don’t think of breath and wind making free choices, thinking, or acting purposively. And they don’t love. I will argue that the Spirit does all of these activities and more.

Second, we don’t usually think of wind and breath as universal. We inhale or exhale air in a particular place, and we feel a gust in a specific locale. Every atom comprising a rock, for instance, isn’t present to air. By contrast, the universal Spirit is directly present to all.

The breadth of divine Breath is ubiquitous.

God is like a personal mind

Greek and Hebrew words translated “spirit” sometimes refer to minds. Thinking that God might be like a mind has advantages, because minds have intentions, make decisions, plan, and learn. Minds typically have a subjective unity and are aware. To give an account of ourselves as experiencing subjects, in fact, it makes sense to say we are or have minds. Denying the reality of creaturely minds would be self-refuting; only minds are capable of the psychological activity of denying!

Talking about God as a Mind also has the advantage that minds both influence and are influenced. Creaturely minds are affected by bodies, events, and creation, and they show affect in response. We can’t perceive creaturely minds with our five senses. A scientist can’t cut open a human cranium and see a mind mingling amongst the brain and neurons. Likewise, we can’t see the invisible Spirit.

To say God is mind-like,[26] therefore, aligns with saying the Spirit is an experiencing subject with subjective unity. The Spirit is affected by creaturely others, and it affects them. And just as we can’t see minds when we cut open heads, we can’t perceive the divine Mind with our five senses.

But there’s a downside to comparing God to creaturely minds: our minds aren’t omnipresent. We typically think of minds as residing in a person’s head. They’re localized. Creaturely minds also apparently have a beginning, but, by contrast, an everlasting Spirit has no origin. To talk about the Spirit as mind-like, therefore, we have to be careful to add that God is universal and everlasting.

God is like invisible gravity

To my knowledge, nothing in scripture compares the Spirit to gravity. Neither Jesus nor the biblical authors were conscious of gravity in the modern sense, although they felt its effects. Many people today also function with no cognitive knowledge of gravity, and yet it influences them moment by moment. Most scientists consider gravity universal, although this universality can’t be measured and gravity’s pull varies in intensity.[27]

Similarly, an invisible Spirit influences even those not cognitively aware of its existence.[28] That includes those who deny the reality of God. Like gravity, the Spirit exerts causal or attracting influence, despite not being able to see it.[29] Like God, gravity appears to be universal.

The downsides of comparing God to gravity prove similar to the downsides of comparing the Spirit to wind and breath. Gravity as an active force doesn’t have intentionality, make free choices, think, or act purposively. Gravity can’t love, if one thinks love involves acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being. Deity is like gravity in some ways, but God is unlike it in others.

God is living

Biblical writers often say God is “living.”[30] And we sometimes identify “spirit” as active life or a life-force, either when talking about creatures or Creator. According to the biblical witness, the Spirit is dynamic, animated, and organism-like.[31] Rather than dead or static, the Living Spirit affects creation, and creation affects deity. God is a dynamic actor.[32]

Combining the Spirit as living with the Spirit as breath, various biblical writers say divine breathing is a creative force in the universe. In the book of Job, for instance, Elihu says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives me life” (33:4). The Living Spirit enlivens others; Life creates life.

We can see one disadvantage in this way of thinking in the tendency to imagine a Living God having the same limitations as creatures. Living creatures have limited influence, for instance, because they’re always located in a specific place. Living creatures are also typically embodied (ghosts being a possible exception), whereas the Living Spirit is universal and doesn’t have a divine body. And living creatures are born and die; God remains everlasting.

In sum, saying the Spirit can be compared to wind, breath, or air points to the causal force of an invisible deity. Saying the Spirit is like gravity acknowledges God’s invisible but universal influence. Saying the Spirit lives indicates that deity is a dynamic, relational actor. And saying the Spirit is like a mind supports the intentionality and relations necessary for love. Rightly understood, these various claims and images trying to capture the universal, incorporeal, and living Spirit support the notion that God acts intentionally, in relational response, to promote overall well-being.

More

For more on how I think about God as the universal Spirit who loves, see A Systematic Theology of Love.

^[1] For a classic exploration of God and/or ultimate reality as Spirit or spiritual, see Ninian Smart’s book, The Religious Experience of Mankind (New York: Scribner, 1969).

^[2] Grace Ji-Sun Kim explores the relation between spirit and chi in The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

^[3] See, for instance, JoJo M. Fung, “The Great Spirit in Indigenous Peoples’ Lives and The Future of Pneumatology,” Asia Pacific Mission Studies: Vol. 6: 1.6 (2024). Available at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/apms/vol6/iss1/6; Vine Deloria, Jr., God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (New York: Fulcrum, 1992); Randy Woodley, Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonialized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2022).

^[4] Jay McDaniel, Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism (St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2000), 5.

^[5] Amos Yong has done immense work in applying pneumatology to interreligious dialogue, especially with Buddhism. See Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003); The Cosmic Breath: Spirit and Nature in the Christianity-Buddhism-Science Trialogue (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow Through the Middle Way? (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

^[6] Many Hindu and Indian religions speak of God or ultimate reality as spiritual consciousness. On this, see Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969); Swami Padmanabha, Evolution in Divine Love: The Eternal Becoming of God, Soul, and Matter (Inword, 2025); Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927).

^[7] Sharon V. Betcher, Spirit and the Politics of Disablement (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), 2.

^[8] Ibid., 3.

^[9] Ibid., 24.

^[10] In some ways, my work is an example of what LeRon Shults and Andrea Hollingsworth say is the 21st century task of “interpreting the experience of the Spirit of the biblical God.” See The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 89.

^[11] Marcus Borg, The God We Never Knew (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 71.

^[12] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 83.

^[13] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, Margaret Kohl, trans. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 9.

^[14] Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 127.

^[15] Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 18. For others who equate God and Spirit, see Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996); Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995); Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990).

^[16] Blair Reynolds addresses the Holy Spirit from a process theology perspective. See Blair Reynolds, Toward a Process Pneumatology (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1990).

^[17] Pneumatology. I am grateful to Amos Yong for his conversations and writings on pneumatology. I consider him to be the expert on the spirit. Among his many books on pneumatology, see Spirit of Love (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012). Sallie McFague explores the advantages and disadvantages of calling God “Spirit.” I find none of her disadvantages convincing. See Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 169-71.

^[18] Among those who have written well on the spirit, see Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture, and Community (Cleveland, TN: CPT, 2009); Michael Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012); Bradley Shavit Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2013); Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996); Joshua D. Reichard, Pentecost, Process, and Power (PhD diss., University of the Western Cape, 2010); Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God-Christ-Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006).

^[19] See Gen 1:2; Exod 31:3; 2 Chr 15:1; Matt 28:19; Mk 1:8; 3:29; 12:36; Lk 1:15, 35, 41; 2:25–26; Jn 20:22; Acts 1:2, 5, 8, 16; 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Thess 4:8.

^[20] See Gen 3:8; 6:17; 7:15; Exod 15:8, 10; Num 11:31; Job 1:19; 9:18; Ps 1:4; Prov 25:23; Eccl 1:14, 17; Isa 11:4; Ez. 37:7-10; Jn 3:8; Heb 1:7.

^[21] See Mt 8:16; Mk 1:26; Lk 24:37; 4:36; Acts 19:12.

^[22] See Gen 7:22; Gen 41:8; Gen 45:27; Deut 2:30; Job 7:11; Ps 51:10; 51:17; 77:6; 78:8; 143:4; Prov 15:13; 17:22; Isa 26:9; Lam 4:20; Mk 2:8; Lk 23:46; Rom 8:16; 1 Cor 2:11; 1 Cor 5:5; Col. 2:5.

^[23] See Isa 29:10; Rom 8:15, 11:8; Eph 2:18; 2 Tim 1:7.

^[24] Jack Levison notes that a theologian’s presuppositions incline her toward particular pneumatologies. “With so many references to spirit in scripture, a plethora of possible starting points present themselves, each of which will lead in a distinctive direction . . . ​The choice of a starting point therefore determines the sort of pneumatology a reader cultivates.” John (Jack) R. Levison, “The Spirit in the Christian Bible,” St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, Brendan N. Wolfe, et al., eds. (

https://www.saet.ac.uk

/ Christianity/TheSpiritintheChristianBible Accessed: 19 December 2024).

^[25] Michael Lodahl explores Jewish and Christian understandings of Spirit in Shekinah/Spirit (New York: Paulist, 1992).

^[26] In his writings, Keith Ward often compares God to a mind. For an example, see Sharing in the Divine Nature (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020). See also Wm. Curtis Holtzen and Roberto Sirvent, eds., By Faith and Reason: The Essential Keith Ward (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2012).

^[27] Jay McDaniel compares the Spirit of love to plasma in “Felt, Not Grasped: The Spirit as Plasmatic Love,” in Renewing Faith, Sheri Kling, ed. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[28] Among those who compare God to gravity, see Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being (New York: Orbis, 2014); Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, Bernard Wall, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1960); Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, Emma Craufurd, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952). Bradford McCall brings together a collection of Philip Clayton’s writings under the title, God and Gravity (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018).

^[29] Philip Clayton explores the action of the Spirit in a collection of essays called Adventures in Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2008).

^[30] E.g., Deut. 5:26; Ps. 42:2; Matt. 16:16; Acts 14:15.

^[31] “When spirit is understood as pure, undifferentiated consciousness, it fails to express the personal character of God.” John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Scribner, 1966), 152.

^[32] Rory Randall makes a strong argument for the compatibility of open and relational theology with Spirit-oriented theologies. See An Open Theist Renewal Theology (Gras

Framing Oord: Love, Conceptual Contestation, and the Architecture of Theology

What follows is not a conventional book review in the narrow sense of summarising and evaluating Thomas Jay Oord’s A Systematic Theology of Love, Volume 1: God and Creation. Rather, it offers a set of constructive and exploratory reflections that place Oord’s project into sustained conversation with a range of thinkers and traditions that illuminate its broader significance. In this respect, Oord’s work functions less as an isolated doctrinal proposal and more as a generative site of theological reconfiguration. It enables a rethinking of the relationship between love, power, and divine agency across multiple intellectual horizons, including Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptual history, Miroslav Volf’s account of flourishing in pluralistic modernity, Islamic traditions of love and mercy—especially in their Sufi articulations—and the process-relational metaphysical framework associated with Charles Hartshorne, Bernard Loomer, and Daniel Dombrowski. Read in this way, Oord’s book becomes not simply a systematic theology but an invitation to rethink the conceptual grammar of theology itself.

At the centre of Oord’s project lies a bold methodological and doctrinal claim: systematic theology must be reoriented around love as its primary, architectonic principle. This proposal is motivated by a dissatisfaction with what Oord sees as a long-standing and deeply entrenched prioritisation of divine omnipotence in both classical and modern theological traditions. For Oord, this prioritisation has generated a host of enduring theological incoherences, especially in relation to evil, divine hiddenness, providence, and the nature of creaturely freedom. The central move of the book is therefore a redefinition of divine power in terms of what he calls amipotence, a form of power that is neither coercive nor unilateral but intrinsically expressive of love. As Oord puts it, “Amipotence is the power of God’s uncontrolling love… God can’t control others.” This formulation captures the radical nature of his proposal: divine power is not the ability to determine outcomes unilaterally but the unsurpassable capacity to influence relationally.

This reconceptualisation of power is inseparable from Oord’s attempt to define love in a precise and systematic manner. He offers a widely cited definition: “to love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.” This definition is meant to function as the regulative core of the entire theological system, shaping Oord’s account of God, creation, and the God–world relationship. It is important to note that Oord does not merely identify love as one divine attribute among others but elevates it to the status of the primary interpretive key through which all other divine attributes must be understood. In this sense, the claim “God is love” is not a metaphorical or secondary assertion but the foundational proposition of the entire system. Yet Oord is careful to avoid collapsing love into God, insisting instead that “God is love, but love isn’t God.” This distinction allows him to preserve both the centrality of love and the personal, relational character of the divine.

At this point, however, a significant conceptual issue arises—one that Oord himself recognises but perhaps does not fully theorise: the instability and contestability of the concept of love. While his definition is admirably clear, it operates within a conceptual terrain that is deeply historically and culturally mediated. This is where Reinhart Koselleck’s conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) provides an especially illuminating framework. Koselleck demonstrates that key social and moral concepts—such as “love,” “justice,” or “freedom”—are not static entities but historically dynamic formations embedded within evolving social and political contexts. Concepts, in his formulation, exist in a “relation of tension” with the realities they seek to describe. They are inherently contested, subject to reinterpretation, and capable of carrying multiple, sometimes conflicting meanings.

Applied to Oord’s project, this insight suggests that the concept of love cannot be stabilised once and for all by a single definition, however carefully constructed. Rather, it remains open to ongoing reinterpretation as it is deployed across different theological, cultural, and ethical contexts. This is not a weakness but an inevitable feature of what might be called “thick” moral concepts—terms that carry both descriptive and evaluative weight and whose meanings are shaped by broader worldviews. Oord’s own work implicitly acknowledges this when he notes the multivocality of scriptural language and the diversity of everyday uses of “love.” The implication is that his definition should be read not as a final conceptual closure but as a normative proposal, a way of organising theological discourse that remains open to revision.

This insight becomes particularly significant when we consider Oord’s linking of love to “overall well-being” or flourishing. While this move provides a practical and ethical orientation for the concept of love, it simultaneously introduces another layer of contestation. What counts as “well-being” is itself deeply disputed, as Miroslav Volf has argued in his work on flourishing in a globalised world. Volf distinguishes between “thin” and “thick” accounts of the good life, noting that contemporary pluralistic societies tend to rely on thin, procedural definitions of flourishing—focused on rights, autonomy, and minimal harm—while religious traditions offer thicker, more substantive visions oriented toward meaning, virtue, and transcendence. The result is not consensus but ongoing disagreement about what it means to live well.

From this perspective, Oord’s definition of love as promoting “overall well-being” must be situated within a field of competing and often incompatible interpretations of flourishing. Different communities will inevitably disagree about what constitutes well-being, and these disagreements are not merely empirical but grounded in divergent metaphysical, ethical, and theological commitments. This dynamic is evident in contemporary cultural and political conflicts, where disputes about issues such as gender, justice, or religious freedom often turn on fundamentally different understandings of harm and benefit. The persistence of such disagreements suggests that the concept of flourishing functions as what Koselleck would call a historically saturated and contested term, one that cannot serve as a neutral or universally agreed-upon criterion.

The Islamic concept of maṣlaḥa (public benefit) offers a particularly instructive comparative example in this regard. Like Oord’s notion of well-being, maṣlaḥa is intended to function as a principle for promoting the common good and preventing harm. Yet its application has historically been shaped by specific theological and jurisprudential frameworks, often resulting in divergent and sometimes conflicting outcomes. For instance, practices or rulings justified as maṣlaḥa within one interpretive tradition may be criticised as unjust or harmful by others, particularly within contemporary reformist or progressive Islamic thought. This example highlights the extent to which concepts of well-being are embedded in broader interpretive frameworks and cannot be separated from them.

What follows from this is not a rejection of Oord’s definition but a more nuanced understanding of its status. His account of love functions most persuasively when read abductively—that is, as an attempt to offer the best available explanation for a range of moral intuitions, theological commitments, and experiential realities. It is a proposal that seeks coherence rather than finality, one that invites ongoing refinement and dialogue rather than closure. In this respect, Oord’s project aligns with his own epistemological commitments, which emphasise the provisional and fallible nature of theological reasoning.

A further dimension of this discussion emerges when we consider the place of love within Islamic intellectual traditions. While Oord’s project takes the form of a systematic theology—a genre with its own distinct history within Christian thought—the centrality of love is by no means unique to Christianity. However, the way in which love has been articulated in Islamic contexts often differs significantly in form and expression. Rather than being developed primarily through formal theological systematisation, love in Islam finds its richest and most sustained expression within Sufi traditions, particularly in what is sometimes referred to as the madhhab al-ʿishq (school of passionate love).

In this tradition, love is not merely an ethical disposition or divine attribute but an ontological principle that underlies the entire structure of reality. The movement from early discussions of maḥabba (affectionate love) to later elaborations of ʿishq reflects an intensification of this idea, in which love becomes the very ground of both the lover and the beloved. Importantly, however, this conception of love is often expressed through poetic, symbolic, and experiential language rather than through systematic definition. Sufi writers frequently emphasise the inadequacy of literal language to capture the reality of love, insisting instead on metaphor, paradox, and performative expression.

This stands in a certain tension with Oord’s project, which seeks conceptual clarity and systematic coherence. Yet the two approaches are not opposed so much as complementary. The Sufi insistence on the ineffability of love serves as a reminder of the limits of conceptualisation, while Oord’s systematic articulation provides a framework for integrating love into broader theological discourse. Both approaches, in different ways, resist the reduction of love to a purely abstract or detached concept.

Moreover, there are significant resonances between Oord’s notion of amipotence and Sufi accounts of divine action. In many Sufi texts, God is portrayed not as a controlling sovereign but as the Beloved whose influence is primarily attractive and transformative. Divine action is understood less in terms of coercion and more in terms of invitation, drawing creatures into a relational dynamic of love. This perspective aligns closely with Oord’s claim that divine power is fundamentally non-coercive, that “love that controls isn’t love at all.” When combined with the Qurʾānic emphasis on mercy (raḥma), particularly in the divine names al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm, this suggests the possibility of a broader interreligious convergence around a relational and compassionate understanding of divine power.

In light of these comparative and conceptual considerations, Oord’s project can be seen as an important and ambitious attempt to reconstruct the foundations of systematic theology. Its significance lies not only in its specific doctrinal claims but in its methodological reorientation, which places love at the centre of theological reasoning. At the same time, the engagement with conceptual history and comparative theology highlights the need to approach this project with a certain epistemic humility, recognising the limits of definitional closure and the inevitability of interpretive plurality. It is precisely within this tension—between systematic coherence and conceptual openness—that Oord’s theology finds both its strength and its generative potential.

From Amipotence to All-Encompassing Mercy : Reframing Divine Power in Islamic and Process-Relational Perspective

If Section One has argued that Oord’s systematic theology is best understood as a regulative, abductive proposal centred on love—and one that must be situated within conceptually contested terrains—Section Two turns to what is, in my view, the most promising trajectory for extending and deepening his project in a comparative theological direction: namely, the integration of amipotence into an Islamic theological grammar through the conceptual primacy of divine mercy (raḥma). This move requires both a critical diagnosis of certain structural features of classical Islamic theology and a constructive retrieval of resources within the Qurʾānic and mystical traditions that resonate strongly with Oord’s rethinking of divine power.

At the heart of Oord’s proposal lies the claim that divine power is not best understood in terms of omnipotence—conceived as the ability to unilaterally determine any possible state of affairs—but rather as the unsurpassable relational efficacy of love. As he formulates it, “Amipotence is the power of God’s uncontrolling love,” and therefore entails that “God can’t control others, including creatures and creation that cause evil.” This claim is not merely a revision of one attribute among others; it is a reconfiguration of the conceptual grammar within which divine attributes are understood. Power is not diminished but redescribed, no longer as domination but as persuasive, relational, and co-creative influence. The implications of this shift are far-reaching, particularly with respect to the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, and the moral intelligibility of God.

When brought into conversation with Islamic theology, however, this proposal encounters both resonance and resistance. On the one hand, the centrality of divine mercy in the Qurʾān offers a rich set of conceptual resources for articulating a non-coercive, relational understanding of divine agency. The repeated invocation of God as al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm, together with the well-known association of raḥma with the womb (raḥim), suggests a theological grammar in which nurturing, sustaining, and compassionate relationality are ontologically primary. On the other hand, much of what is conventionally understood as Islamic orthodoxy operates—at least in its dominant speculative theology ( kalām ) formulations—within a framework that bears significant affinities to the classical theism that Oord critiques. In such frameworks, divine will (irāda) and power (qudra) are often foregrounded in ways that risk subordinating relationality to sovereignty, thereby making the integration of amipotence appear, at first glance, conceptually strained.

In my own work, I have argued that this tension can be addressed only by undertaking a dual move: first, by identifying the epistemological and hermeneutical presuppositions that sustain sovereignty-centred readings of divine power; and second, by retrieving internal Islamic resources—particularly those associated with Qurʾānic mercy and Sufi metaphysics—that allow for a re-centering of divine relational love. This approach does not amount to an external imposition of process-relational categories onto Islam, but rather to what might be called an immanent critique and reconstruction. It seeks to show that the resources for rethinking divine power in terms of uncontrolling love are already present within the tradition, even if they have not always been systematically foregrounded.

A key obstacle to this integration lies in the strong orthodox commitment to viewing the Qurʾān as unmediated, verbatim divine discourse. When combined with readings of certain divine epithets in maximalist terms—such as al-Qādir (the All-Powerful) or al-Malik (the Sovereign)—this epistemological stance tends to reinforce a conception of divine agency as unilateral determination. Within such a framework, divine power is understood primarily as the capacity to override creaturely agency and to bring about outcomes irrespective of creaturely cooperation. The resulting picture of God, while affirming transcendence, risks rendering problematic the very notion of divine love, particularly when confronted with the reality of suffering and evil.

Oord’s critique of omnipotence provides a helpful diagnostic here, not because it directly addresses Islamic theology, but because it exposes a more general conceptual conflation: the tendency to equate maximal power with unilateral control. By contrast, Oord insists that power, if it is to be understood in a way consistent with love, must be relational. It must involve the capacity to influence without coercing, to invite without determining, to empower without overriding. As he puts it, “a loving Spirit exists who can’t control creatures or creation. God isn’t all-powerful.” This formulation opens up the possibility of reinterpreting sovereignty-language not as metaphysical description but as rhetorical expression—what Islamic theology might identify as jalāl-language, expressing divine majesty rather than literal control.

It is at this point that the concept of divine mercy becomes decisive. The Qurʾān’s repeated emphasis on God’s mercy is not incidental but constitutive. Mercy is not simply one attribute among others but, arguably, the most pervasive and foundational description of the divine. From a process-relational perspective, this allows for a reframing of divine agency in which mercy is not the outcome of divine will but its very ground. In other words, God does not choose to be merciful; rather, God is merciful by nature. This aligns closely with Oord’s insistence that love is not a contingent attribute but essential to the divine being—“the Spirit must love.”

When read in this light, the Qurʾānic emphasis on mercy can be seen as providing an Islamic analogue to amipotence. Mercy, understood ontologically rather than merely ethically, becomes the mode of divine power. It expresses itself not through control but through nurturing, sustaining, and guiding relationality. The womb imagery associated with raḥma reinforces this interpretation, suggesting a form of power that gives life, sustains growth, and responds to the needs of the other without coercion. In this sense, divine mercy can be seen as the outward expression of an underlying reality of divine love, much as Oord describes love as self-giving, others-empowering, and uncontrolling.

This convergence becomes even more pronounced when we turn to Islamic mystical traditions. In Sufi thought, love (ḥubb/ʿishq) and mercy are often taken to be two inseparable dimensions of the same divine reality. The well-known hadith qudsi in which God declares, “My mercy encompasses all things,” provides a theological foundation for understanding divine relationality as universal and unbounded. Sufi metaphysics frequently goes further, suggesting that creation itself is the unfolding or self-disclosure of divine love. Although articulated in symbolic and poetic forms rather than systematic propositions, this perspective resonates strongly with the process-relational view of reality as dynamic, relational, and participatory.

From this vantage point, integrating Oord’s amipotence into Islamic theology becomes less a matter of importing a foreign concept and more a matter of rearticulating an already present intuition. The challenge lies not in the absence of conceptual resources but in the dominance of interpretive frameworks that privilege sovereignty over relationality. By foregrounding raḥma as the primary key to divine agency, it becomes possible to reinterpret other attributes in ways that align more closely with a love-centred theology. Sovereignty, for instance, need not be understood as control but as the unsurpassable capacity to sustain and guide the relational order of creation. Power becomes the power to nurture and to respond, not to dominate.

The process-relational tradition, particularly as articulated by Hartshorne, provides further conceptual support for this reconfiguration. Hartshorne’s critique of classical theism targets precisely the assumption that divine perfection entails unilateral control, immutability, and impassibility. Against this, he proposes a dipolar conception of God in which divine essence—as unsurpassable love, wisdom, and responsiveness—is stable, while divine actuality is dynamically related to the evolving world. This distinction allows for a conception of God as both constant in character and responsive in experience, thereby preserving both transcendence and relationality.

In this framework, divine power is necessarily relational because reality itself is relational. To exist is to interact, to affect and be affected. This insight aligns closely with Oord’s claim that divine love must be understood as giving-and-receiving, rather than as unilateral imposition. It also resonates with Loomer’s distinction between unilateral and relational power. The latter, which he associates with the capacity for mutual influence, provides the necessary condition for genuine relationship and therefore for love. Without such relational power, love collapses either into domination or into abstraction.

Daniel Dombrowski’s work on process mysticism adds an important experiential dimension to this discussion. By arguing that process theism offers a more coherent framework for understanding mystical experience than classical theism, Dombrowski highlights the extent to which a relational ontology better fits the phenomenology of religious life. Experiences of divine presence, compassion, and interconnection are difficult to reconcile with a model of God as impassible and unaffected. By contrast, a God understood as responsive, empathetic, and relationally present provides a more plausible account of such experiences. In this respect, Oord’s theology not only addresses doctrinal problems but also aligns with lived religious experience across traditions.

What emerges from this comparative and constructive exercise is a more nuanced understanding of Oord’s central claim. Amipotence is not simply an alternative attribute but a proposal to reframe the very meaning of power in theological discourse. When brought into conversation with Islamic concepts of mercy and Sufi articulations of divine love, it reveals a broader convergence around the idea that the deepest form of power is not coercion but relational generosity. This does not resolve all conceptual tensions—particularly those associated with the interpretation of scriptural language or the persistence of contested notions of flourishing—but it does provide a compelling framework for rethinking divine agency in a way that is both ethically and theologically coherent.

In conclusion, the integration of amipotence into an Islamic theology of mercy underscores the broader significance of Oord’s project. It demonstrates that the move from omnipotence to uncontrolling love is not an isolated innovation within Christian theology but part of a wider reconfiguration of the concept of divine power across traditions. At the same time, the engagement with conceptual history reminds us that such reconfigurations remain provisional, situated, and open to further development. The strength of Oord’s proposal lies precisely in this openness: its capacity to generate new conversations, to invite comparative engagement, and to offer a vision of divine power that is both intellectually credible and morally compelling.

Finally, it should be noted that Oord’s study is remarkably erudite and impressively wide-ranging in its engagement with contemporary theology, philosophy, and the sciences. The breadth and depth of sources mobilized throughout the volume attest to a sustained and careful scholarly labor. There is little doubt that Oord has done his homework, and done it with both intellectual seriousness and constructive ambition. In light of this and his sustained body of work, Oord rightly stands as one of the leading contemporary theologians of love, and this volume decisively consolidates and advances that reputation.

https://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Love-God-Creation/dp/196813650

References

• Dombrowski, D. A. (2023). Process Mysticism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

• Duderija, A. (2025, April 18). From Amipotence to All-Encompassing Mercy. Religions for Peace Australia.

• Duderija, A. (2025). Beyond the Unmoved Mover: Why Process Theology Offers a Better God for Our Time. Open Horizons.

• Hartshorne, C. (1984). Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

• Koselleck, R. (1979/2004). “Begriffsgeschichte and Social History.” In Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Trans. K. Tribe). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

• Loomer, B. M. (1976). Two conceptions of power. Process Studies, 6(1), 5–32. (Online reprint at Religion Online).

• Lumbard, J. E. B. (2007). From Ḥubb to ʿIshq: The development of love in early Sufism. Journal of Islamic Studies, 18(3), 345–385.

When I began reading Thomas Jay Oord’s A Systematic Theology of Love, I sensed that I was encountering more than a work of academic theology. I was meeting a book that asked whether love might truly be the deepest truth about God, and whether theology itself might be healed by taking that claim seriously. In this review, I reflect on Oord’s bold central thesis—that love, rather than coercive power, belongs at the heart of Christian systematic theology—and on why that vision feels so urgent and personal to me. The intellectual in me delved deeply into Oord’s arguments, but the book’s emotional force kept drawing me back through several readings.

Having read the book three times before settling in to compose this review, I approached the text in the spirit of the Judaic midrash. I savored, noticed, and struggled with each chapter, paragraph, sentence, word, idea, and syllable. In essence, I was ingesting the book anew with each reading. Through this deep engagement, I can confidently state that in A Systematic Theology of Love, Tom Oord accomplishes something genuinely unprecedented in contemporary theological literature. He places love at the absolute and unwavering center of a systematic framework. For millennia, theologians have structured their dogmatics around an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent God. This traditional approach has often resulted in complex, rigid theodicies that struggle to reconcile the visceral reality of human suffering with the assertion of a perfectly loving God and resulted in systemic theologies marked by internal inconsistency. Oord’s compassionate response is by constructing an experience-informed, rationally coherent proposal that operates firmly within the bounds of Open and Relational Theology, refusing to relegate love beneath any other divine attribute.

To do this, Dr. Oord leans heavily on the philosophical foundations laid by Alfred North Whitehead. By embracing a framework of panentheism, Oord posits that God is intimately and present within all creation (temporally experiencing and changing moment-from-moment via relational causation) yet infinitely transcends it (remaining steadfast in essential nature with unrelenting love as prime). This intimate relationality demands that theology must align with what he terms nonnegotiable experientials. These are the universally shared human realities of genuine agency, the visceral pain of suffering, and the transformative power of love, all of which are impossible to dismiss through abstract dogmatic claims. For me, these nonnegotiable experientials are not merely academic concepts. They are the defining scars and sacred markers of my own life.

As a queer Asian immigrant who came to the United States through Operation Babylift, my early life was defined by displacement and a desperate search for belonging. I grew up Catholic and harbored a profound love for God, wanting so badly to become a priest so that I could devote my life to divine service. However, this deep devotion collided violently with the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church of my youth. As a teenager struggling to come to terms with being gay, I attempted to end my own life. I felt utterly cursed to love a Divine Creator who had seemingly made me gay, only to then decide I was an abomination. I was consumed by the crushing belief that I was unworthy of love and that God was most likely vomiting at the very idea that I would be worthy to serve, regardless of my great devotion. This theological trauma eventually forced me to move away from Christianity entirely to survive.

It is within the context of such profound spiritual wounding that the words of Oord speak so powerfully and honestly to my experience. The most striking contribution of this text is the direct and unflinching challenge to the classical doctrine of omnipotence. Noting that the term itself is nonbiblical and historically burdened by notions of coercive control, Oord replaces it with the concept of amipotence. By defining divine power as fundamentally self-giving, empowering of others, and inherently noncontrolling (a term I prefer over Oord’s uncontrolling), Oord provides a theological framework where God does not author our trauma or reject us for how we are intimately formed. In his formulation, divine power is defined entirely by uncontrolling love. This means God was not a distant judge rejecting my identity, but a companion who suffered and wept with me at every hateful and discriminatory word hurled at me; many times in God’s name!

This redefinition of divine power naturally extends into a rethinking of cosmic origins. Oord is critical of creatio ex nihilo, a doctrine he argues is not only scientifically problematic but theologically harmful, as it implies a God who can act unilaterally but often chooses not to. In its place, he offers creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore. This paradigm suggests that God always and only creates out of, or alongside, existing creation, establishing a collaborative view of providence where the divine, humanity, and all living entities work together. On a more personal note, creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore, means that the Ever Creator made me in love-by-love material already in existence; a dance of creation the Ever Creator has steadfastly been dancing! Judged by the standard of internal consistency, A Systematic Theology of Love, rooting its theology in a diverse matrix of Scripture, philosophy, science, and lived human experience.

Ultimately, A Systematic Theology of Love is much more than a paradigm shifting academic text. For those of us who have been broken by rigid dogma, it is a theological balm. The exhaustive conceptual labor Oord has done to overturn centuries of harmful ideas has profoundly added to the richness of my own journey back to the center of my being. It stands as a vital and deeply compassionate contribution, revealing a God who is dynamically relational, deeply empathetic, and universally loving.

https://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Love-God-Creation/dp/196813650

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During this fundamentalist era, theologians such as Mildred Bangs Wynkoop wrote her groundbreaking A Theology of Love. Her work was not a systematic theology but rather an expression of her keen interest in understanding humanity’s involvement in God’s grace. Wynkoop observed that theological concepts and terms had been abstracted from dynamic living situations, which were caught up in the words. She described this lack of street theology as a credibility gap, a gap between idea and life.

Both Tom and I were significantly influenced by Wynkoop’s relational theology of love. I did my doctoral work on her life and thought, so I read Tom’s first volume of A Systematic Theology of Love with great interest. I almost feel this work should be called a Constructive Theology of Love. Tom’s groundbreaking work constructs a theology of love that is solidly grounded in years of research and tested in real life through face-to-face interactions. It is a theology-in-shoe-leather-on-the-go, making room for both ideas and life. It feels like Tom was constructing a plane in the sky, given the Open and Relational theological paradigm undergirding this work. This work is not an ivory-tower exercise for the theological elite but a hands-on, accessible resource for the regular Joe. Wynkoop would be pleased.

As a prophetic pioneer, Tom anchors his systematic theology in love. Putting love at the center of his systematic theology — and following that decision all the way down into creation, providence, and evil — is the move I think many of us have been circling for years without quite landing on. I think Tom’s definition of love — “acting intentionally, in relational response to others, to promote overall well-being” — is workable because it is intimately connected to real life.

This definition supports the four essential mandates of medical ethics: respecting the patient’s autonomy, striving to provide the most loving care, doing no harm, and assuring justice for all. This is especially relevant when hospice patients seek a good death. As a Hospice Chaplain, my work is to help patients find peace with themselves, with God, and with their families. Tom’s definition holds up at the bedside of a dying patient, which, for me, is the real test of any theological claim. Tom’s emphasis on essential kenosis resonates with me. The claim that God cannot single-handedly control outcomes — that love is the very grammar of the divine nature, rather than a chosen restraint on otherwise unlimited power — aligns with what I see every day in my work as a Hospice Chaplain. If God could have prevented the dying cancer patient’s death and didn’t, the whole frame collapses.

Tom reframes God’s love as Amipotence, which does honest work where classical omnipotence cannot. In Amipotence, Volume 2, edited by Tom, I contributed an essay arguing that God could not have single-handedly reversed apartheid or the trauma I experienced in our church growing up in South Africa — and that the reverse is also true: when we cooperate with God, specific changes do occur. I agree with Tom that God works through persuasion and consent rather than coercion, that God is affected by us, and that God is more becoming than being. Tom’s Gino-theology names something I have felt for a long time but lacked the language for.

Tom embeds his theology in panentheism and theoenpanism and clarifies whether the divine spirit is in all creation, including people, or only in Christians. Tom states, “God isn’t apart from the whole, nor an exception to the whole, but a part of the whole, without being identical with the whole.” To me, this is a well-stated two-line sentence, as it removes the idea of a distant God and instead presents the loving divine spirit as intimately entangled with us through the incarnation. As the Greek Father Gregory of Nazianzus opined, “That which is not assumed, cannot be healed.”

Tom’s theology is framed through the lens of an updated cosmology. He accommodates modern science with vulnerability, as his theology keeps pace with the evolutionary complexification of consciousness, especially in the idea of divine entanglement derived from quantum physics. I am with Tom in his dismantling of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. The Gnostic pedigree of ex nihilo tells us something important about the Gnostic denial of creation’s goodness.

Tom’s open and relational foundation, grounded in Whitehead, is, I think, the most hospitable metaphysics we have right now. It makes room for science, suffering, mystery, and the ordinary person in a hospital gown.

I am wrestling with Tom’s idea that God cannot be experienced through the senses. Alongside the five physical senses, we have what Cynthia Bourgeault and others call subtle sense organs — faculties of faith, intuition, empathy, and open-heartedness through which we perceive what is present but not physically manifest. These are not magical additions to ordinary perception. They are perceptual capacities that are latent in most people and more acutely activated in some. In my own chaplaincy, I work with these every day: a dying patient’s energy shifts, the grief moving through a family’s room, the moment when a masked self lets its guard down and a more anchored self speaks. Mirror neurons provide a neurological basis for part of this, but not all of it. I hope that in Volume 2, Tom will bring more clarity to this aspect.

It is my sincere hope that this remarkable, groundbreaking work will find its way into every theological classroom across the globe and spark honest conversations at the presuppositional level. For anyone whose faith has grown too large for its old container, this book is an invitation to come out of hiding and celebrate life anew.

Rev. Johan Tredoux, Ph.D., BCC.

Why is love not given prominence?

I’ve not conducted an official survey to answer this question. But here are my guesses based on my readings and interactions:

Love Has Many Meanings

In English, “love” has many meanings, and this diversity leads to different languages of love and connotations. For instance, there are significant differences between loving strangers, romantic partners, ice cream, family, God, enemies, and rock-n-roll. And yet “love” is used to describe them all. The meaning of love lacks clarity.

It’s not just that love has multiple meanings in everyday use; love also has multiple meanings in scripture. Biblical writers don’t use the Greek and Hebrew words we translate “love” consistently. And some translators consider a variety of biblical words not usually translated “love” as synonyms for the word.[1] Consequently, there are multiple biblical theologies of love, because the scriptural witness is multi-vocal.[2]

We might wonder, for instance, whether biblical writers instruct us to love the world. God “so loved the world,” says the Apostle John, and many biblical writers say believers in Christ ought to love one another. But other writers reject love for the world. John’s first letter says, “Don’t love the world or anything in the world” (1 Jn. 2:15-17). And the writer of 2 Timothy chastises Demas because “he loved the world” (2 Tim. 4:10). So, should we love the world or not? In these cases, the meaning of “love” changes depending on the context.

We find other examples too. Sometimes biblical authors endorse love for oneself (e.g., the second greatest commandment).[3] Or they assume self-love would be natural (e.g., Eph. 5:28). But other times the biblical writers criticize self-love (e.g., 2 Tim. 3:2). So, should we love ourselves or not? We can point to many instances in which biblical writers say God wants us to forgive and love our enemies. But other biblical passages have God saying, “show them no mercy” (Deut. 7:2) and seemingly endorsing violence toward enemies (e.g., Exod. 23:27; 1 Sam. 15:1-3).[4] Does love do violence or not?[5]

We can’t solve these conflicting biblical claims by simply examining the Greek or Hebrew words for love. In fact, the word translated “love” in the conflicting New Testament passages above is agape.[6] Agape has many meanings in the Bible, and those meanings don’t always agree with one another. When love has such diverse connotations, theologians will be tempted to choose an orienting concern other than love to anchor their systematic theologies.

If love is to be central in systematic theology, we need to address its meaning.

Theologians Rarely Define Love Well

A second reason systematic theologians have not taken love as their central theme relates to the first: few theologians define love clearly.[7] Even “those who write best about love,” says Jules Toner, “devote very little space to considering what love is.”[8] Without a clear and coherent understanding, we can’t craft a clear and coherent theology of love.

The few who do define it often choose definitions that undermine love’s primary meaning in the Bible. Flawed definitions often lead to flawed conclusions. St. Augustine is a perfect example. Although biblical writers mostly use “love” to describe actions that promote abundant life, blessedness, or well-being, Augustine defines love as desire.[9] Countless theologians adopt his mistaken approach.[10]

In Teaching Christianity, Augustine poses a question: “How does [God] love us?” Because Augustine defines love as desire, he thinks God desires by either enjoying or using us. If God “enjoys us,” says Augustine, “it means he is in need of some good of ours, which nobody in his right mind could possibly say.”[11] We have nothing of value, according to Augustine, because God already has all values eternally. So, God can’t love/desire us in the sense of needing us.

Because he defines love as desire, Augustine says God loves by desiring what’s valuable.[12] Being wise, God desires only the most valuable. This means, says Augustine, God only desires/loves Godself. The world and its creatures aren’t of highest value, so God doesn’t love them, at least not for their own sakes.

The only way God can love/desire us, according to Augustine, is to use us. “He doesn’t enjoy us, but makes use of us,” he says. “Because if he neither enjoys us nor makes use of us, I can’t find any way in which he can love us.”[13] Augustine realizes his definition of love leads to a problem. Because he believes God must be entirely self-sufficient, Augustine says God “doesn’t make use of us, either.” At least not “in the same way as we use things.” He explains: “Our making use of things is directed to the end of enjoying God’s goodness.” But “God’s making use of us is directed to his goodness.”[14] In short, God only loves Godself. By defining love as desire, therefore, Augustine is forced to conclude that God doesn’t love the world.

Still more problems arise for Augustine because of his unhelpful definition of love. According to him, creatures love properly when they desire what’s most valuable. The most valuable is God. Consequently, proper desire doesn’t involve love for neighbors, oneself, or creation, at least not for their own sakes.[15] We shouldn’t actually love one another.

Augustine tries to explain this contorted view: “Every human being, precisely as human, is to be loved on God’s account,” he asserts. “All things are to be loved for God’s sake.”[16] We should “take pity on each other,” he says, “so that we may all enjoy [God], not one another.”[17] This means that “when you enjoy a human being,” says Augustine, “you are really enjoying God rather than the human being.”[18]

With Augustine’s definition of love as desire, it’s difficult to make sense of even the most basic Christian themes about love for neighbors or love for ourselves. And given the confusion this definition of love has generated, it might be tempting to say defining love at all must be misguided venture. Love is inherently indefinable, says one argument, because words can’t capture love’s profundity. Consequently, only fools would attempt a systematic theology of love.

I agree with those who say words can’t capture love fully. But words can’t capture God fully either, and yet theologians write tome after tome. No definition captures all relevant truths of any subject, person, or activity. But words convey some truth, and they’re necessary for written communication. An adequate systematic theology of love, therefore, must define love clearly and use it consistently, while admitting that words can’t capture love fully.[19]

Systematic theologians often fail to define love and define it well.

Systems Can’t Capture Love

A third possible reason theologians don’t write systematic theologies of love pertains to skepticism of grand belief systems. Although good systematic theologies attempt to account for God and reality, some theologians give the impression their systems capture all truths. An all-inclusive system would be the Final Word.

By contrast, I doubt that any systematic theology can address everything. Some of the largest and most comprehensive—e. g., the work of Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth—fail to account for crucial ideas. God and the world are bigger than any system. Theologians who realize systems of thought can’t capture love fully, therefore, may choose not to write systematic theologies of love.

My systematic theology also isn’t the final word. But systematic theologies that account for what we think important, and those that strive to be rationally consistent, should be preferred to theologies that ignore major issues. Organized knowledge is preferable to chaos. I agree with Alfred North Whitehead that “an attack upon systematic thought is treason to civilization.”[20]

In this work, I aim to orient ideas about God and life systematically around love, while seeking existential fit. I seek harmony of understanding and adequacy to life.[21] But this book will likely overlook important topics, and I don’t aim to provide all truth for all time. Other readers and scholars will need to add to, revise, and enhance my proposals.

Although this systematic theology isn’t the full and final statement on God, love, and existence, I aim for it to be better than unsystematized theologies and those that ignore the primacy of love.

Love is Considered Sentimental and Not Intellectually Rigorous

A fourth possible reason systematic theologians have not taken love as their orienting concern pertains to its perceived “fluffiness.” Love isn’t capable of intellectual investigation, goes this argument, because it isn’t intellectually rigorous. In fact, some who champion love for theology do so to express anti-intellectualism.

Blaise Pascal gets at this issue with his pithy line, “The heart has reasons that reason knows not of.” Pascal isn’t opposed to reason, but he believes it can’t account for crucial aspects of life. He thinks reason comes second to experience, for “it is the heart which experiences God,” says Pascal, “and not the reason.”[22] I like his emphasis upon experience, and I admit that propositional statements fail to account for love. But I don’t think we should pit experience against reason and intellectual sophistication.

To counter the criticism that love must be fluffy, squishy, and opposed to reason, I won’t shirk from intellectual sophistication or academic rigor in this systematic theology of love. While I write in accessible prose, I consult and cite leading theological, biblical, philosophical, and scientific scholars. I also draw from poets, artists, and activists. I suspect most readers will be surprised at my logical consistency.

Other theologians may not regard love as systematic theology’s central motif because they consider the term too sentimental, permissive, or choosing the status quo. Stanley Hauerwas has these worries, for instance. He says love is too sentimental to do the hard work needed for building character and making difficult decisions. “The ethics of love is often but a cover for what is fundamentally an assertion of ethical relativism,” says Hauerwas. It is “an ethics of tolerance that makes kindness the central virtue” and “becomes a justification for our own arbitrary desires and likes.” “Great immoralities are not the result of evil intentions,” he says, “but a love gone crazy with its attempt to encompass all mankind within its purview.”[23]

Hauerwas rightly criticizes simplistic and misguided views of love. And he rightly emphasizes the importance of communities and practices for living well. But Hauerwas’s attacks on weak versions of love-based theology don’t address the strong versions. Some of the greatest examples of those who champion love—including Jesus of Nazareth—do so in the face of persecution, self-doubt, the pressures of empire, and death.[24] They’re not excessively sentimental or permissive. Hauerwas seems unaware that a theology that defines love well can account for community, hard decisions, practices, counter-cultural activism, and virtues.

As I see it, love takes sides, and it always sides with the work of promoting flourishing, justice, beauty, and liberation.[25] To do this, it sometimes disrupts and resists; it also comforts and heals. I agree with Maria Pilar Aquino, who says, “Love takes up the desires of the poor and oppressed and commits itself to the transformation of human misery.”[26]

I also reject Hauerwas’s claim that love goes “crazy” when it attempts to encompass all within its purview. Instead, I believe love has the common good in mind, although its focus is typically upon particular contexts and communities. Because love seeks overall well-being, it doesn’t advance the good of a few at the expense of the whole. That’s unjust. It joins Hauerwas in stressing the importance of developing virtue, inculcating practices, and growing in community.[27] But it seeks to promote overall well-being.

Love, as I understand it, consults head and heart, brain and body, knowledge and vital piety.

Overlooked Voices and Lived Experiences

Theological systems sometimes exclude or marginalize the voices of women, people of color, the disabled, the queer community, and the other-than-human creatures on the planet.[28] Systematic theologians may claim to address our most pressing questions, but they sometimes ignore scientific advances, the role of emotions, climate change, gender and sexuality issues, the arts, political oppression, and so on. Theologians sometimes rely upon abstract claims that oppose the practical living of diverse people.[29] A fifth reason no one has written a book called A Systematic Theology of Love, I suspect, would be that some people assume systematic theologies, by definition, neglect marginalized voices and lived experience.

In his post-colonial theology, Steve Watson argues that systematic theologies easily become univocal. They purport to have arrived at complete insights into the nature of God and existence. Systematic theologians can act as if they’ve “seen Revelation’s heavenly city in full come down to earth through brilliant thinking or synthesis,” says Watson, “usually that of a single, white man.”[30] And this means, says Marcella Althaus-Reid, “discourses on power have been systemized, classified, and organized in Systematic Theology.”[31] Systematic theology reflects Eurocentric, patriarchal, and institutional assumptions.[32] I believe we should take this critique seriously.

I recently asked an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to list the current thirty best-selling systematic theologies. The list generated was telling. Every top-selling systematic theology was written by a white man in the Reformed Evangelical tradition. All thirty! Systematic theologies have been written by women and people of color, of course, but they aren’t top-sellers.[33] This lack of diversity gives the impression that writing systematic theologies must be an activity reserved for white men who benefit from systems of power.

I’m also a white man. But I write this systematic theology influenced by many voices, including voices very different from my own. In doing so, I agree with Watson that we should be “engaging the widest variety of thinking and experience to build open-ended reflections that express our best current thinking on all things in light of God.”[34] Drawing from varieties of experience strengthens a systematic theology of love. I’m also taking a very different perspective from the dominant Reformed tradition.

Because I’m limited, I’m sure I’ll fail to include some voices. And my own experiences will undoubtedly blind me to some experiences of others. I don’t have a God’s-eye perspective, nor am I entirely neutral or objective. For my errors and oversights, I apologize in advance.

I also encourage criticism and suggestions from voices I’ve missed.[35] I join with Watson in “dialogically and ongoingly imagining and reimagining Revelation’s heavenly city in the context of our current experience of earth.”[36] And I join Hanna Reichel by reading liberation and systematic theologies together, rather than assume they must be kept separate.[37]

To prioritize love, this systematic theology of love draws from many sources, and I hope to do them justice.

Sovereignty Trumps Love

The sixth and most important reason that, until now, no book has been titled A Systematic Theology of Love has to do with the lure of other orienting themes. Although I’ve not done a survey, I suspect the most common theme orienting systematic theologies has been sovereignty. It dominates the thirty best-selling systematic theologies I mentioned. For many theologians, organizing theology around a particular view of divine power seems more alluring than organizing around love.

Starting with omnipotence can lead to a high degree of internal consistency. But omnipotence-based theologies fail to fit lived experience or scripture well. Most systematic theologies privileging omnipotence explain away creaturely freedom, for instance, and can’t solve the problem of evil. They at least implicitly endorse the status quo and institutional ways of thinking. Omnipotence-oriented theologies portray God’s love in ways that bear little resemblance to love as we know it.

The idea of sovereignty closely aligns with the centrality of divine glory in Reformed systematic theologies. The Westminster Confession claims the chief purpose of humans is to glorify God, and all creation gives deity glory.[38] If giving glory ought to be our primary purpose, glory would be a reasonable central theme for the systematic theologian. And glory-based theology should, theoretically, inspire worship.

A close look at theologies oriented around glory, however, reveals that most build from a prior commitment to sovereignty.[39] When clashes between sovereignty and love arise, the inconsistencies are often brushed aside with appeals to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways.” And what counts as divine love doesn’t correspond with what we normally consider loving. “In glory, God predestines some for hell,” theologians might say, for instance. “All glory to God!” It’s hard to make sense of such reasoning and difficult to worship a deity who sends people to eternal conscious torment.

The attraction to sovereignty was evident early in Christianity, and we can see the priority of omnipotence in the major Christian creeds.[40] The Apostle’s Creed, which is probably the most cited, starts with claims about an almighty God (omnipotens) but never mentions love. Christian alignment with empire, among other things, tempted early theologians to imagine deity as an authoritarian emperor rather than a loving nurturer.[41]

Systematic theologies that come closest to taking love as their orienting concern typically use the language of grace.[42] The words for love are found far more frequently in scripture than words for grace, but I suspect theologians appeal to grace because “love” has so many meanings. To their credit, grace-oriented theologies typically fit lived experience better than sovereignty-oriented ones, and they usually avoid describing love in incomprehensible ways.[43] But most retain the idea of God’s omnipotence and essential independence from creation.[44] And many say God punishes now and may punish the unrepentant forever in hell.[45]

Saying God must be omnipotent and essentially independent prevents theologies from answering well the atheist’s chief objection: the problem of evil.[46] If grace explains the way of an all-powerful deity, why doesn’t God gracefully prevent genuine evil? If love for creation remains primary, why doesn’t God necessarily and everlastingly love creatures? If grace is always God’s way, why would this deity punish or send some to eternal conscious torment? Failing to answer questions like these well sabotages systematic theologies, whether oriented around sovereignty, glory, grace, or something else.

It’s time to put love first in systematic theology.

^[1] For instance, Nijay Gupta includes Greek words for desire in his exploration of love as described in scripture. Those words include zeloo and epitheymeo (The Affections of Jesus Christ [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2025], ch. 3). I think Gupta errs in this practice. Although desire is a component of love, it is neither love itself, nor a form thereof. He may have sidestepped this error had he clearly defined love at the outset of his book. See my criticisms of love as desire in Pluriform Love, chs. 5-6.

^[2] Werner Jeanrond puts it well: the “Bible doesn’t contain any pure or original passage on love to which we could return for any timeless and unambiguous understanding of love” (A Theology of Love [London: T & T Clark, 2010], 40).

^[3] Love for oneself seems to be implied in Jesus’ second greatest commandment. See Mk. 12:28-34; Mt. 22:36-40; Lk. 10:25-28.

^[4] Several biblical scholars offer helpful ways to interpret texts of terror. See, for instance, Eric A. Seibert, The Violence of Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2012).

^[5] Jason Tripp explores the question of divine hypocrisy in “Is God a Hypocrite?” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[6] I explore the various Hebrew and Greek words translated “love” in my book Pluriform Love. See chapters 3-7.

^[7] In his The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis explores types of love but never defines love. Jason Lepojarvi notes this omission (God Is Love but Love Isn’t God [PhD thesis University of Helsinki, 2015], 68).

^[8] Jules Toner, The Experience of Love (Washington, DC: Corpus Instrumentorum, 1968), 8. Edward Collins Vacek also complains that scholars fail to define love well. See Love, Human and Divine (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994), 34.

^[9] “Love is a kind of craving,” says Augustine (Eighty-Three Different Questions, 35, 2). Augustine lays out what this means theologically in Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), John E. Rotelle, ed., Edmund Hill, trans. (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1996). See my evaluation of this in Pluriform Love, chs. 5-6.

^[10] Many have criticized Augustine for his views of sex. My criticism of Augustine’s focus on desire extends far beyond his particular issues with sex. For a sustained theological criticism of Augustine, see Werner Jeanrond, A Theology of Love.

^[11] Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book 1, paragraph 31.

^[12] Hannah Arendt explores this in Love and Saint Augustine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

^[13] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 32.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] See my full discussion of Augustine’s failed theology of love in Pluriform Love (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2022), chs. 5-6.

^[16] Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book 1, paragraph 28.

^[17] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 29.

^[18] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 37.

^[19] I offer a sustained defense of my definition of love in Pluriform Love, ch 2 and Defining Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2010). I explore scientific dimensions of love in The Science of Love (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2005) and The Altruism Reader (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2012). On the science of love, see Stephen Post, et. al., Altruism and Altruistic Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

^[20] Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1967), 162.

^[21] Alfred North Whitehead uses this nice phrase in Science and the Modern World (New York: Free Press, 1967), 76.

^[22] Pascal’s Pensees (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958), 277-78.

^[23] Stanley Hauerwas, Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981), 124-25.

^[24] Many New Testament scholars point to love as the heart of Jesus’ and New Testament ethics. See examples of such scholars in the previous footnotes.

^[25] Gustavo Gutierrez argues similarly in The God of Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991).

^[26] Maria Pilar Aquino, Our Cry for Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 157.

^[27] Guided by the work of Pitirim Sorokin, Jeffrey Wattles expresses the importance of developing a loving character in Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016). Sorokin’s primary book of love is The Ways and Power of Love, Stephen G. Post, intro. (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2002 [1954]).

^[28] Brandon Ambrosino expresses his disdain for theological systems that excluded him as a gay man. See his book, Is It God’s Will? (New York: Morehouse, 2025).

^[29] Alex Forrester addresses this issue and argues for the power of amipotent love. See “The Supremacist Soteriology of Divine Omnipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[30] See Steve Watson, All Flesh Shalom: A Post-Colonial, Open and Relational Constructive Theology of Major Themes in the Gospels (Doctoral Dissertation at Northwind Theological Seminary, 2025).

^[31] Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology (London: Routledge, 2000), 23.

^[32] James Cone makes this kind of argument in A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990). Among those who criticize theologians for being patriarchal, see Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web (Boston: Beacon, 1986); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk (Boston: Beacon, 1983); Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God, Christ, Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993).

^[33] See Katherine Sonderegger’s work for an example of a systematic theology written by a woman (Systematic Theology, Volume 1 [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015]). See James Evans for a systematic theology written by a person of color (We Have Been Believers, 2nd ed., [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012]). Amos Yong explores systematic theology for global Christianity in Renewing Christian Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014). So does Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Global Introductions to Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002–2004).

^[34] Watson, All Flesh Shalom.

^[35] Along these lines, I’m grateful for the criticism of my friend Karen Baker-Fletcher. For instance, see her essay, “A Womanist Liberative Response to Oord’s Theology of Amipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[36] Watson, All Flesh Shalom.

^[37] Hanna Reichel articulates this well in After Method (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2023).

^[38] See The Westminster Confession of Faith, in The Creeds of Christendom, rev. ed., Philip Schaff, ed., vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 596–673.

^[39] For an example of a systematic theology that claims to center on divine glory but is actually more concerned with omnipotence, see Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998).

^[40] On this, see Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise (Boston: Beacon, 2008).

^[41] John Sanders has written eloquently about authoritative vs. nurturant views of God. See his book Embracing Prodigals (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020). See also Chris Hanson, Open and Relational Parenting (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[42] For examples of grace-centered theologies, see Barry L. Callen, God as Loving Grace (Nappanee IN: Evangel, 1996); H. Ray Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 1988).

^[43] Randy Maddox offers an especially helpful theology of grace, and he draws from the work of John Wesley. See Responsible Grace (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1994).

^[44] Stanley Grenz chooses the eschatological community as the integrative motif in his systematic theology. Happily, this choice leads him to say God is relational. Unhappily, Grenz retains traditional views of divine power and independence. See Theology for the Community of God (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 30.

^[45] David Anzalone explores the promise of amipotence in addressing the question of hell in his essay, “Hell and Amipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[46] For an example of this, see Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2007).

Friends,

I made a movie! This 40-minute film features my photos and videos of nature, mostly made in Idaho.

The movie is called Seer, and the tagline is “A Spiritual Nature Photographer Explores Love.” I explore various types of spirituality and how nature helps me tackle life’s challenges. It’s a personal adventure with theological reflection.

Here’s the Seer movie trailer…

In the coming months, I’m doing online and in-person showings of Seer. I’d love for you to attend!

Choose an online or in-person viewing date from the schedule below...

May 3, In-Person: This Sunday morning features the premier, in-person showing of Seer. May 3, 10am. 120 14th Ave S, Nampa, ID 83651

May 4, Online: Robert Nicastro and Christogensis host me for a showing of my movie, Seer. May 4, 7pm Eastern. Register at this link.

May 8, In-Person: Join me for an in-person showing of Seer at the McCall, Idaho public library, May 8, 7pm.

May 17, Online: Join me and Wesleynexus for an online viewing and discussion of my new documentary, Seer. May 17th, 7PM Eastern. Register.

May 27, Online Join me and the Center for Spirituality and Nature for an online viewing and discussion of Seer. May 27, 7pm Eastern. RSVP Link.

May 29, Online: Join me and Interfaith Photovoices for an online viewing and discussion of my film, Seer. May 29, 4pm Eastern. Join Link.

June 2, In-Person: I’ll be showing Seer as part of a conference on The Love of Nature and Nature of Love. Linacre College, Oxford University. June 2.

Consider joining one of these events to watch and discuss Seer!

A majority of Christians, Muslims, and Jews think God once existed all alone and then, for some reason, decided to create something from nothing. The theory for Christians often goes by the Latin phrase creatio ex nihilo. Many also say that after that initial, solitary effort, God continued to create right down to the present, which in Latin is creatio continua.

In my new book, A Systematic Theology of Love, I offer a different theory of creation. Like just about everybody else, I affirm God as Creator. I also think God created at the Big Bang and creates moment-by-moment in the present. But I think God was creating before the Big Bang too. In fact, I think deity everlastingly creates.

https://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Love-God-Creation/dp/196813650

Ever Creator

The easy way to describe my theory is to say God is the “Ever Creator.” By “ever,” I mean everlastingly, in the sense of no beginning or end. The always living, loving, and everlasting God has always created creaturely others, with no absolute beginning to the process.

Each moment of the Ever Creator’s creating includes creaturely contributions to what is created. At the Big Bang, those contributions were pretty insignificant. They at least involved fundamental causal and metaphysical principles. Even at the start of our universe, God didn’t have an absolute “blank slate.”

As evolution developed the universe in the ways that led to the emergence of complex creatures, they provide God with enhanced co-creating contributions. Look at what humans do today as they co-create with deity! But even the smallest entities have agency that God can’t override, control, or suspend.

Another way to think of my theory is to build from what Philip Hefner called “creaturely co-creating.” But I extend this co-creating everlastingly. God never creates from nothing or in isolation but always out of or alongside creatures and creation.

Love is Central to God’s Creating

This theory has the advantage of saying love is the center of the Ever Creator’s work. Love motivates the Creator. And because both love and creating are always collaborative, the new theory says God’s creating is always collaborative. In fact, I think love is the motive, means, mode, measure, and method of God’s everlasting creating. I explain this and related issues in A Systematic Theology of Love.

When asked why I’d propose a whole new theory of initial creation, I offer a dozen or so reasons. The one that most people seize on as particularly advantageous pertains to evil.

The problem of evil wonders why a loving and powerful God doesn’t stop or prevent evil. If God created from nothing, the problem of evil is exacerbated. An ex nihilo creating deity not only has the power to prevent evil singlehandedly now, but this God alone set up the universe in a way that led to the possibility of evil.

The Ever Creator theory, by contrast, says God can’t prevent evil singlehandedly. This God isn’t omnipotent, at least not in the usual meanings of that word. I call the Ever Creator’s power “amipotent,” which is the power of uncontrolling love. Through uncontrolling love God always creates out of or alongside creatures and creation.

The bottom line: A God who can’t control in the present and couldn’t control at the Big Bang isn’t culpable for failing to prevent evil now nor responsible for the possibility of evil at the start of our universe.

The Bible?

The Ever Creator theory has better biblical support than creatio ex nihilo. Although I think a number of creation theories might be crafted in response to the many biblical passages pertaining to God’s creating, no biblical passage supports creation from nothing. None. Creatio ex nihilo isn’t in Genesis or anywhere else in sacred writ.

It surprises Christians to discover that the first major systematic theologian in Christian history – Origen – appealed to scripture as indicating the idea that our universe was one in a series. There were universes before ours. And even Thomas Aquinas admitted something like the Ever Creator view was logically possible, although he (wrongly) thought Genesis required believing in creation from nothing. Even the most conservative biblical scholars today admit creatio ex nihilo isn’t in Genesis.

My favorite biblical support for the Ever Creator theory is the oft-repeated phrase in the Hebrew scriptures: “the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.” God’s hesed (Hebrew word meaning steadfast love)is olam, to use the Hebrew meaning eternal. God can only love forever if, forever, there are creaturely others to love. (There is no good reason to think the Old Testament writers imagined God loving forever in Trinity.)

From Where Did the “Stuff” Come?

I suspect the main reason many have not pondered the possibility of God everlastingly creating arises from a simple question: “From where did the ‘stuff’ come when God created our universe?”

That good question has a simple, albeit mind-boggling, answer: God creates in each moment out of that which God created previously, and this creative process is everlasting! So the “stuff” from which God created our universe was stuff deity created in a previous universe, which likely had become diffuse in chaotic disorder. And God’s creating had no beginning.

The everlasting God creates from temporal creation. No single universe is co-eternal with God. But there will always be creaturely others whom God creates in relation to what God created previously. And it’s just as mind-bogglingly logical to say God exists everlastingly as to it’s mind-boggling logical to say God always creates in relation to what God created previously.

A Systematic Theology of Love

Of course, there’s so much more to be said about this Ever Creator theory. I devote a couple chapters in A Systematic Theology of Love to exploring this theory and arguing why it’s preferable to creatio ex nihilo and other creation theories.

I even give this new theory a Latin name: creatio ex creatione sempiternalis en amore. That means God always creates out of or alongside creation in love. The Ever Creator theory champions love and follows its logic meticulously.

A number of problems arise when assessing the nature and occurrence of miracles. Some problems arise from views of divine action. There’s also the fact that people’s belief in miracles can be explained psychologically, belief in miracles seems influenced by culture, and some may simply reflect the trickery of religious hucksters. Other problems emerge when science offers convincing explanations that oppose miracles. These problems have led a fair number of theologians and everyday people of faith to reject the category of miracles altogether.

Is Belief in Miracles Culturally Conditioned?

People in some cultures—often non-Western—seem more apt to witness miracles. Advocates for believing in literal miracles and their allies sometimes complain that those who don’t witness miracles must be blinded by modern culture, science, and Western enlightenment.

To people skeptical of miracles, however, the fact that those in less scientifically developed cultures witness more miracles indicates that some people are less advanced. If they just understood the world better, goes the thinking, they’d witness fewer events they’d call miraculous. Ironically, both advocates for miracles and deniers point to the influence of science and culture when assessing whether miracles actually happen.

Personality and personal preference also influence belief. Theists attracted to the dramatic and sensational seem more likely to believe in miracles. By contrast, reserved and restrained theists in general prove less likely to believe.

As like-minded people congregate, confirmation bias grows. Those who believe in miracles form groups of individuals who—not surprisingly—witness numerous miracles. Those who don’t believe form groups who tend to conclude that miracles never or rarely occur. Many Pentecostal congregations would be examples of the first; many Presbyterian congregations give examples of the second. The Catholic church contains significant numbers of people huddled within their own groups.

Some people try to prove miracles exist. But some miracles turn out to be hoaxes, hysteria, or misunderstandings. Dishonest faith healers and shifty evangelists can trick the faithful, and this adds support to the view of some skeptics that all miracles must be fake. Suggestibility can incline some people to believe they, or others, have been healed when they haven’t been—especially when respected religious authorities do the suggesting.[1] In addition, many healing miracles just can’t be objectively verified by qualified experts such as medical doctors.[2]

Interpretation Matters

The above issues point to the role human interpretation plays in miracles. How we each understand reality depends on a host of factors, both within us and in our environments. Two people believing in God could stand side by side and witness an event, and one calls it miraculous, while the other doesn’t. One appeals to special divine action, the other points to natural causes. Diverse interpretative frameworks largely explain these differing explanations.

Perspective matters. People’s view of miracles can also be altered over time. Sometimes, an extraordinary event convinces one not inclined to believe in miracles to begin believing. Other times, someone who once embraced the miraculous decides science, medicine, or other factors offer better explanations. None of us remains locked into our current perspective of God and life. People change.

Defining Miracles

Given the factors I’ve noted, defining miracles can prove difficult. Writers of scripture tell stories of signs, wonders, and extraordinary events, but they don’t clearly define the miraculous, or explain how it works. Consequently, definitions among theologians vary.

Most theologians assume God must be the sole cause at play in the miraculous. Thomas Aquinas says, “God alone” does miracles, for instance, and they are “beyond the order of created nature.”[3] Martin Luther says miracles are “wrought by God alone.”[4] Charles Hodge defines a miracle as “an event in the external world brought about by the immediate efficiency or simple volition of God, without the mediation of natural secondary causes.”[5]

This emphasis on solitary divine causation becomes even more accentuated by the explicit denial of creaturely causation. “A miracle is a suspension or control of the established laws of nature,” says Adam Clarke.[6] The New Catholic Encyclopedia says a miracle is “an event which lies outside the normal pattern of physical causes and is attributed to the immediate action of God, who thereby manifests the supernatural.” “Miracles represent God’s invasive grace,” says Cheryl Bridges John, “moments in which the Spirit disrupts ordinary experience to reveal divine compassion and restore creation.”[7] Others speak of God’s “intervention”[8] in, or “interruption”[9] of, creation’s causation. I’ve discussed the problems with appeals to external intervention in earlier chapters.

It’s one thing to claim an event can’t be explained by natural causes alone. Every theologian who says God must be a necessary cause for each event should affirm that claim. But most definitions of miracles say that God alone brought about some result, irrespective of nature. Words like “intervene,” “interrupt,” and “invade” imply that an omnipotent God occasionally shows up where previously absent to secure an outcome singlehandedly.[10]

Problems with Miracles as Traditionally Understood

The Problem of Selective Miracles

The way most theologians define miracles leads to numerous problems. One of the most egregious I call “the Problem of Selective Miracles.” It arises because people who pray for miracles usually don’t get them. The vast majority of requests to God seem to go unanswered, in the sense that those praying don’t get miraculous results for others or themselves.[11] Even saints in scripture weren’t healed, although they requested it.[12] “The complete absence of miracles in my life when they should have been abundant,” says Stephen Bradford Long, “led me to question the veracity of all miracle claims.[13]”

The problem of selective miracles stems from believing God must be omnipotent. If deity were all-powerful and all-loving, we’d expect many more miracles than we witness. Christine Overall states the issue well: “In choosing to favor just a few individuals, God shows himself to be arbitrary in his beneficence to some and cruel and unfair in his neglect of others.”[14] Apparently, the omnipotent God doesn’t care enough to help consistently.

Those who say God alone does miracles often use the word “supernatural” to describe divine action. The word has several meanings, but saying a miracle occurs supernaturally sounds like an omnipotent God occasionally controls creatures or creation in some unnatural way. Supernatural suggests God overrides or disrupts the natural course of events.[15]

The Problem of Evil

The second problem with miracles as traditionally understood is similar to the first. Instead of asking why an omnipotent deity doesn’t do more miracles, however, it wonders why God doesn’t use those miracle-working abilities to prevent evil in the first place. The kind of power God uses to do miracles, “acting alone,” could stop unnecessary suffering and pointless pain. What kind of God refrains from helping the oppressed and hurting?

“It would seem strange that no miraculous intervention prevented Auschwitz or Hiroshima,” says Maurice Wiles on this point, “while the purposes apparently forwarded by some of the miracles acclaimed in traditional Christian faith seem trivial by comparison.”[16] If God miraculously shortens the line at Starbucks or finds a parking place for someone, we might ask, why doesn’t deity stop genocides? If God can cure grandma’s arthritis, why doesn’t deity use that ability to prevent your sister’s rape, control the spread of global viruses, oust oppressive political tyrants, or stop the ravages of climate change?

The problems associated with miracles heighten when connected to “faith healers.” When a charismatic pastor claims to have the gift of healing but fails to use every waking moment walking up and down hospital halls healing everyone, we wonder whether the person loves consistently. After all, they could be doing much more than they currently are. A deity who could control all entities or interrupt natural processes, but didn’t do it to help the hurting, would love even less consistently.

Most theologians say God never grows tired. But when evil events occur, we understandably assume an omnipotent deity must be asleep on the job. Or just doesn’t love lots of hurting people. This view of God creates massive problems for people who earnestly seek divine help but fail to receive it.

Problem of Scientific Explanation

There’s also an intellectual problem with which many struggle. Most definitions of miracles say God ignores, interrupts, or overrides natural causes. Miracles involve “a suspension or control of the established laws of nature,” says Adam Clarke.[17] Contemporary scholars often cite the 18th century philosopher David Hume as tying miracles to the suspension of natural laws,[18] but Aquinas also said miracles go “beyond the order of created nature.”[19]

A tension arises between claims about miracles and scientific explanations. If God occasionally determines outcomes singlehandedly, scientists who point to natural causes for those outcomes will be wrong, by definition.[20] They won’t be able to give any natural account of a miracle if God is the sole and supernatural cause.[21] This proves empirically problematic, and it undermines the process of science.

In addition, we have the issue that most who claim to observe miracles, if asked, could also identify creaturely causes at play. When defined as events beyond or overriding nature, therefore, miracles aren’t just problematic for scientific explanation; they stand at odds with the typical explanations of everyday people.

A theological problem also arises when we call miracles “interventions.” This way of talking implies that God normally resides outside nature and then “enters into” a closed system of natural causes. To say God “invades” also undermines claims about the Spirit’s continual and necessary causation alongside and in creation. It implicitly says God isn’t universally present.

Problems with Non-Traditional Definitions of Miracles

Given the problems that arise with the traditional definitions of miracles, it’s not surprising some have offered alternative definitions. In fact, I’ll be providing my own. Before doing so, though, I want to look at other alternatives to the traditional view of miracles. I’ll identify problems with each of these too.

Is Everything Miraculous?

One response to traditional definitions of miracles says all events are miracles, and all of life is miraculous. Albert Einstein explains this approach. “There are only two ways to live your life,” says Einstein. “One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”[22] He recommends the second way. Paul Tillich argues for the idea that all of life is miraculous when he says, “Being itself is the true miracle, the ongoing act in which God sustains the world.”[23]

But saying everything is miraculous faces major problems. First, it doesn’t fit either biblical or common views that assume some events are extraordinary and others aren’t. To most people, miracles are isolated incidents, not ubiquitous.

There’s an even more important problem, and it’s moral. Saying all events are miraculous means horrifically evil ones must be miracles too. On this definition, the Nazi Holocaust and the Russian Gulags were miracles, as was every genocide in history. All instances of sexual abuse, deceit, murder, humiliation, and destruction would be miracles if all that happens is miraculous. Saying everything is a miracle risks trivializing evil.

We shouldn’t say everything is a miracle.

Is Nothing is Miraculous?

Einstein’s other option says, “nothing is a miracle.” Given the problems I’ve outlined of selective miracles, the problem of evil, and scientific obstacles associated with traditional views, it’s not surprising that some people of faith deny miracles altogether. Biblical scholar Rudolf Bultmann takes this position when he says, “[The] modern man . . . ​does not acknowledge miracles because they do not fit into his lawful order. When a strange or marvelous accident occurs, he does not rest until he has found a rational cause.”[24]

When we can give plausible natural explanations for sensational events traditionally thought to be miraculous, we’re tempted to believe miracles never occur. A crying statue of a saint might be thought miraculous, for instance, until a scientist explains condensation. The miraculous exorcism of a person thought demon-possessed can apparently be duplicated with a few pills from the psychiatrist’s prescription. And so on. When naturalistic explanations sound more plausible than supernatural ones, it’s easy to assume science explains away all miracles.

Saying nothing is miraculous faces problems too, however. First, it dismisses the experience many people have that some events in life are extraordinarily and surprisingly good. Saying “nothing is miraculous” flattens life, ignoring the wild and often wonderful diversity of existence.

Second, denying miracles can lead to thinking God isn’t active in the world. Despite their many problems, at least traditional claims about miracles support belief in the activity of deity. Extraordinarily good events can remind us of an extraordinarily good Lover.

We don’t need deny all miracles, but we do need a plausible account of them.

Are Miracles Just in Our Heads?

Another modern option for understanding miracles capitalizes on the fact that we all interpret the world through our own experience. No one knows the full truth of an event or can be certain of the truthfulness of their interpretation. Given this, some say miracles are entirely a believer’s subjective assessment, irrespective of what actually occurred or what God does. Miracles are just in our heads.

Friedrich Schleiermacher is often cited as advocating this view. He says a miracle “is simply the religious name of an event” that “refers purely to the mental condition of the observer.”[25] Edward Schillebeeckx seems to agree: “A miracle is . . . ​a human experience interpreted as God’s salvation.”[26] Those who understand omnipotence as meaning God controls all things say “miracle” is simply a label we give some events. But all events are entirely caused by deity.[27]

Admittedly, this view of miracles has advantages. It acknowledges the role interpretation plays for making sense of life. It rejects certainty and avoids claiming that God breaks natural laws. This way of understanding the miraculous also seems to account for why people in some cultures or with certain kinds of personalities seem more inclined to witness miracles.

Saying miracles must be entirely a matter of our subjective interpretation presents problems, however. It undermines the realism we need for science, morality, and everyday life. If we claim miracles are just in our heads, perhaps everything else is just in our heads. If reality is whatever we decide it will be, extreme relativism and skepticism arise.

Saying all miracles can be entirely explained by our subjectivity also dismisses extraordinary events that make an objective difference in the world. Sometimes the sick experience healing unexpectedly, for instance. Sometimes the visually impaired begin to see. Sometimes those pronounced dead on an operating table revive, to everyone’s surprise. Sometimes cancer disappears without medical explanation. Some events are extraordinarily good, and they rightly prompt us to wonder about the activity of an extraordinarily good God.

We have reason to think we sometimes witness extraordinary and objectively good events.

A Better Definition of Miracles

To deny miracles altogether means denying an important feature of existence.[28] We can’t easily dismiss the vast numbers of people throughout history who say they’ve witnessed a miracle. Some miracle stories in scripture or told today are likely not historically true, of course, but others likely are. An adequate systematic theology of love should, therefore, account for authentic miracles.

To overcome the problems we encounter with traditional and alternative views of miracles, we need a new and viable definition of miracles. Below I give my simple proposal. Following it, I explain what the definition entails:

A miracle is an extraordinary, good event that involves divine and creaturely causation.

Miracles are Extraordinary

Instead of saying everything is a miracle, we should reserve the word only for exceptional, unusual, or atypical events. Saying every event is a miracle collapses the exceptional into the commonplace. Worse, it risks identifying horrors and holocausts as miracles. Neither mundane moments nor evil events should be seen as miraculous; miracles are extraordinary occurrences.

We can (and should) believe the Spirit gracefully influences every creature, in every moment, and all creation, all the time. And we can (and should) say the Spirit invites creatures to do what’s beautiful, loving, just, and so forth. God’s invitations take different forms for different creatures, and they will vary depending on the circumstances. But saying the Spirit is necessarily present to and influencing all creation doesn’t require us to say that everything occurring is miraculous.

Much of the time, God’s influence goes unnoticed or is ignored. This isn’t surprising, given that the invisible, universal, and incorporeal Spirit isn’t perceptible to our five senses. But sometimes extraordinary events draw our attention to the divine. Some people of faith call them “God moments.” But it’s not divine influence alone that makes an event miraculous, as I’ll explain shortly. The work of the Spirit is part of the reason some moments are extraordinary.

Miracles are Good

Miracles aren’t just extraordinary—they’re also good. We sometimes witness unusual events that are awful, horrific, or destructive. I’ve said evil events, no matter how extraordinary, shouldn’t be considered miracles. The slaughter of a village or people group may be extraordinary, but it’s not miraculous. Genocides are—thankfully—unusual, but we shouldn’t call them “miracles.”

A few theologians define miracles with language that suggest they’re good and extraordinary.[29] Theologian of the Spirit Amos Yong, for instance, defines miracles as “extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit, events in which God’s presence becomes available, tangible, and transformative beyond conventional explanation.”[30] Mildred Bangs Wynkoop says “miracles are personal acts of God’s self-revealing love, events in which God’s presence breaks through human experience in ways that cannot be accounted for by ordinary explanation.”[31]

Neither Yong nor Wynkoop go far enough, however. Neither really clarifies the roles God and creation play in the miraculous. Consequently, their definitions are susceptible to the criticisms I’ve mentioned, namely that the deity they describe does miracles selectively, could prevent evil, suspends natural causes, or can determine outcomes singlehandedly. An adequate definition of miracles should include language that portrays the universal Spirit working with creatures and creation in uncontrolling ways.

Miracles Involve Divine and Creaturely Causation

The final phrase of my definition of a miracle says both the Spirit and creatures/creation play a causal role in the miraculous. Miracles are never the work of God alone; deity never intervenes or invades; the Spirit never controls creatures or creation. God can’t control, because the universal Spirit’s love—even when enacting miracles—is always uncontrolling.

Creatures and creation co-operate with God in diverse ways. But, as I explained earlier, we can divide existence roughly into animate and inanimate.[32] Animate creatures—from cells to squid to sailors—use their agency variously when cooperating with deity in miraculous moments. Inanimate objects in creation don’t have agency in the same way. But miracles can happen when large or small aggregate in creation are aligned with, or become conducive to, the miraculous events the Spirit desires.

Generally speaking, what I’ll call “agent miracles” involve animate creatures cooperating with the Spirit—from the smallest to the largest, from the tiniest to the grandest. Agent miracles include healings, personal transformations, and the like.

The second type are typical of what many call “nature miracles.” They occur when inanimate creation becomes conducive to God’s working to enact extraordinary and good events. Examples include parting the Red Sea.

The designations “agent miracles” and “nature miracles” are not hard and fast, of course, since all creatures and all created entities are part of nature. We’re all natural. And even inanimate objects are composed of disorganized micro-agents, as I explained in earlier chapters.

My Definition Works Well

My definition easily explains the most common miracles. In those, we see the changed lives of people who shift from living a way of life oriented toward destruction and ill-being to one being oriented toward flourishing and well-being. That’s the miracle of salvation, as typically understood. These miracles include synergistic creaturely cooperation with the Spirit.

My definition aligns well with healings too, probably the second most common type of miracles. These extraordinary and good events involve cells, muscles, organs, smaller organisms, and so forth, entities that have a measure of agency to respond. These entities and organisms are influenced by the Spirit and other agents in their environments. The material-mental monism framework I introduced in earlier chapters helps explain how this influence works, because it posits that even the smallest entities have agency and are related to others and God.

Nature miracles are the rarest, but we can explain them too. They occur when the inanimate conditions and/or aggregates of creation are conducive to the Spirit’s working for what is extraordinary and good. Nature miracles are rare because the smallest entities and inanimate objects have the least flexibility and, therefore, are the most inclined toward law-like regularity.[33] The greater the complexity and agency in creatures, the greater the possibility of miracles.

Miracles always involve both divine and creaturely causes.

What About . . . ?

What about Miracles in the Bible?

My definition of miracles fits the biblical witness well. Most scriptural reports of miracles explicitly mention creaturely factors, actors, and forces. No biblical passages say creatures or forces in creation made absolutely no contribution to miraculous outcomes. No scripture verse says God brought about a miraculous outcome by solitary fiat.[34]

Despite our radically different systematic theologies, Reformed theologian Wayne Grudem agrees with my claim that scripture points to creaturely factors and actors in miracles. If miracles are “God working without means,” says Grudem, this “leaves us with very few if any miracles in the Bible, for it is hard to think of a miracle that came about with no means at all.” He specifically identifies healing as involving both God and creation. “Some of the physical properties of the sick person’s body were doubtless involved as part of the healing,” he says. He sees even nature miracles as involving creaturely causation. “When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish,” says Grudem, “he at least used the original five loaves and two fishes that were there. When he changed water to wine, he used water and made it become wine.”[35]

My theology differs from Grudem’s in many other ways, however, including when he says God does “100% of the work” in miracles, but creatures also “do 100%.” As I said in earlier discussions, I find this view nonsensical, besides being bad math. (See my discussion of divine power in earlier chapters.)

We can make better sense of miracles if we understand them to involve both creaturely and divine action, but with neither doing 100% of the work.[36] Saying both the Spirit and creatures contribute to miraculous events, as I do, overcomes the problems I identified with traditional and non-traditional views.

My view doesn’t require one to think every miracle story true. I doubt every miracle mentioned in the Bible or allegedly occurring today actually happened. Some authors likely told a story to make a theological point or inspire hearers. Some biblical miracles are teaching moments, not historical happenings. And some alleged miracles in the past and today arise from misunderstandings, myths, or fabrications.

We can admit all of this without dismissing miracles outright. But insofar as some events are authentic, extraordinary, and good, we rightly call them miracles, because the Spirit and creation collaborated.

What About Special Divine Causation?

In earlier discussions of divine causation, I rejected the claim that God ever controls anyone or anything. I also rejected the idea that the Spirit sometimes works a little harder than at other times. I said instead God always does all God can do in every situation, influencing at full capacity. The universal Spirit in whose nature love comes first will always love and never control.

Those beliefs about uncontrolling love apply to God’s work in miracles, but I also believe the Spirit’s action varies moment to moment.[37] Although God constantly loves, the ways that deity loves vary depending on the situations and the possibilities. The fact that God loves never varies, but how deity loves varies occasion to occasion. That’s variable divine action.

Extraordinary and good events occur because God worked with what was possible in each situation, empowering and inspiring creatures to do what promotes overall well-being. Although God never sometimes “tries harder,” the possibilities for each situation vary, which means the Spirit’s calls for the best vary. The responses of creatures and the conditions of creation also vary. Something unexpected, atypical, or unusual can occur because the Spirit called creatures to embrace new opportunities for something beautiful, excellent, or valuable.

Because the Spirit knows the past fully and knows all possibilities in the present, God knows which options are most likely to promote overall well-being. Creatures have limited knowledge. This view fits well the words of the writer of the book of Ephesians: “To him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine . . .” (3:20). The “him” to which the author refers is God, but note the passage doesn’t say deity does everything. God does more than we imagine, but we can still assume creatures cooperate. This “far more” includes miracles, as I have defined them.

In one sense, divine action varies, because creatures, situations, and possibilities vary. But God always exerts the most loving influence possible.

What About Blaming the Victim?

Scripture often explicitly mentions creaturely contributions to miracles. After miracles occurred, Jesus sometimes makes statements like, “Your faith has saved and healed you” (Mk. 10:52), “You are now well because of your faith” (Mk. 5:34), or “your faith has made you well” (Lk. 17:19). The cooperative aspect necessary for miracles also comes to the fore when Jesus can’t do miracles, such as happens in his hometown failures, “because of their lack of faith” (Mt. 13:58).

Although these passages and others clearly support the necessary role of creatures in miracles, they’ve unfortunately been used to clobber those who’ve not experienced healing. Saying “you didn’t have enough faith” heaps condemnation on the heads of many who suffer. Instead of offering hope, this phrase and others like it blame victims. Many assume that those who suffer lack faith.[38]

Those who blame victims make a mistake relational metaphysics can fix. Accusers forget that we’re relational people in a relational universe, and we don’t control our bodies or others. And we’re always affected by other actors and factors. We can’t control other creatures, our environments, or our bodies, when “control” means determining them as a sufficient cause.

People wanting miraculous healing may in fact cooperate with the Spirit as best they know how. They may trust God’s love with full faith. And yet other factors, actors, and forces may oppose the healing both they and the Spirit want. Cells and organisms in our bodies—and agents and forces outside them—may not cooperate with God’s healing initiatives. And because the uncontrolling Spirit of love can’t control any, healing doesn’t occur in these cases. We can’t know all the factors at play, so we shouldn’t be quick to judge.

Rather than blaming victims, therefore, my definition of miracles points consistently to an amipotent Spirit who wants everyone healed. But miracles require creaturely cooperation or conducive conditions in creation. We should blame neither the cooperating victim nor God when miraculous healing doesn’t occur, or when things don’t align sufficiently.

For these reasons, we wisely acknowledge the possibility of the miraculous, while also using traditional medical options and promising nontraditional ones. We can wisely treat our bodies and environments in ways that increase the overall chances of health and wholeness. In a relational world of multiple actors and forces, shaming and blaming victims have no place when love is the aim.[39]

Conceptual Confidence

I began this discussion on miracles by noting that some people seem more disposed to witness miracles than others. And I noted that interpretations vary. Skeptics often dismiss claims about miracles, especially when those claims lack verification by recognized authorities. And yet numerous people seem to witness miracles, even some who previously doubted.

My definition of miracles provides conceptual confidence for acknowledging the reality of the miraculous. If miracles occur but we don’t have to interpret them as God intervening, suspending the laws of nature, or controlling, the best arguments against miracles lose their force. And this means that even those most skeptical of miracles might decide they can accept some as authentic because those are good and extraordinary events that involve both divine and creaturely causation.

A good definition gives confidence to believing in miracles.

Conclusion

All of these arguments make sense in light of God’s uncontrolling love -- amipotence -- and the diverse experiences of life. For more on the overall theology undergirding this perspective, see A Systematic Theology of Love.

^[1] Tom Rundel addresses the problems omnipotence creates for abuse of leadership. See “Omnipotence Justifies Leadership Abuse,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[2] Candy Gunther Brown explores this issue documenting healing in Testing Prayer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), ch. 3. See also Joshua W. Brown, Proving a Miracle (San Francisco: Harper, 2026).

^[3]Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 1, Prima Pars, Q.105, Art.7, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).

^[4]Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 1–5, vol. 1 of Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 60.

^[5]Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1872), 619.

^[6] Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, with a Commentary and Critical Notes, vol. 5 (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, n.d.), 366.

^[7] Cheryl Bridges Johns, Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy Among the Oppressed (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 87.

^[8]Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary, trans. Richard Strachan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), s.v. “Miracle.”

^[9]Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 709.

^[10]Although I’m often critical of Wayne Grudem, his view of miracles is better than most theologians. He says, “a miracle is a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself.” I’d want to add an explicit claim about creaturely contributions to miracles, but at least Grudem doesn’t speak of interruptions, interventions, or the supernatural. See Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 355.

^[11]David and Randall Basinger explore this in Philosophy and Miracle (Lewiston, NY, and Queenston, Ontario: Edwin Mellen, 1986).

^[12]See examples of this in Gal. 4:13-14; Phil. 2:27; 1 Tim. 5:23; 2 Tim. 4:20.

^[13]Stephen Bradford Long, “Why I am Not A Christian: The Problem of Miracles,” (https://stephenbradfordlong.com/2023/08/23/why-i-am-not-a-christian-the-problem-of-miracles/ accessed 12/5/2025)

^[14]Christine Overall, “Miracles and Larmer,” Dialogue 42 (2003): 131.

^[15]One of the better arguments against the notion that miracles require divine coercion is found in David Ray Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000). See also Chad Bahl, The Death of Supernaturalism (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[16] Maurice Wiles, God’s Action in the World (London: SCM, 1986), 29. Andrew Hronich addresses the question by responding to my proposals and others in “The Problem of Selective Miracles,” Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal 9:1 (2025): 57–74.

^[17]Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, with a Commentary and Critical Notes, vol. 5 (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, n.d.), 366.

^[18]See David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” in On Human Nature and the Understanding, Antony Flew, ed. (New York: Collier, 1962 [1748]).

^[19]Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 1, Prima Pars, Q.105, Art.7, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).

^[20]Amos Yong identifies the problems that come from thinking miracles amount to violations of the laws of nature in The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), ch. 4.

^[21]Howard Van Till addresses this issue by affirming what he calls the “functional integrity” of creation. See “Basil, Augustine, and the Doctrine of Creation’s Functional Integrity,” Science and Christian Belief, 8:1 (1996): 21-38.

^[22]Albert Einstein, quoted in Alice Calaprice, ed., The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 474.

^[23]Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 282.

^[24]Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 37-38.

^[25]Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), 88.

^[26]Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (New York: Crossroad, 1980), 220.

^[27]Some use the word “occasionalism” for this view, which denies the category of the natural altogether. It says what we consider natural causation is really God producing outcomes without any creaturely contributions. For an advocate of this position, see G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952).

^[28]This is a main argument in Craig S. Keener’s two volume work, Miracles: The Credibility of The New Testament Accounts, vols. 1 & 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011). See also Paul Alexander, Signs and Wonders (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009); Candy Gunther Brown, Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Harold Koenig, The Healing Power of Faith (New York: Touchstone, 1999).

^[29] For one of the better concise attempts to define miracles, see David Basinger, “What is a Miracle?” in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, Graham H. Twelftree, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

^[30]Amos Yong, Renewing Christian Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 228.

^[31]Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, A Theology of Love (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1972), 216.

^[32]Some entities have both animate and inanimate dimensions. For instance, many plants have aspects with agency (leaves) but other aspects that are aggregates (inner trunk). Human cyborgs (like me) can have organismic entities and aggregates. For instance, I have inanimate medical devices in my chest and plates in my legs, but most of my body is comprised of animated organisms. I explain these issues in “Love, Society, and Machines,” in Love, Technology, and Theology, Scott A. Midson, ed. (London: T & T Clark, 2020).

^[33]I have addressed the implications of this definition of the miraculous in other books. See, for instance, Thomas Jay Oord, The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), ch. 8; Thomas Jay Oord, Questions and Answers for God Can’t (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2021), ch. 2.

^[34]In The God of Miracles, John Collins admits that biblical writers regard creation as endowed with natural properties and causal powers. He argues that special divine action “goes beyond the natural causal powers of the parties involved” (87). But all of the biblical passages he cites don’t require us to think that this power “beyond” natural causes is God determining outcomes unilaterally. See C. John Collins, The God of Miracles (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000).

^[35]Grudem, Systematic Theology, 355-56.

^[36]On this issue in Mark’s gospel, see Russ Dean, “Amipotence in the Gospel of Mark,” in Amipotence, vol. 1, Chris S. Baker, et. al. eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[37] Andre Rabe questions the meaning of “special” divine action in miracles. See “The Miraculous Nature of Our World,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[38] Joshua Reichard appeals to the logic of amipotence to avoid blaming victims. See “A Call for an Amipotent Pentecostal-Charismatic Renewal,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[39] I address blaming the victim, miracles, and healing in greater depth in God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love After Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2019), ch. 3.

A number of book-related online and in-person events are scheduled for the coming weeks. I’ll paste them below. I’d love to see you at one or more!

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I say this after scouring libraries and databases looking for books with this title. I found none. Perhaps a book with this title was written long ago or went unpublished. But to my knowledge, this is the first book called A Systematic Theology of Love.

Why?

One might think those who believe God is supremely loving and who also value conceptual consistency would have written many books with this title. The bald claim, “God is love,” is found in Christian scriptures, after all, and both Hebrew-language and Greek-language portions of scripture champion divine love.

Theists in Islam, Judaism, and other religious traditions also champion love and say God loves creation. And yet, to my knowledge, no one in those traditions has written a book called A Systematic Theology of Love.

In the first chapter of this book, I address this “Why?” question. I also define love and explain the open and relational theology undergirding this work.

Unusual Theology

This is the first of a three-volume systematic theology. As the subtitle indicates, in this book I address the doctrine of God proper, including the usual issues theologians ponder. But the responses I give to those issues differ from traditional fare. In some cases, those differences are radical!

The majority of this book addresses details of what it might mean to believe in a loving, universal Spirit whom most of us call “God.” I address issues like God’s nature, what it means to be a spirit, divine knowledge, God’s relation to time, divine incorporeality, what it means to say God loves, whether God is personal, divine becoming, God’s relationality and mutability, and so much more.

An entire chapter is devoted to explaining why theists should stop saying God is omnipotent. Another chapter is devoted to a replacement view of divine power: amipotence. These chapters are my most developed writings on God’s power.

God and Creation

In the second part of this book, I address God as creator. I reject the creation from nothing theory and offer an alternative I think better fits scripture, reason, science, and experience. That alternative says God is “the Ever Creator.”

I wade through a host of issues pertaining to divine providence. Those issues include miracles, creaturely free will, the problem of good, emergence, agency among smaller entities, divine-creaturely collaboration, material-mental monism, divine love for the smallest entities, and God’s will. In one chapter, I explore the problem of evil and offer a six-fold solution.

Formats

This book is now available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. The audiobook is so long I divided it, calling the second audiobook, “The Ever Creator and Amipotent Providence.” That second audiobook covers chapters 11-15.

As usual, I’m using a host of book distributors. In addition to Amazon, look for the book at your favorite outlet. I’m making this book widely available. For the Amazon link to the book, click here.

I’m especially grateful to paid Substack subscribers for their help in writing this book. I’m sending each a signed copy of this book, and it should arrive sometime in March. I’ll start writing the second volume of the book in the fall of 2026, and I’ll offer paid subscribers various perks for their help with that volume too.

I’m excited to offer A Systematic Theology of Love. And I look forward to hearing responses from readers.

In case you missed it, here’s the cover:

Some insider info:

• Those who want an ebook version can pre-order now on Amazon. Click here.

• Other online book retailers will also carry the ebook and print books.

• Paid Substack subscribers will receive a “Collector’s Edition” version in March.

• An online book launch/party is scheduled for March 17 and hosted by Jonathan Foster.

• Amazon will begin taking reader reviews in early March.

For more information, consider signing up for my newsletter at this link.

In excitement!

Tom

The first of the two volumes is titled Amipotence: Support and Criticism. The second is Amipotence: Expansion and Application. Essayists responded to my book, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, but I have explained amipotence in other books.

I invented the word “amipotence” to replace omnipotence. By it, I mean the power of God’s uncontrolling love. The idea is that God always loves everyone and everything, and because divine love is always uncontrolling, God can’t control anyone or anything.

“Ami” means “love” in Latin, and “potence” means “power” or “influence.” The word is pronounced “am” (like “amity”), with a short “i” (like “it”), and “potence” (like “moments”).

The essays in these two books are simply outstanding! I strongly recommend that you get copies of one or both. The subject matter of the essays ranges widely, and I learned a great deal reading them.

As the book subtitles suggest, some essays added, expanded, and applied the idea of amipotence. And about 20% of the essayists wrote criticisms of the idea or its implications. There’s no bad essay in either book!

I spent 2025 responding to each essay. And my responses are now posted online. Most responses are drabbles, which are statements exactly 100 words long. But on a few essays, I wrote longer responses. Click the links on the essay titles below to see them and suggestions of further reading.

I cite a number of the amipotence essays in my forthcoming book, A Systematic Theology of Love: God and Creation, volume one. I’ll cite more of the essays in later volumes in the systematic theology.

I want to thank the executive editor, Brandon Brown especially for administrating both volumes. And I thank book editors Chris Baker, Steve Fountain, Fran Stedman, Melissa Owens Stewart, Deanna Young, and Travis Young. They were all fantastic! I offer a huge word of appreciation to Chris Baker for posting every essay on the Center for Open and Relational Theology website (c4ort.com). Because there are 150+ essays, that’s a lot of work!

Below are the essays in the two amipotence books in (roughly) alphabetical order. Each essay has a hyperlink that takes those who click to the essay online. If you notice a book essay that should be included, send me a note about it.

Thanks again to every essayist for helping me explore amipotence!

AMIPOTENCE ESSAYS

“Amipotence with Added Anarchy” by Graham Adams

“I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Monica Alhbin

“The Ontological Idolatry of Love” by Jason Alvis

“An Empowering Not Overpowering Spirit” by Dave Andrews

“Man, Bear, or Amipotent God?” by Janel Apps Ramsey

“Hell and Amipotence” by David Anzalone

“Amipotence Confined” by Charles Atkins

“Night of the Living Words” by Charles Bakker

“The Panarchist Politics of Amipotence” by Matthew Baker

“A Womanist Liberative Response to Amipotence” by Karen Baker-Fletcher

“Amipotence as a Solution to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness” by Chad Bahl

“Practicing Amipotence” by Chris Baker

“Is an Amipotent God Preferable to Freewill Theism?” by David Basinger

“Trinity, Time, and an Unfolding Future” by Allan R. Bevere

“Even God Can’t Have It All” by Donna Bowman

“Silent, Still and Sweet Attraction” by Michael Brierley

“The Prevenience of Amipotence” by Brandon Brown

“Why Can’t God Do More” by John H. Buchanan

“Love: The Name of the Universe” by T.D. Burnette

“Love Without Qualification” by Anna-Case-Winters

“God and Kidney Stones” by Clifford Chalmers Cain

“Amipotence: The Ghost Buster of Harmful Doctrines” by Michael Camp

“The Measureless Game” by Jason Clark

“The Power of Love” by Kelly James Clark

“Amipotence Vs. Omnipotence” by John B. Cobb, Jr.

“Omnipotence, Amipotence, or Just the Steadfast Love of God?” by Robert D. Cornwall

“The Explanatory Failure of Amipotence” by Robin A. Collins

“The Palindrome of ‘Bolton’ Would Be ‘Notlob!’“ by Simon Cross

“Stolen Sovereignty: Abuse and the Denial of Agency” by Nathan Croy

“Amipotence Overcomes Two Problems with Omnipotence” by John E. Culp

“Your Church is Dying” by Ulrick Refsager Dam

“The Parable of Amipotent Love” by Paul Dazet

“Amipotence in the Gospel of Mark” by Russ Dean

“The Universe of God’s Dynamic Love” by Ilia Delio

“Drive-By Baskets of Christmas Cheer” by Teri Ditslear

“Who’s in Charge?” by Martha Elias Downey

“Perfect Passivity” by Daniel A. Dombrowski

“From Amipotence to All-Encompassing Mercy” by Adis Duderija

“God Can’t Be All-Powerful and All-Loving!” by Mike Edwards

“The Politics of Amipotence” by Bruce G. Epperly

“If Love is Power, ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’“ by David Fitch

“The Interwoven Fabric of Christian Faith” by David Fergusson

“The Supremacist Soteriology of Divine Omnipotence” by Alex Forrester

“The Still Birth of Amipotence” by Gabriel Gordon

“Theology, Pediatrics, and Everyday Life” by Chris Hanson

“Amipotence in the Wesleyan Tradition” by Steve Harper

“Amipotence Versus the Psalms” by William Hasker

“All Loving Death Practices” by Beth Hayward

“Power, Control, and our Failure to Love the Earth” by Aimee Allison Hein

“Amipotence and Animal Rights” by E.A. Drew Hensley

“Amipotence and the Hope of Redemption” by Wm. Curtis Holtzen

“Justice Seeking Amipotence” by Nancy R. Howell

“God Doesn’t Barge In” by Sarah K. Howley

“The God in the Burning Bush Is Not Omnipotent” by Matt Huffman

“The Force and Form of Love and God’s Cosmic Body” by Darren Iammarino

“The Power of Abiding Love That Will Not Let Us Go” by Charissa Jaeger-Sanders

“God Isn’t Waiting for Your Cry for Help” by Jeremy Jernigan

“If Not for the Grace of Nature, There Go I” by Mark Gregory Karris

“Suffering and the Amipotent God” by Catherine Keller

“Neuro-Relational Spirituality and Religious Power Games” by Shaleen Kendrick

“Amipotence and the Nature of Agency“ by Simon Kittle

“Why It Matters that Love is First” by Sarah Heaner Lancaster

“What’s Love Got to Do With It?” by Anson Laytner

“Is the Amipotent God the World-Soul?” by Joanna Leidenhag

“An Apology for Qualified Omnipotence” by Christopher Lilley

“We Must Rethink the Cross“ by Jason Liesendahl

“God’s Power and the Therapy Room” by Steven A. Luff

“How Are We Influenced by God’s Love?” by Brian Claude Macallan

“An Open and Relational Eschatology” by Lon Marshall

“Only by Love Unfeigned” by Patrick Q. Mason

“Amipotence Versus Amorepotence, Oord Versus McCall” by Bradford McCall

“Practicing the Presence of Amipotence” by Jay McDaniel

“The Meaning of God is to Love and Be Loved” by James McLachlan

“The Loving God Incapable of Love” by Ryan Patrick McLaughlin

“Jewish Insights on God’s Power and Love” by John C. Merkle

“Did the Spiritual but Not Religious Leave Because of Omnipotence?” by Linda Mercadante

“If God Learned to Love, Then God Can Teach Us How” by Tim Miller

“No Quick Fix” by Shannon Davy Mimbs

“Divine Cancer and Amipotent Community” by Ryan Miller

“S/He Who Cares About Every Tear!” by Saida Mirsadri

“Islamic Process Panentheism Offers a Deeper Perspective on Divine Action” by Jared Morningstar

“Amipo-verdant: Love is Green” by Craig Morton

“Omnipotence Has No Qualifications” by R.T. Mullins

“Like God” by Eleanor O’Donnell

“Sourdough Focaccia: A Case Study of Love” by Tori E. Owens

“Amipotence in Hindu Monotheism” by Swami Padmanabha

“Love is Greater than an Omnipotent ‘God’“ by Sheri Pallas

“Amipotence (Perhaps)” by Joshua G. Patterson

“Minimalist Creation ex Nihilo and the God Who is Surprised” by Joe Pettit

“Hope in Love” by Elizabeth Enns Petters

“Do Our Bacteria Love Us?” by John F. Pohl

“The Decline of Omnipotence in Pop Culture” by Nick Polk

“Must Omnipotence Die So that Amipotence May Live?” by Austin Pounds

“Amipotentiality and the Sacrament of Service” by B. Keith Putt

“A Divine Marriage” by Sharon L. Baker Putt

“The Miraculous Nature of Our World” by Andre Rabe

“Living Out Amipotence” by Vikki Randall

“Who is God to Me?” by Mike Rans

“Divine Malpraxis” by Elijah Razo

“Resisting the Authoritarian Lure” by Marcel Redling

“A Call for an Amipotent Pentecostal-Charismatic Revival” by Joshua D. Reichard

“Exaggerated Rumors of Omnipotence’s Death” by Alan R. Rhoda

“A Beautiful Hope“ by Michael M. Rose

“Omnipotence Justifies Leadership Abuse” by Tom Rundel

“Can Empowering Love Heal Trauma?” by Helene Russell

“The Determined Divine” by Niq Ruud

“Tovarche: Amipotence’s Doctrinal Domino Effect” by Shawn M. Ryan

“A Threefold Critique of Amipotence” by Manuel Schmid

“Four Fatal Flaws of Amipotence” by Wm. Andrew Schwartz

“A Theology Without an Expiration Date” by Josh Scott

“God Can’t Because God Cares” by Eric Sentell

“Amplifying Amipotence Through a Theopoetic Re-Reading of Creation” by Matthew David Segall

“The Risk of Love and its Existential Response to the Possibility of Self-Death” by Farhan Shah

“An Amipotent God is a Mad God” by Rose Sharon

“Smite Our Enemies, Loving God?” by Pete Shaw

“Logic, Definitions, and Why We Should Look Elsewhere” by J. Aaron Simmons

“The Foundational Love of God and Spiritual Direction” by Shelly A. Skinner

“Seventy Times Seventy Times Infinity” by Jeanyne B. Slettom

“The Metaphysics of Love” by Olav Bryant Smith

“From Power to Love: Reframing God Beyond the Childish Ego“ by Joe Smith

“Good Lord Willing” by Melissa Owens Stewart

“Conducting the Power of the Past” by John M. Sweeney

“An Amipotent God is Both the Poet and the Poetry” by Bill Tammeus

“Good Riddance, Omnipotence” by Libby Tedder Hugus

“Harm Reduction as an Exercise of Amipotence” by Brad Thibodeaux

“Amipotence and Atonement” by Nichole Torbitzky

“Love Encounters of the Fifth Kind” by Ian Todd

“A Preacher Kid’s Tale of Amipotence” by Johan Tredoux

“Is God a Hypocrite?” by Jason Tripp

“Where is God…?“ by Tracy L. Tucker

“Amipotence for Everyday Life” by Mark Umstot

“I Believe in God the Father Almighty” by Gijsbert van den Brink

“Catching Up with Charles Hartshorne” by Donald Wayne Viney

“Faith in a God that Does Not Kill” by Steve Watson

“A Middle Way Between Theodicy and Antitheodicy” by Mark Waters

“God’s Powerful Love Is in Us, Too“ by Jeff Wells

“Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! Divine Omniscience (Also) Has to Go!” by Clarence Graham White

“Amipotence and Sanctification“ by Angela Wilson

“The All-Nurturing, All-Sustaining God of Scripture” by Karen Strand Winslow

“Covenant Theology, Lament, & Amipotence” by William Yarchin

“What the World Needs Now… Amipotence” by Deanna M. Young

“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” by James Travis Young

BIG IDEAS IN THIS CHAPTER

* The problem of good wonders why good occurs and we intuit ultimate goodness if a good God doesn’t exist.

* Just as belief in evil is an experiential non-negotiable, belief in goodness is too.

* It makes best sense to believe a universal Spirit serves as the transcendent Standard of goodness and prompts creatures to do good.

* Amipotence solves both the problem of good and the problem of evil.

* Most theologians define miracles as events God does alone by supernaturally overriding nature.

* The traditional view of miracles creates a host of problems, including the problem of selective miracles and scientific conflicts.

* We shouldn’t call every event a miracle nor deny miracles altogether.

* Miracles are better defined as extraordinary, good events that involve divine and creaturely causation.

* Believing deity predestines and foreknows all undermines a plausible view of God’s will.

* God has a general will, specific wills, and vocations to which the Spirit calls.

______

While the problem of evil stymies most theists, the problem of good stymies most atheists. At least it should. We ought to wonder why there’s so much love, beauty, friendship, positivity, cooperation, order, humor, and goodness in the world… if there is no God. People intuit a standard of goodness that transcends their personal and social preferences, even though they differ in their opinions about values, and culture influences them. It’s natural to seek an ultimate explanation for our deepest intuitions about goodness. Amipotence provides one.

Traditionally, systematic theologians point to miracles as evidence of divine providence. But as typically defined, miracles raise severe problems. The problem of selective miracles, for instance, says there should be far more miracles if God is omnipotent and loving. We rightly wonder why a deity with almighty power to do miracles doesn’t use that ability to stop pointless pain. And then there’s the problem that traditional miracles presents to scientific explanations. The traditional view of miracles presents insurmountable problems and portrays God as stingy when it comes to love.

Given these issues, some theologians reject miracles as being objectively real. Others claim everything is miraculous. I’m unsatisfied with both responses. A better view accounts for the broad biblical witness to miracles and contemporary examples, while overcoming the real problems associated with the traditional view. It considers miracles good and extraordinary events that involve creaturely cooperation and/or the conditions of creation, alongside the activity of an amipotent God.

Questions about miracles, goodness, and evil lead to pondering God’s will. Traditional theologies portray God as timeless, predestining, and/or controlling, ideas that cause a host of problems. Traditional theologies also say God foreknows all, which makes no sense if creatures freely choose to follow God’s call or do otherwise. To conclude my exploration of providence, I propose a love-based explanation of God’s will, featuring a general divine aim, specific wills, and vocations.

Goodness, miracles, and God’s will make sense if deity is a Spirit of uncontrolling love.

The Problem of Good

The authors of scripture assume that creatures do good and evil. We assume this too, and we show this assumption by the way we live every day. Our lives revolve around values. Biblical writers also say God evaluates what’s good and evil, and our ability to evaluate is analogous to God’s, despite our limits. “If you who do evil know how to give good gifts to your children,” asks Jesus, “how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Mt. 7:11)?

In the previous chapter, we looked at the problem of evil. It’s the primary reason many people don’t believe in God and a source of confusion for those who do. Most systematic theologians cannot solve it because they cling to divine omnipotence, impassibility, divine punishment, and other love-undermining ideas. I laid out a six-fold solution, the heart of which replaces omnipotence with amipotence.

Atheists and agnostics face a different problem, however. It’s the problem of good. It doubts that anyone gives a satisfying explanation for truly good events and ultimate goodness while denying the existence of a good God. If deity doesn’t exist, why is there so much positivity, cooperation, generosity, altruism, self-sacrifice, desire for justice, heroism, and love? And without an Ultimate Standard, on what basis can we judge some actions or events as better than others?

Systematic theologians have an answer to the problem of good: God.^[1] Grounding goodness in deity, says Keith Ward, “gives to moral experience an objectivity, authority, and effectiveness that would immensely strengthen the motivating force of morality and its consilience with a more general worldview.”^[2] I agree. Especially when love is considered to be logically first in the divine nature and an essential attribute of deity, belief in a good God overcomes the problem of good.

Not all views of God are equal, however. The best view solves the problem of good and the problem of evil. It says a universal Spirit, in whose nature love comes first, prompts us to act in good ways and live good lives. This means that God’s nature is the ultimate measure of goodness and the wellspring for the possibility of well-being in existence. Believing these claims can motivate us to do good deeds and become good people, as we cooperate with the Spirit’s calls to goodness.^[3] “Love is from God, and everyone who loves knows God,” says the Apostle John. “The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7, 8).

Those who say they don’t believe in God can’t appeal to deity as the Ultimate source, inspiration, or standard of the goodness they witness or want in the world. Without an Ultimate source, goodness becomes a personal preference rather than some universal norm. ‘Good’ becomes “whatever I decide,” whatever my tribe requires, or whatever the most powerful person decrees. Extreme relativism ensues.

Some admit to having no transcendent standard for goodness but say science undermines the need for one. In fact, there is no Ultimate Goodness, according to some. Researchers in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology will acknowledge that they witness altruistic behavior and cooperation within and even across species.^[4] But they say creatures are ultimately selfish, because everything acts its own reproductive success. Above all, goes the argument, we all selfishly want to further our genetic lineage.

If this were true, ‘good’ would become just a name for acting to benefit our offspring or furthering our genetic line.^[5] Consequently, cooperative goodness is whatever I can do to help me and mine. “What passes for co­operation turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation,” says Michael Ghiselin. “Scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.”^[6]

Others reject the category of goodness on nihilistic grounds. In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche says, “There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.^[7]” Therefore, goodness is entirely what the individual decides. “The noble type of [person] experiences itself as determining values,” says Nietzsche, “[they do] not need to be approved; [they] judge, ‘what is harmful to me is harmful in itself.’”^[8] Richard Dawkins gives contemporary expression to this when he says, “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”^[9]

Whether on scientific grounds, to embrace nihilism, or for another reason, some people say there is no transcendent goodness. But such claims do not fit our experience. Denying transcendent goodness contradicts the way we all live our lives. We all act as if some events make the world better, all things considered, than it otherwise might have been. This acting implies a more basic belief in an Ultimate Standard for goodness.

Just as belief in evil is an experiential non-negotiable, belief in goodness is too.

We sometimes choose to help others at our own expense, for instance. We work to save the planet, improve our lives, protect the vulnerable, or do good to strangers. Sometimes, we love our enemies. Sometimes act against our genetic self-interest, such as when people adopt children or care for kids with whom they share no genetic lineage.^[10] Whether consciously or not, we assume Goodness sometimes calls us to act in ways that transcend personal pleasure and our genetic lineage.

To respond to Dawkins: we all live as if goodness is real, and, at bottom, there’s more than blind, pitiless indifference. To respond to Ghiselin: if we scratch an altruist, we’ll often find someone who acts for a good greater than their own. In fact, those who deny transcendent goodness are the hypocrites: they deny with their mouths a reality they inevitably live in their practice. By definition, that’s hypocrisy.

Deniers of transcendent goodness have a response. They say evolution has tricked us into thinking we do good and believing in transcendent goodness. We have evolved, goes the argument, so that our incessant selfishness is hidden, even to us. We’ve been duped. When we think we’re responding to a higher call, our better angels, or God, we’re actually doing what our genes have programmed us to do. So, we can’t trust our beliefs about transcendent goodness.

This argument backfires. If evolution undermines our capacity to have true beliefs, those who deny transcendent goodness have no grounds to think their beliefs are true. No one could know. If there are no standards, we can’t know which beliefs are accurate, and that includes arguments for and against transcendent goodness. If our practices are inherently untrustworthy, even the practice of criticizing goodness can’t be trusted.

Without some transcendent Measure, there is no objective basis for truth or falsity, good and evil, better and worse. And yet, we all assume a transcendent standard and that our judgments should be assessed by it. This Standard exceeds personal or cultural preferences, although those preferences also influence us.^[11] In fact, science requires standards of truth and value, because scientists assume grounds to claim some theories are truer or better. And scientists need to justify to themselves and the public why some research programs are worth pursuing.

Affirming transcendent goodness aligns with lived experience.

God as Source of and Prompt for Goodness

The best way to account for an ultimate source of goodness appeals to a metaphysics that includes a transcendent Source. This doesn’t have to be a theistic metaphysics. But most forms of theism propose God as the transcendent Source and Standard for values. Consequently, theism accounts for ultimate goodness better than atheism, reductive altruism, or nihilism.

This systematic theology of love embraces a theistic metaphysics that says a universal Spirit of love acts as the ultimate Source of goodness. The ultimate measures of the Spirit transcend personal or cultural preferences. This universal Lover plays a central role in explaining why creatures sometimes do good, because it says God calls and empowers creatures toward goodness. Theologies that portray God as actively providing creatures possibilities for truth, beauty, goodness, and love provide a framework not available in, for instance, a god-less Platonic metaphysics.^[12]

The best metaphysician in the contemporary era arrived at this conclusion. That person is Alfred North Whitehead, the son of a Christian minister and an avid reader of theology. Whitehead made his scholarly name in Cambridge and London as a world-class mathematician, co-writing the most ambitious mathematics and logic book to date.^[13] Like many math-minded scholars, Whitehead appreciated Plato’s formal categories. He believed that we encounter transcendent truths already in reality, waiting to be discovered. Plato called these truths “The Forms;” Whitehead called them “eternal objects” or “pure possibilities.^[14]”

Despite being the son of a Christian minister, Whitehead rejected belief in God as a middle-aged man. Like many atheists and agnostics, the problem of evil led him to unbelief, and the death of his son Eric was a key moment in this. Whitehead sold his theology books and turned his genius to the philosophy of science and intellectual history. In his early sixties, he accepted an invitation to teach metaphysics at Harvard University, which provided him a formal opportunity to explore life’s biggest questions.^[15]

The problem of good led Whitehead back to belief in God.^[16] To account for existence well, he realized he needed a metaphysics that includes something like a universal Mind. A theistic hypothesis offered the best framework to make sense of his intuitions about good and evil—especially creation’s advance toward increased goodness. “The essence of life is to be found in the creative advance into novelty,” said Whitehead, “conditioned so as to secure attained goodness. . .”^[17]

Whitehead realized he needed an explanation for why the past didn’t always repeat itself, in the exact same way. Not only do new things occur, but the grand scheme of gives evidence of involves increasing order, beauty, moral sensibility, and complexity. And we each sense a nudge toward what’s better. The explanation for this can’t come from creation alone, because neither creatures nor creation as a whole could evaluate moment by moment an almost infinite number of possibilities. The best explanation for increasing values and the nudge we each feel points to a universal Mind. A deity must exist who urges creation toward beauty, order, love, and more.

I agree with Whitehead. The best account of existence involves a transcendence Standard and universal Agent who prompts and nudges creation toward increased value. Without belief in God, we cannot explain well our intuitions about and the actualization of the good, true, beautiful, just, and loving. We need a metaphysical vision of existence that unites Plato’s concept of the Good with the general description of the Living God we find in scripture.^[18]

Whitehead’s view of divinity differs from traditional theologies, however, and two differences are especially important. First, Whitehead conceived of God not simply as a transcendent depository of values, as important as that is. He also conceived of God as timefully immanent and ever-active, personally providing values to creatures and receiving input from them. The Spirit lures creatures to the best possibilities and apprehends their decisions in ongoing interaction.

The transcendent Source and active Provider that Whitehead describes is the universal Spirit of love I describe as having an essence-experience binate.^[19] God’s essence is the standard for goodness, truth, beauty, love, and other values. It’s immutable and transcends creation. God’s experience is that aspect of the divine that interacts directly with all creatures and creation, calling and empowering each to goodness, and responding. This Living Lover is the Ultimate source of goodness and the One who invites all to promote well-being. This view of God solves the problem of good.

The second significant way Whitehead’s theology differs from traditional theologies pertains to divine power. Whitehead rejected omnipotence, in the sense of God having the ability to determine outcomes by unilateral coercion. Instead, he believed God acts through persuasion, in the sense of inviting and inclining creatures toward increasing goodness and other values. My theory of amipotence is influenced by this vision, because it says the amipotent Spirit influences all but can’t control any. This view of God solves the problem of evil.

None of this proves God exists, of course. Atheists and agnostics have rational grounds for their skepticism. After all, it’s logically possible there is no transcendent Source of goodness, despite the fact we act like there is, and despite the fact that we see increased order, beauty, and complexity in creation. We might call unbelievers not bothered by the problem of good, “skeptical atheists.” Like skeptical theists, their views are logically possible, despite good evidence and strong arguments to the contrary.

I regard both skeptical atheism and skeptical theism as profound mistakes. Neither accounts well for reality as we know it, especially those dimensions—like transcendent goodness and genuine evil—central to life. Neither skeptical theists nor skeptical atheists seem willing to rethink radically their concepts of deity, including their assumption that God is omnipotent. By contrast, amipotence rethinks divine power and love, thereby solving both the problem of evil and the problem of good. It says a loving, universal Spirit is the source and inspiration for all that’s good and for other values central to existence.^[20] Amipotence also says this Spirit cannot prevent evil singlehandedly, because a loving deity cannot control anyone or anything.^[21]

Amipotence overcomes skeptical atheism and skeptical theism by accounting for good and evil.

“The moral arc of the universe is long,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., “but it bends toward justice.^[22]” I believe it bends toward justice because an amipotent Spirit calls creatures to promote overall well-being. When creatures respond well to God’s call, they do good and act justly in ways appropriate to their contexts.

The moral arc “bends” because the Spirit does not coerce; God can’t control the universe. When creatures respond poorly to divine calls for love and justice, we witness evil, ugliness, and apathy. When they respond well, we witness well-being. The degree and length of the arc’s bend depend on creaturely responses to the Spirit.

Miracles

Systematic theologies typically address miracles in their accounts of providence. In fact, people of faith often consider such events decisive evidence of divine action. Not only does the Bible include miracle stories, but they’re also mentioned in various religious texts, and many people of faith say miracles occur today.

A number of problems arise when assessing miracles, however. Some concern divine action, others are psychological, some seem influenced by culture, others reflect the trickery of religious hucksters, and some emerge when science offers convincing explanations opposing miracles. These problems lead a fair number of theologians and everyday believers to reject the category of miracles altogether.

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This event is June 30 - July 3 at the Grand Targhee resort, outside Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

This years speakers include Jonathan Foster, John Sanders, and Nichole Torbitzky, along with a dozen others.

For details, see the conference website: https://c4ort.com/ortcon/