The Uncontrolling Love of God (eBook)

An Open and Relational Account of Providence

Thomas Jay Oord (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 1. Auflage
229 Seiten
IVP Academic (Verlag)
978-0-8308-9901-2 (ISBN)

Infos

IVP Readers' Choice Award Rarely does a new theological position emerge to account well for life in the world, including not only goodness and beauty but also tragedy and randomness. Drawing from Scripture, science, philosophy and various theological traditions, Thomas Jay Oord offers a novel theology of providence-essential kenosis-that emphasizes God's inherently noncoercive love in relation to creation. The Uncontrolling Love of God provides a clear and powerful response to one of the perennial challenges to Christian faith.

Thomas Jay Oord (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is professor of theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. He has written or edited more than a dozen books, including Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement. He is an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene.

Autor

Thomas Jay Oord (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is professor of theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. He serves as adviser or on the councils of several scholarly groups, including the Open and Relational Theologies group (AAR), Biologos, Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, Research Theological Fellowship, Wesleyan Theological Society and the Wesleyan Philosophical Society. Oord has written or edited more than twenty books, including Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement, The Nature of Love: A Theology and Theologies of Creation: Creatio Ex Nihilo and Its New Rivals. He is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theologies, postmodernism, issues in religion and science, and Wesleyan, holiness and evangelical theologies.Oord serves as an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene and in various consulting and administrative roles for academic institutions, scholarly projects and research teams. He and his wife Cheryl have three daughters.

Textauszug

1

Tragedy Needs Explanation

We all want to make sense of life.

Most of the time, we ask immediate questions to make sense of what’s happening in our world: Why did she look at me that way? Why is it cold? Why can’t my team win a championship? Why do I feel hungry? Why can’t I relax? Why do I see so many advertisements?

Most of us ask big questions of life too. These questions and their answers are at the heart of the world’s religions, the impetus for scientific endeavors and the domain of philosophy. Theology, science and philosophy explore both the minutiae and the big picture to make sense of reality. Big questions and our attempts to answer them are a big deal.

Those who believe in God—and I am a believer—typically think fully adequate answers to big questions include God. Science, philosophy, humanities, arts or other disciplines contribute to our quest to answer life’s questions. Everyday experiences matter too. Comprehensive answers draw from all these domains.

Reflection on God—theology—should not be the trump card in efforts to understand reality. Phrases like “God only knows” or “it must be God’s will” sometimes end conversations rather than shed light on how things might work or how things are. Theology doesn’t have all of the answers.

But if God’s presence and influence have the far-reaching effects most believers think, theology cannot be set aside during discussions of existence. It must be included. In fact, theology should play a central role when seeking adequate answers to the most important questions of life.

And what an amazing life it is!

Existence abounds in feelings, facts, information, values, action, desires and unanswered questions. We experience love, joy and happiness, along with evil, pain and sadness. We act purposefully and intentionally. We also encounter randomness, chance and luck—good and bad. We seem to act freely. But circumstances, our bodies and the environment limit what we freely do. We decide, feel, relate and ponder.

In one moment, goodness and beauty delight us. In the next, we cringe in response to horror and ugliness. At times we’re happy, and at other times we’re not. Most of the time our lives consist of the mundane, usual and routine. And on it goes. We live.

Making sense of life—in light of such diversity—is a daunting endeavor. But we inevitably take up the task. In more or less sophisticated ways, we try to figure out how things work and what makes sense. We are all metaphysicians, in this sense, because metaphysics seeks the fundamental explanations of reality.

This book explores the big picture with a special emphasis upon explaining randomness and evil in light of God’s providence. By providence, I mean the ways God acts to promote our well-being and the well-being of the whole.

In this exploration, I will not ignore purpose, beauty, goodness and love. But the positive aspects of life are fairly easy to reconcile with belief in God. Randomness and evil are far more challenging. Unfortunately, some believers dismiss the challenging aspects of life as inconsequential or unreal. By contrast, I think we must take seriously these aspects, so seriously that many believers will need to rethink their views of God. We may need deconstruction so reconstruction can occur.

By the end of this book, I will offer answers to some of the most significant questions of life. I take seriously randomness and purpose, evil and good, freedom and necessity, love and hate—and God. I’ll be offering a novel proposal for overcoming obstacles that have traditionally prevented believers from finding satisfactory solutions to the big problems of life. My solutions may even prompt unbelievers to reconsider their belief that God does not exist.

For millennia, many people have asked, “If a loving and powerful God exists, why doesn’t this God prevent genuinely evil events?” Thanks especially to recent developments in philosophy and science, a related question has also gained prominence: “How can a loving and powerful God be providential if random and chance events occur?”

In this book, I propose answers to both questions. At the heart of these answers is a particular understanding of God’s power and love. Theology, science, philosophy and Scripture inform this understanding. When appealing to these sources, I aim to account for the cruel and unpredictable realities of life, in their wide-ranging diversity. But I also account for purpose, freedom and love. I draw upon research in various disciplines to proffer a model of divine providence that I find both credible and livable.

To get at the heart of my proposals, it seems appropriate to begin with accounts of real life situations involving randomness and evil.

It’s Utter Pandemonium

On April 15, 2013, Mark Wolfe finished the Boston Marathon. Not long thereafter, Wolfe witnessed the massive destruction of terrorist-devised bomb blasts near the finish line. “It’s utter pandemonium,” he said, describing the chaos. “Everybody’s just in disbelief and sadness.”1

While Wolfe and others observed the devastation firsthand, people around the nation and world turned to the media for details of the tragedy. The explosions caused more than chaos and damage to nearby structures. At least 250 bystanders and runners were injured. Fourteen required amputations. Three died.

The stories of the injured, maimed and deceased captured hearts around the world. Reports of heroic helpers at the bombing scene soon emerged. Police officers, firefighters, nurses, physicians and ordinary citizens were good Samaritans in a time of dire need. While the public lauded the helpers, grief and shock prevailed. Making sense of things proved difficult.

A few days later, FBI agents identified Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev as the disaster’s masterminds. The brothers placed nails, ball bearings and other metals in pressure cookers and detonated the homemade explosives with remote devices. After police had found the two, a chase ensued and authorities killed one. Authorities eventually captured the second, and he admitted to their crime. Religious beliefs motivated them, Mr. Tsarnaev said. This calamity seemed another in a long list of evils perpetrated in the name of God, Allah or some other religious ultimate.

The Boston Marathon bombing is not unique of course. Terror-motivated bombings occur throughout the world, although in the United States they occur less frequently. Some blasts are more deadly and more damaging. Any terrorist bombing—no matter where it occurs—is one too many.

Believers in God explain events like the Boston Marathon bombing in various ways. Writing as a guest columnist in the Orlando Sentinel, Josh Castleman affirmed his belief in God despite the Boston horror. “I realize that many people will see this tragic event as evidence against God’s existence,” wrote Castleman in the newspaper. “But the reality is that in order for thousands of people to feel relief and joy, some had to feel unspeakable pain and heartache.”

Castleman concluded his piece with a rhetorical question: “Where was God during the bombing?” He answers: “I think he was right in front of us, and he was hoping we wouldn’t just focus on the brief moment of evil, but instead, recognize him in the hours and days that followed.”2

Some believers make sense of life by saying we need evil to appreciate the goodness of God and that God consoles those who suffer. Castleman seems to think evil is necessary for this purpose when he says that “in order for . . . people to feel relief and joy, some had to feel unspeakable pain and heartache.” Without evil, we would not know good, says this argument. To know firsthand the God of all consolation, we need reasons to be consoled.

We must go through hell to appreciate heaven.

The belief that God is present with those who suffer is increasingly common. “God suffers with us,” many say. God experienced pain and death in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, say Christians, and as a Fellow Sufferer, God now suffers with those in the throes of pain. In the midst of our greatest difficulty, God is present and empathetic. Many believers say they worship a suffering God. But must we endure evil to appreciate good? And can we best account for evil by saying God is present to and suffers with victims?

Most believers think God can do anything. God could control people or situations and stop any evil event, they say. If this is true, God must voluntarily allow evil just to suffer alongside victims. God permits evil in order to feel our agony. God could stop such evil, says this view, but God allows it so that we can feel supported in the midst of our pain.

Does this view make God a masochist? And do we want to emulate masochists? Do we always allow loved ones to suffer so we can suffer with them? Do we think it more loving to suffer with others than to prevent evil, if we were able, in the first place?

I think we should doubt that evil is a prerequisite for good, especially the vast amount of evil in our world. The amount of evil far outweighs whatever we might need to appreciate good. Besides, most Christians believe in an afterlife of eternal bliss. If we follow the logic of “good requires evil,” heaven must include pain and evil so saints can appreciate the heavenly hereafter. Not only does this way of thinking make evil necessary, but it causes one to wonder if the saints could experience perfect bliss knowing that evil makes their bliss...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.12.2015
• Verlagsort: Lisle
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Schlagworte: Christian • Divine Love • Evil • God • human suffering • Kenosis • Models • Omnipotence • Omniscience • openness of god • Problem of evil • problem of suffering • Process theism • randomness • Suffering
• ISBN-10: 0-8308-9901-4 / 0830899014
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-9901-2 / 9780830899012