1. The Uncontrolling Love of God
Leeds
Thomas Jay Oord

2. Evil make it difficult to believe God always loves…
Infant Born with Massive Genetic Defects
“Every time I heard someone say ‘it’s all part of God’s plan,’ I
growl a little bit inside.”
Randomness?

3. The Las Vegas Shooting
“We do not know why God does not inter-vene and stop some tragedies when he does stop others. What we do know is that God stands against evil and violence We know that God is
present for those who
are hurting.”
- Russell Moore

4. The Problem of Evil… asks why a powerful and loving God doesn’t prevent genuine evil.
The Problem of Chance and Randomness…
asks how God can be providential if genuine chance and randomness occur.

5. s

6. Ehrman concludes:
“If there is a God, he is not the kind of being that I believed in as an Evangelical:
a personal deity who has ultimate power over this world and intervenes in human affairs in order to implement his will among us.” s

7. s “If God cures cancer, then why do millions die of cancer?”
“If the response is that it is a mystery (‘God works in mysterious ways’),
that is the same as saying that we do not know what God does or what he is like.
So why pretend we do?” s

8. Background Issues
Genuine evil: An event is genuinely evil if, all things considered, it makes the world worse than it might have been.
We show by how we act and feel (our regret, guilt, moral outrage) we think some events are evil.
When we sin, we commit genuine evil.

9. Background Issues
Highly complex creatures express genuine but limited freedom. Less complex creatures express agency and/or self-organization. Simplest entities possess the power to exist.
We make better sense of reality if values – good and evil, right and wrong – are ultimately real and not entirely subjective.

10. Seven models for how Christians think about God’s activity…

11. Jesus’ kenosis reveals that God expresses self-giving, others-empowering love.
Essential kenosis says God necessarily ex-presses self-giving, others-empowering love. Love is logically first in God’s nature; God “cannot deny himself” (2 Tim 2:8).
Essential kenosis says that neither outside forces nor a free divine decision limits God’s power. God’s love governs God’s power.

12. Essential kenosis says…
- God necessarily gives freedom to all creatures complex enough to express it. These gifts are “irrevocable” (Rm. 11:29). God cannot withdraw, override, or fail to provide freedom to a perpetrator of evil.
- God necessarily gives agency and/or self-organization to simpler entities. These gifts are “irrevocable” (Rm. 11:29). God cannot withdraw, override, or fail to provide agency and/or self-organizing to simpler creatures or entities that cause evil.

13. Essential Kenosis says…
- God’s relentless and omnipresent love generates regularities and random events in nature. God cannot interrupt law-like regularities to prevent. And God cannot stop random events that cause evil.
- God is an omnipresent spirit (pneuma/ ruach) with no localized divine body. Although creatures sometimes use their bodies to prevent evil, God cannot prevent evil using a divine body.

14. The God of essential kenosis is not weak.
God is rightly called almighty, because God is…
the One mightier than all others,
the One who exerts might upon all existence,
the ultimate Source of might for all others.

15. Miracles are best defined as unusual and good events that involve God’s special action in relation to creation.
Miracles do not require interrupting the law-like regularities of existence nor interfering with processes arising from God’s love for all.

16. God acts specially in relationship with creation by responding and providing new possibilities for action. These possibilities are appropriate for the context, given each creature and each circumstance.
When doing miracles, God never singlehandedly controls but always acts in tandem with creation.

17. SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
God cannot stop evil single-handedly
God is affected by evil and suffers with us
God heals to the extent possible
God squeezes good from evil
God calls us to join with God’s work to overcome evil

18. In God, self-giving, others-empowering, uncontrolling love comes logically first.
God necessarily gives freedom, agency, and existence, which makes possible intentional action, chance events,
and law-like regularities in creation.
Because God’s love is self-giving, others-empowering, and uncontrolling,
God cannot prevent evil single-handedly.

19. The Uncontrolling Love of God
Leeds
Thomas Jay Oord