By Charles E. Stephan
Introduction
Thomas Jay Oord’s “Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology” is a Christian theology because it, like all other Christian theologies, affirms the following beliefs.
One, and only one, God exists.
God created the world.
The Bible is the inspired word of God.
The Bible reveals God as the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (three beings, one person).
The best information regarding God is provided by the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
The Bible provides the best information regarding Jesus.
Humans are created good and with free will but their free will makes it possible for them to make bad decisions.
The death and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for people to enjoy an eternal loving relationship with God despite the bad decisions they make.
The Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology is a unique and important Christian theology because it also affirms the following additional beliefs.
1. Love is God’s governing attribute.
The unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love” and so the primary message of Christianity is “God is love”. “God is love” means that love is God’s governing attribute, which means that all God’s thoughts, words, and deeds are expressions of his love.
2. God does not cause, enable, or condone sin, evil, pain, and suffering but God cannot prevent sin, evil, pain, and suffering.
God’s love motivates him to give freedom and free will to everything he creates, which makes sin, evil, pain, and suffering possible. God cannot prevent sin, evil, pain, and suffering because his love prevents him from controlling anything. (The addendum provides more information concerning evil.)
3. God’s love prevents him from sending people to eternal torment but not everybody responds positively to God’s love.
God gives people repeated chances, if necessary, to respond positively to his love, even after they die. People who do not respond positively to God’s love do not enjoy the benefits of an eternal loving relationship with God. God’s love is relentless but God’s love does not always win.
4. God loves all people all the time and inspires people to love other people and the world.
All people should have equal opportunity regardless of sex, race, color, nation of origin, religion, or age. LGBTQIA+ identities and same-sex marriages are acceptable, not sinful.
5. God helps scientists reach consensus scientific conclusions that provide reliable empirical knowledge regarding the world, such as the theory of evolution and the age of the earth.
God endowed people with the ability to obtain substantial empirical and nonempirical knowledge about the world. Science deals with empirical knowledge about the world but science cannot say anything regarding nonempirical knowledge about the world.
The second belief solves the problem of evil and the third belief solves the problem of hell. The third belief also solves the problem of the uninformed. Babies, cognitively impaired people, and natives isolated in jungles can enjoy an eternal loving relationship with God because they are given chances to respond positively to God’s love after they die. The fourth belief solves the problem of discrimination and the fifth belief solves the problem of science vs. Christianity.
The Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology also solves the problem of abortion because both pro-life and pro-choice people can embrace this theology. The Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology does not encourage people to be pro-choice and does not encourage people to be pro-life. The Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology is neutral with regard to abortion.
Thomas Jay Oord’s Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology is the Christian theology that makes the most sense of the natural world, the Bible, and human experience. It is biblical, understandable, coherent, plausible, and insightful. This essay presents both a comprehensive overview and a concise synopsis of this theology. This essay is based on various publications for which Thomas Jay Oord is the only or first author and various emails I received from him. Male pronouns are used because they are traditional. This essay is an update to a previous essay titled “The Primary Message of Christianity is “God is love”” that discusses various aspects of this theology and was posted on “c4ort.com/newsletter” on 5-13-24. Oord’s books titled “God Can’t” and “The Uncontrolling Love of God” are good sources of additional information.
This essay has been approved by Thomas Jay Oord.
Overview
The following is a jargon-free comprehensive overview of Thomas Jay Oord’s Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology.
- The existence of the world can be interpreted to be evidence for the existence of a forever God who exists for all eternity and therefore has no beginning and no end.
- The existence, history, and characteristics of humans and the rest of the world provide information regarding the forever God, whereas the Bible provides information regarding the Christian God. Taken together, this information can be interpreted to mean that the forever God is the Christian God.
- The best information regarding God is provided by the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible provides the best information regarding Jesus. God inspired, but did not control, the people who wrote and collated the Bible. The Bible contains important information but it also contains errors, metaphors, ambiguities, inconsistencies, and anthropomorphisms. Textual criticism, history, science, and human experience can be useful when interpreting the Bible.
- The Bible reveals God as the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (three beings, one person).
- The unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love”. John said God is love, Jesus said love is the greatest commandment, and Paul said the greatest virtue is love.
- To love is to act, by thought, word, and deed, in a way that (a) is intentional, (b) is uncontrolling, (c) relates an initiator to a recipient, and (d) promotes the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world.
- There are at least five kinds of love (agape is “in spite of” love, eros is “because of” love, philia is “friendship” love, ahavah is “affection” love, and hesed is “faithfulness” or “steadfast” love). Each kind of love promotes the overall well-being of God, humans, and the rest of the world. There are numerous ways of expressing love.
- God’s love is constant, creative, uncontrolling, compassionate, forgiving, unconditional, self-giving, relentless, inspiring, and comforting.
- God’s love motivates him to create so that he has something to love and so that there are creatures who can love him.
- God gave freedom and natural laws to his creation because he is uncontrolling. God’s gifts of freedom and natural laws mean that God can try to influence the ongoing development of the world but he cannot control it.
- Humans are created good and with free will because “God is good” and humans are created in the image of God. Humans have free will because God is uncontrolling and because only beings with free will can love. Creatures with free will can decide to love God but they can also decide not to love God, i.e., decide to sin. People sometimes use their free will to make bad decisions and not do what God wants them to do. Sin works against overall well-being whereas love works for overall well-being.
- The world that exists today is not the same as the world that was initially created by God because of decisions made by creaturely co-creators and because of God’s ongoing creating by such means as self-organization, emergence, and evolution.
- Nature, other religions, and science also provide information regarding God and his creation.
- God helps scientists reach consensus scientific conclusions that provide reliable empirical knowledge regarding the world. Christianity is compatible with consensus scientific conclusions regarding such things as the theory of evolution and the age of the earth. Science and the Bible work together to provide information regarding God and the world.
- God is not omnipotent because he cannot do things that are logically or physically impossible and he cannot do things that his love will not allow him to do.
- God is omnipresent because he is an immaterial spirit and therefore does not have a localized physical body and so he is present to all humans and all other creatures at all times.
- God is omniscient in the sense that he knows everything that can be known. God does not know the future because it has not occurred yet and therefore cannot be known. God acquires new knowledge as the future unfolds.
- The future is not predetermined and so God cannot have foreknowledge.
- People are not predestined, preordained, or elected.
- A variety of religions and versions of Christianity exist because God is uncontrolling.
- Religion should be separate from government because uncontrolling love would not use government to affect people’s religious views.
- God’s compassionate love prevents him from sending anyone to eternal torment.
- Jesus is the clearest demonstration that God’s love is forgiving, unconditional, and self-giving.
- The death and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for people to enjoy an eternal loving relationship with God despite the bad decisions they make.
- God gives people repeated chances, if necessary, to give a positive response to his love, even after they die, because he is relentless. Nevertheless, some people might never give a positive response to God’s love. People who do not respond positively to God’s love suffer the consequences of separation from God because they do not enjoy the benefits of an eternal loving relationship with God.
- God does not cause, enable, or condone sin, evil, pain, or suffering.
- God cannot prevent sin, evil, pain, and suffering because his love prevents him from controlling anything.
- God responds to people’s pain and suffering by trying to help them heal and flourish and by trying to bring good from bad.
- The primary message of Christianity is “God is love”. “God is love” means that love is the governing attribute of God, which means that all God’s thoughts, words, and deeds are expressions of his love. Love is God’s nature and essence.
- The primary message of Christianity has important implications that are the secondary messages of Christianity.
- People should have both a theology and a way of living that are based on love.
- All good works are the result of interactions involving God’s love, creaturely responses, and conducive conditions.
- God’s love inspires people to love God, love themselves and other people, love the rest of the world, and love doing good.
- God loves all people all the time and so (a) all people should have equal opportunity regardless of sex, race, color, nation of origin, religion, or age, (b) same-sex marriages are acceptable, not sinful, (c) LGBTQIA+ identities are acceptable, not sinful, and (d) people should be tolerant.
- Decisions people make, how people live their lives, and peoples’ pain and suffering are important because they affect God’s emotional state and how God expresses his love. They also affect other people and the rest of the world.
- People who respond positively to God’s love believe that he exists; believe that his governing attribute is love; live in loving relationship with him and other people; join with other people to worship, praise, and thank him; express compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness when dealing with other people; and work with other people to promote overall well-being (i.e., work for the common good) by taking care of themselves, other people, and the rest of the world.
Synopsis
The following is a jargon-free concise synopsis of Thomas Jay Oord’s Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology.
The world and the Bible provide evidence for and information regarding God.
The unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love” and so the primary message of Christianity is “God is love”.
“God is love” means that love is God’s governing attribute, which means that all God’s thoughts, words and deeds are expressions of his love.
God’s love motivated him to create the world and give it freedom and natural laws and give humans free will because only beings with free will can love.
Humans are created good but they can use their free will to make bad decisions.
The death and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for people to enjoy an eternal loving relationship with God despite the bad decisions they make.
“God is love” solves the problems of evil, hell, the uninformed, discrimination, abortion, and science vs. Christianity.
Addendum
A major feature of Oord’s Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology is the way it solves the problem of evil by explaining why God’s existence is compatible with the existence of sin, evil, pain, and suffering in the world. Oord’s explanation is based on his belief that “God is love” means that love is God’s governing attribute. Because God is love, he created our world to include (i) the freedom, natural laws, regularities, randomness, and other conditions that are necessary for life as we know it, and (ii) creatures for him to love and that can love him. In order for creatures to be able to love, they must have free will. However, creatures that have free will can decide to love God or decide not to love God, i.e., decide to sin. Those that decide not to love God can also decide to do evil. God’s love motivated him to give freedom to the world, which made natural evil possible, and to give free will to people, which made human-caused evil possible. Human love cannot exist without free will, but free will cannot make love possible without also making evil possible. God’s love does not allow him to withdraw or override the freedom, free will, and other conditions that he gave the world and its creatures. God’s love motivates him to promote overall well-being but it simultaneously limits him to uncontrolling actions. Even though God always does as much as his uncontrolling love allows him to do to promote the overall well-being of humans and the rest of the world, God’s love does not always win because the world has freedom and humans have free will.