By Charles E. Stephan
(The following is intended to be a concise summary of the theology of Thomas Jay Oord. I wrote this to explain his understanding of Christianity because I think Oord’s understanding is very important, but it is spread out among several publications. This summary has been approved by Thomas Jay Oord.)
Thomas Jay Oord’s theology is a Christian theology that believes that Jesus’ life, teaching, death, and resurrection provide the best information regarding God and believes that the Bible provides the best information regarding Jesus. The Bible is the chief authority for Christian theology. Several Christian Bibles and several versions of some of those Bibles exist, but Oord’s theology believes that all Christian Bibles express the same primary message. The Bible is a collection of writings that have special meaning because God inspired them in a special way. The people who wrote and collated the Bible were influenced by God and by their assumptions, philosophies, worldviews, and languages, which were not the same for all the writers. The best interpreters of the Bible try to understand the assumptions, philosophies, worldviews, and languages of the various writers. Although the Bible was inspired by God, inconsistencies occur in the Bible and only blind faith can lead to the conclusion that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. It is sometimes difficult to separate literally factual material from errors, metaphors, and anthropomorphisms. Also, ambiguous text is difficult to deal with. No theology can be compatible with everything said in the Bible. When theologians say a concept is biblical, they mean that the concept is their interpretation of what one or more verses in the Bible are intended to say. Unfortunately, it is possible to find verses in the Bible that can be interpreted to support a variety of theological concepts that might or might not be compatible. The important biblical concepts are those that convey the primary message of the Bible as a whole.
Oord’s theology believes that the primary message of the Bible is “God is love.” “God is love” is also the unifying theme of the Bible. John said God is love, Jesus said love is the greatest command, and Paul said the greatest virtue is love. God’s most important attribute, everlasting essence, and unchanging nature is love. God is perfect in love. God’s love takes precedence over all his other attributes. Everything that God does is loving activity. God is sometimes angry and upset but he is always loving. Biblical passages that portray God as unloving are in error. These passages do not fit with the clearest revelation of God in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
The following definition of love is compatible with Oord’s theology.
To love is to act, by thought, word, or 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.
This definition is very inclusive without being vague because (i) it applies to both God’s love and human love, even though they differ in degree, duration, necessity, and scope, (ii) the various kinds of love and the numerous ways of expressing love all promote the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world, and (iii) “overall well-being” is a synonym for “the common good” and includes such things as physical, mental, cognitive, emotional, social, spiritual, economic, and ecological well-being. “Overall” also means that justice can have a role in love. For example, if doing good for one or a few hurts many, the justice aspect of love requires that the common good take precedence. If an action is accidental, it is not intentional. “Uncontrolling” means that love cannot cause the application of sufficient power to guarantee an outcome. God’s love does not allow him to apply enough power to control a situation and guarantee an outcome whereas humans do not have enough power to control a situation and guarantee an outcome. An act of love might or might not involve self-sacrifice. The initiator and the recipient are the same in self-love.
God’s love motivated him to create our world so there would be something for him to love and something to respond to his love. The world had to be created in an uncontrolling way and had to be created from something because creation from nothing would have made God responsible for evil because, if God could create a world from nothing, he could create a world in which evil could not exist. A possible scenario that is consistent with these two requirements says that God continuously creates worlds one after another. Each world is created from the chaos that is left from a previous world. God exists forever (i.e., for all eternity) and therefore has no beginning and no end. Because God’s everlasting essence is love, he has always been creating worlds. There was never a first moment of God’s creating because there was never a first moment in God’s existing. God was creating worlds before ours and God will continue to create worlds after ours. Only God and his love are everlasting; worlds come and go. God’s love motivates him to always be creating and always love whatever he creates, but God is free to decide what and how to create. God always creates out of what he created earlier, never from nothing. God can work in uncontrolling ways with inanimate forces, processes, objects, entities, systems, relationships, structures, matter, and conditions in order to help things self-organize and/or emerge. Each created world, either initially or later, contains creatures that God can love and that can love him.
Because of self-organization, emergence, and God’s uncontrolling influence, our world, including space and time, was created from the chaos that was left from a previous world. God existed before the Big Bang occurred and created something new at the Big Bang from things that God had created before the Big Bang. As God created and continues to create our world, it includes a variety of inanimate and animate things, a variety of simple and complex creatures, and the freedom, natural laws, regularities, randomness, and other conditions that are necessary for life as we know it to emerge and develop. God invites creatures to be co-creators with him in the ongoing development of our world. What our world is like at any time after its initial creation depends on God’s uncontrolling influence, the existing animate and inanimate things, self-organization, and emergence. Everything that God creates is intrinsically good. The created world proclaims that God exists and gives clues concerning him and his love.
God has unique limitations and unique abilities. His unique limitations include his having limited freedom because he cannot sin, he cannot change the past, he cannot do things that are logically or physically impossible, and he cannot do things that his uncontrolling love will not let him do. In addition, because he is a spirit and does not have a physical body, God’s interactions with the world cannot be physical. His unique abilities include his being everlasting and his knowing everything that can be known. Also, God is present in all places in the world at all times because he is a spirit and therefore does not have a localized physical body.
God and creatures can express at least five kinds of love: agape (“in spite of” love), eros (“because of” love), philia (“friendship” love), ahavah (“affection” love), and hesed (“faithfulness” or “steadfast” love), each of which promotes the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world. God’s power is the power of love and it is exerted through uncontrolling activities. God loves each human being, and everything else he created. The way that God expresses his love depends on what is appropriate in each individual situation. God’s love inspires people to love God, love all humans, love the rest of the world, and love doing good.
God’s love is self-giving. God gives gifts because love gives gifts. The most important demonstration of God’s self-giving love is Jesus. However, self-giving does not have to involve self-sacrifice. Self-giving also characterizes God’s giving up control of his creation when he gave it freedom and when he gave it natural laws. God’s love makes these gifts irrevocable and so God cannot withdraw or override them. 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. As the world developed and continues to develop, God is not responsible for diseases and such natural disasters as hurricanes. Also, predator-prey relationships develop as animals evolve. When God gave freedom to the world and allowed self-determination, he gave free will to all creatures complex enough to receive and express it, because only creatures with free will can love. Creatures with free will can decide to love and to cooperate with God or they can decide to not love and to not cooperate with God. God took a risk by giving free will to creatures because that made it possible for creatures to make bad decisions. God is not responsible for people’s bad decisions. Because the future depends, in part, on decisions made by people, humans are important creatures.
God’s love is uncontrolling. God’s love makes it impossible for him to control, force, dictate, compel, coerce, command, overwhelm, manipulate, override, or dominate anything to an extent that guarantees an outcome. Nevertheless, God can interact with and try to influence things to which he gave freedom because he can nurture, invite, recommend, enable, help, ask, support, coax, inform, suggest, nudge, offer, enlighten, empower, inspire, coordinate, advise, console, motivate, teach, guide, and encourage them. God can try to persuade as long as the persuasion is gentle and is not controlling. God can try to influence but he cannot control. Because God’s love prevents him from controlling anything he created, God’s inability to control is involuntary. Jesus provides the clearest picture of the uncontrolling love of God. Because God’s love is uncontrolling, God cannot control situations, events, forces, processes, people, and other things he created. God continuously promotes overall well-being and helps people thrive everywhere at all times by means of uncontrolling interaction with the world. Because God cannot control, people are empowered to act on the basis of decisions they make using their free will.
God’s love is relentless. Although creatures can choose not to love, God cannot choose not to love. God creates out of love and loves everything he creates at all times and in all places. Even when people make bad decisions, God loves them and encourages them to do good. God’s love extends to all people when they do good and when they do evil. God works at all times and in all places for the overall well-being of the world and thereby helps it flourish. God’s love prevents him from giving up on people who do not love him. If necessary, God gives people multiple chances to respond positively to his love, and even after people die, God continues to invite them to accept his love. God always makes maximal effort but there is no guarantee that he will be successful because his love is uncontrolling. Some people might never accept God’s love.
God’s love is compassionate. God’s love motivates him to invite everyone to have a personal loving relationship with him in this life and the next. Even though everlasting love is God’s essence, nature, and most important attribute, his emotional state changes because he is compassionate, forgives people, and is affected by human prayers, pain, and suffering. God suffers and empathizes with people and tries to console them and help them thrive. Also, the way God expresses his love changes, and God can repent, which in the Bible means that God changed his mind about something. God affects the world and the world affects God’s emotional state. Even though God’s essence does not change, his emotional state changes and the way he expresses his love changes in order to be appropriate for each particular situation.
Some people have physical and mental pain and suffering because of natural evil, which exists because of the way the world developed after it was initially created and includes such natural negative events as diseases and disasters. Other pain and suffering are the consequences of human-caused evil because some humans use their free will to decide to not love and not cooperate with God or to not love things that were created by God. Pain and suffering are not God’s fault because his uncontrolling love makes it impossible for him to control or override things he created and gave freedom to. God responds to people’s pain and suffering by trying to help them heal and flourish and by trying to bring good from bad.
All people are created good by God because “God is love” and people are created in God’s image. All people are also created with free will by God because “God is love”. Because God is love, humans are born good and with free will. Unfortunately, people sometimes use their free will to make bad choices and not do what God wants them to do. Even though people are born good, disobeying God can become a habit. Sin is the opposite of love, and so people sin when they do not believe in God and do not accept his invitation to love and to cooperate with him. People have free will and so they can choose to sin or choose not to sin. People sin because they desire the wrong things too much. Sin makes the world worse than it might have been because sin impairs the well-being of sinners and the well-being of their relationships with God, other humans, and the rest of the world. Sin works against overall well-being whereas love promotes overall well-being.
In spite of disobedience and sin, God loves all people and wants them to love him. God tries to help people resist sin because people suffer when they do not love him. Separation from God has natural negative consequences, which are forms of punishment, because the sinner does not enjoy the benefits of a loving personal relationship with God. God encourages sinners to be sorry and to change their ways so they do good and do not do bad. God forgives sinners who sincerely ask for forgiveness. God does not cause, enable, or condone pain, suffering, evil, and sin. Despite pain, suffering, evil, and sin, the world remains intrinsically good because of God’s love.
Although God’s love motivates him to promote overall well-being, three things make this work difficult: (a) some creatures use their free will to make bad decisions and so they oppose or resist God’s desires, (b) God’s love prevents him from controlling or overriding anything he created, and (c) God is a spirit and therefore does not have a physical body that can do physical things so God invites creatures to do physical tasks that he wants done. For these three reasons, there are many things that God cannot do unilaterally but can try to do with the help of things he created. God cannot accomplish such things as successfully dealing with evil without human help and humans cannot accomplish such things as successfully dealing with evil without God’s help. Because there are things that God cannot do singlehandedly, God needs cooperation from the world and so he works through such people as health-care providers. God needs creaturely cooperation and favorable conditions in order for love to win. All good works involve God and the world working together.
God’s love sometimes motivates him to initiate miraculous uncontrolling actions, but God cannot cause miracles without cooperation from the world. A miracle is a surprising or unexpected beneficial event that affects a creature, object, or situation in order to promote overall well-being and occurs, if conditions in the world are favorable, because of a special initiating and uncontrolling action of God. The special action of God might be an invitation or it might be a suggestion of a novel possibility or opportunity or it might be a suggestion of a new structure or form of existence. Miracles involving such living things as creatures, organs, and cells occur only if they respond in a positive manner. When miracles involve only inanimate forces, processes, objects, entities, systems, relationships, structures, matter, or conditions, God can interact with, but not control, such natural means of change as emerging, developing, evolving, self-organizing, shifting of the earth, blowing of wind, and flowing of water. Miracles require both a special action by God and cooperation from the world. Some miracles are devices for teaching.
The primary message and unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love”. God loves all people and he wants each person to respond positively to his gracious acts and forgiving love. People who respond positively try to love God, themselves, family, friends, outsiders, strangers, enemies, other creatures, and the rest of the world. They express their love of God and promote his well-being by joining with others to study the Bible, follow Jesus’ teaching, confess their sins, thank God and people who help him, and praise and worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. People also express their love of God by cooperating with him to try to prevent and overcome pain, suffering, evil, and sin. In addition, they try to cooperate with him and others to promote the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world. Overall well-being can be promoted by doing such things as being kind and accepting, by making friends, by listening to people who need companionship, and by helping the poor. Further, people promote the common good by helping people do such things as solving problems, recovering from sickness, and learning to be optimistic because they appreciate God’s love. The well-being of inanimate things can be promoted by preserving them. People who respond positively to God’s love enjoy the benefits of a life of joy and gratitude, a loving personal fellowship with God, and a life whose purpose is to promote overall well-being.
Appendix
Most of this summary is based on the publications listed below; these are publications for which Thomas Jay Oord is the only or first author. In addition, this summary takes into account numerous very helpful emails I received from Oord.
Philosophy of Religion: Introductory Essays (two essays). 2003
Science of Love. 2004
Relational Holiness. 2005
Defining Love. 2010
The Nature of Love: a theology. 2010
The Best News You Will Ever Hear. 2011
The Uncontrolling Love of God. 2015
God and the Problem of Evil (two chapters). 2017
Divine Impassibility (one chapter). 2019
God Can’t. 2019
God Can’t Q&A. 2020
Methodist Christology (one chapter). 2020
Love, Divine and Human (one chapter). 2020/2021
Open and Relational Theology. 2021
Pluriform Love. 2022
The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence. 2023
God After Deconstruction. 2024
The theology described in these publications is called the “Primacy-of-Love Christian Theology”. The phrase “primacy of love” occurs on page 67 in “Science of Love”, on pages v, 1, and 138 in “The Nature of Love”, on page 160 in “The Uncontrolling Love of God”, and on pages 1 and 24 in “Pluriform Love”.
This theology says that God’s love is the most important, logically prior, foremost, supreme, preeminent, reigning, chief, conceptually first, and governing attribute of God.
This theology says that God’s love is more important than God’s simplicity or God’s sovereignty, and so this theology is not compatible with the classical (aka traditional) Christian theology described by Gerald Bray in his 2021 book titled “The Attributes of God: An Introduction” and by James E. Dolezal in his 2017 book titled “All That is in God”.
This theology says that people can accept both the primary message of the Bible and information provided by science. For example, this theology is compatible with such scientific theories as the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution.
This theology says that the world that exists today is not the same as the world that was initially created by God because of choices made by creaturely co-creators and because of God’s ongoing creating by such means as self-organization, emergence, and evolution.
This theology has been inaccurately characterized as possibly unbiblical and/or unChristian by William Lane Craig on page 145 in the 2012 book titled “God and the Problem of Evil”, by Kevin J. Vanhoozer on page 13 in the 2020/2021 book titled “Love, Divine and Human”, and by Brian J. Orr on page 184 in his 2022 book titled “A Classical Response to Relational Theism”.
This theology is understandable and leaves very little to mystery and speculation. Because humans cannot comprehend God fully, all theologies involve some mystery and speculation, but the mystery and speculation should be limited and reasonable.
This theology is plausible, satisfying, and internally consistent.
This theology says that the Bible reveals God as the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit (i.e., three persons, one being).
This theology uses male pronouns for God because it is traditional.
This theology says that there is one definition of love, at least five kinds of love, and numerous ways of expressing love.
This theology says that God’s love is self-giving, uncontrolling, relentless, and compassionate.
This theology says that all good works are the result of interactions involving God’s love, creaturely responses, and conducive conditions.
This theology says that 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.
This theology says that context determines whether an action is good or bad.
This theology says that people are not predestined and are not elected.
This theology says that the future is not predetermined and so God cannot have foreknowledge.
This theology says that God is omniscient in the sense that he knows everything that is knowable. 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.
This theology says that 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 let him do.
This theology says that God is omnipresent because he is a 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.
This theology says that, if the question is “What’s love got to do with it?”, the answer is “Everything.”
Conclusion
The Primacy-of-love Christian theology is based on the writings of Thomas Jay Oord. It is an appealing theology because it makes sense of the Bible (and such other sources of relevant information as textual criticism, history, and human experience), the human condition, and the rest of the world we live in. The Primacy-of-love Christian theology acceptably explains more than any other theology. This theology says that (i) Jesus’ life, teaching, death, and resurrection provide the best information regarding God, (ii) the primary message of Christianity is “God is love” and (iii) all other aspects of Christian theology should be implications of the primary message. The implications of the primary message are the secondary messages of Christianity. The most important implications of “God is love” are:
God inspired, but did not control, the people who wrote and collated the Bible. The Bible contains an important message but it also contains errors, metaphors, ambiguities, inconsistencies, and anthropomorphisms.
Jesus is the clearest demonstration that God’s love is self-giving.
God does not cause and cannot prevent evil or sin because God’s love is uncontrolling.
God will not send anyone to eternal torment because God’s love is compassionate.
God’s love will give people repeated chances, if necessary, to respond positively to his love, even after they die, because God’s love is relentless.
People’s thoughts, words, and deeds should be inspired by God’s love.
God loves all people 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, and (c) LGBTQIA+ identities are acceptable, not sinful.
The Bible does not disagree with science, because science and the Bible work together to provide information concerning God and the world.
People should respond positively to God’s love by praising and thanking him and promoting the common good, i.e., promoting the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world.
Religion should be separate from government because uncontrolling love would not use government to force religious views on people.
God gave freedom and natural laws to his creation because his love is uncontrolling.
A variety of religions exist because God’s love is uncontrolling.
The created world proclaims that God exists and gives clues concerning him and his love.
The goal of the Primacy-of-love Christian theology is to encourage people to believe that the primary message of Christianity is “God is love” and to adopt the implications of this message.