{"id":6584,"date":"2023-07-07T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T17:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/"},"modified":"2023-11-02T11:42:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T18:42:15","slug":"6584","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/6584","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Ryan Patrick McLaughlin (1\/3)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When criticizing some of my ideas in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence<\/em>, my friend John Sanders mentioned the work of another friend, Ryan Patrick McLaughlin. It had been years since Ryan and I had communicated, so I appreciate John alerting me to Ryan\u2019s recent work.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ryan kindly responded with an email of 6 worries\/criticisms of my views. Most are variations of questions I’ve addressed in the new book or other writings. But because Ryan is not alone in raising them, I thought I\u2019d respond to him publicly. Perhaps doing so can help others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interest of space, I\u2019m addressing two of Ryan\u2019s worries here and others in future blogs\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> \u201cYour position on love seems to maintain that love is, for the most part, uncontrolling. (I say \u201cfor the most part\u201d because you acknowledge that some forms of bodily coercion may be loving, for example pulling a drowning child from a swimming pool). This is one reason why God\u2019s uncontrolling love mandates that God seek to create a world that has freedom-securing properties, including responsive qualities such as will and intellect.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“However, for all this emphasis on the importance of features like freedom for love, it is interesting to note that God is *not* free to love. If love requires freedom, in what way can we say that God truly loves, since God is coerced to love by God\u2019s own nature? (You say that God is free to choose *how* to love, but that doesn\u2019t honestly get us very far, since God would presumably always choose the most loving way to love, and if two ways were equally loving, God would have no reason to choose one over the other). This God seems more like an omnibenevolent computer program\u2014necessarily following a set code but disembodied so limited in its execution to see that code through. Maybe the God of Asimov?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tom: <\/strong>Before getting to Ryan\u2019s main point, let me clarify. I don\u2019t think God ever <\/em>controls, because God can’t <\/em>control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By \u201ccontrol,\u201d I mean God never acts as a sufficient cause and cannot, by nature, do so. I also don\u2019t think creatures ever control, however, in the sense of being sufficient causes. The bodily impact creatures do that an incorporeal God cannot do does not involve control in the sense of being a sufficient cause. (See my discussion of this in Questions and Answers for God Can\u2019t <\/em>and The Death of Omnipotence<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Ryan\u2019s main point, however, is that I say God must <\/em>love. God is not free not <\/em>to love. This is not an original claim to me; theologians like Jacob Arminius and John Wesley would say the same. Ryan notes I say God freely chooses how <\/em>to love, so freedom is not missing in divine love. To my knowledge, this is a novel theologian idea. But I suspect Arminius and Wesley would like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan worries that God choosing how <\/em>to love isn\u2019t real freedom. After all, says Ryan, God would always choose the most loving option. I\u2019ve argued in various places, however, that open and relational theology describes a view of reality in which God can\u2019t <\/em>know with certainty which of the billions of options is most loving. After all, God can\u2019t know the future; God can\u2019t know the future free choices; God can\u2019t know future random events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s true that a necessarily loving God would not choose options likely<\/em> to undermine well-being. And God can crunch probabilities like no other. But there\u2019s a wide range of loving options that could promote well-being, depending on future free choices, randomness, etc. So God freely chooses among those loving options. (See my discussion of this in Questions and Answers for God Can\u2019t <\/em>and Pluriform Love<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan is right that the God whose nature is love does not have the same freedom as a God who may or may not love. And Ryan\u2019s right that this will strike some people as odd. I suspect it strikes some this way for two reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, most theologians begin with omnipotence when thinking about God. And part of what it means to be omnipotent, many have said, is that God is free to do just about anything God wants to do. I strongly disagree with this, and I explain why in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Omnipotence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, it will strike many as odd that God must love, because we humans have the freedom whether <\/em>to love and how <\/em>to love. While my definition of love applies to Creator and creatures, I claim only God\u2019s nature is love. So only God must love. By the way, the idea God necessarily loves is a form of divine transcendence other theologies can\u2019t provide. Those who criticize my view and similar ones for overemphasizing immanence nearly always miss this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I ask people whether they think God would choose to stop loving us, almost everyone answers with, \u201cNo, it\u2019s God\u2019s nature to love us.\u201d Most people expect God to love necessarily, even if they say God could freely choose not to love. They\u2019re inconsistent. On this issue, check out this blog essay: \u201cWhy You Actually Believe God Must Love Us (even though you may say otherwise)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ryan: <\/strong>\u201cWe would all be better off if God\u2019s love were *not* uncontrolling love. You argue that *if* God had the power to stop genuine evil, then God *would* stop genuine evil. That means that, all other things being equal, a God who had a deep love\u2014but not an *uncontrolling* love\u2014or a God who was willing to coercively co-opt some random material for a body (or a God willing to coercively create a separate body for Godself so God could engage in loving bodily coercion) would be better for the world than the God of uncontrolling love, because that God would prevent genuine evil. And by definition, the absence of genuine evil is better for the world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In a real sense, then, we shouldn\u2019t *celebrate* that God\u2019s nature is uncontrolling love. We should *lament* it. It\u2019s a great tragedy because it means we\u2019re forced into a world that God was forced to create (by God\u2019s nature) that inevitably leads to tragedies like cancer. And the kicker is that it seems quite unreasonable to maintain that God will be able to redeem the infinite victims of this world through a decisive victory over evil. This, I think, is an unacknowledged cost of your theology. You present God\u2019s uncontrolling nature as something to be celebrated\u2014good news\u2014when it seems to me as quite the opposite to the many victims of that nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tom: <\/strong> Ryan raises several issues here, but I think two are primary. They also connect to other points I\u2019ll address in future blogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Should we celebrate God\u2019s love as uncontrolling? Yes, we should. Those who endure harm and evil often think God causes or allows them. They’re angry at God. But when they read my work and realize God always loves and never controls, they celebrate. Many are overjoyed that God didn\u2019t cause or allow their suffering. This is good news and worth celebrating!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It helps to distinguish between two issues. One is the plausibility of one model compared to others. The other issue is whether we should celebrate and praise God for doing what God does by necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the first issue, many readers join me in celebrating the God envisioned by this theological model. To our way of thinking, it better accounts for reality and suffering. We have reasons to celebrate God\u2019s nature as uncontrolling love. Praise God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The second issue pertains to whether we should celebrate the God who does some activities by necessity. For instance, if God necessarily exists, does it make sense to say, \u201cThank you, God, for existing?\u201d If God is necessarily present in all creation, does it make sense to celebrate and say, \u201cThank you, God, for being present with us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Creatures don\u2019t have attributes like necessary existence, necessary presence, or necessary love. So when we celebrate the birth of a baby, the presence of friends, or the love of others, we\u2019re celebrating contingent choices and factors. Things could have been otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A God who necessarily exists, is necessarily present, and necessarily loves doesn\u2019t choose to do those activities. This God can\u2019t do otherwise. For my part, I thank, praise, and celebrate this God. But I understand why doing so might feel strange to Ryan. It doesn\u2019t fit the contingent choices among creatures we often celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The second worry Ryan raises has to do with eschatology. He says my view makes it \u201cquite unreasonable to maintain that God will be able to redeem the infinite victims of this world through a decisive victory over evil.\u201d I\u2019ll bypass the claim about \u201cinfinite victims\u201d (which I think is hyperbole) and address what I think is Ryan\u2019s main point: Can a God of uncontrolling love redeem and win in the end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Yes. The God I affirm, whose love is always uncontrolling, can <\/em>win. But this God does so through persuasive love, not coercive control. I call my view \u201crelentless love.\u201d It says God never gives up inviting all to redemption in love, in this life and the next, and when creatures respond to these invitations, love wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan is right that my view doesn\u2019t have the eschatological guarantee that can only come through omnipotent control. An omnipotent God can force his own way, contrary to what 1 Corinthians says about love never forcing its own way. But my relentless love view has guarantees that omnipotent control cannot provide, such as the fact that God never gives up persuasively calling everyone. It’s guaranteed that God never forces anyone to heaven or condemns anyone to hell. And the relentless God never <\/em>gives up. Ever!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My view also answers the question of why a God who can omnipotently guarantee an ultimate win does not omnipotently stop evil now. I see this as a huge <\/em>advantage over the model that portrays God as omnipotent. It’s something I\u2019ve addressed in several books and essays, but see Questions and Answers for God Can\u2019t <\/em>and \u201cRelentless Love and the Afterlife.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When criticizing some of my ideas in The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence, my friend John Sanders mentioned the work of another friend, Ryan Patrick McLaughlin. It had been years since Ryan and I had communicated, so I appreciate John alerting me to Ryan\u2019s recent work. Ryan kindly responded with an email of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7296,7298],"yst_prominent_words":[1017,1070,5330,6733,6940,6941,6942],"class_list":["post-6584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open_and_relational_theology","tag-god-is-not-free","tag-necessary-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6584"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}