Making Sense of Hurricanes, Heart Attacks, Miracles, and More

How can a loving God allow evil and suffering?

Maybe you’ve wondered about this yourself. If so, maybe the book The Uncontrolling Love of God by theologian Thomas Jay Oord is for you. It starts with that question and offers a response that I find compelling.

Who is God?

Describe God. List God’s characteristics. Which is most important? Knowledge? Power? Love? Oord says love, based on the bible and experience. More than anything, God is love. Love is God’s primary characteristic.

So much so, God’s love limits God’s power and knowledge. For example, God cannot hate anyone. God cannot be indifferent about creation. God can only love. It’s not a choice. It’s who God is.

Because love is not controlling—not human love and not divine love—love gives freedom. In love, God gives people, creatures, and indeed all created things freedom, or agency, or self-organization—depending on their complexity. God never takes that away.

People. Animals. Rocks. Air and water molecules. Viruses. Blood clots. Cells within bodies. God never controls them because that is not who God is. It’s not a choice. God cannot deny God’s own self.  God must love and give freedom.

God is not to blame for what people and wind and blood clots do.

But what about miracles?

Aren’t miracles proof that God intervenes, overrides natural systems, and controls them? Oord says no.

“Go, your faith has made you well,” Jesus said after many healings. When it comes to miracles, God initiates and people, creatures, creation itself cooperate. Or they don’t, and potential miracles don’t happen, as when a village’s lack of faith prevented Jesus from healing and casting out demons.

Faith matters. So do the physical limits of human bodies. Don’t blame God or the victim. Faith is necessary but not sufficient.

God never “intervenes,” Oord says. Not because God is absent, but because God is always abundantly, actively, and lovingly present, God never needs to intervene. God is continually and necessarily sustaining creation, our lives, all things. Christ fills all in all. God never returns because God never left.

So God can’t stop a hurricane or a heart attack?

That’s what Thomas Jay Oord believes, based on the broad biblical witness and human experience. God can’t, because God is love.

God can’t stop a hurricane, a heart attack, or a crucifixion, and no one can stop a resurrection.

Thanks be to God. —PC