Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Thomas 0:00
Yeah, if you picked out, randomly, 100 theologians out of a mass of professional theologians, and let's say Christian theologians, and you asked them, did God initially create the universe out of absolutely nothing? At least 90% would say “Yes”. I would say no.
The idea that God created the universe initially out of nothing is not in the Bible. In fact, in the early verses of Genesis, it talks about the Spirit
hovering over the face of the deep.
There's something there at the very beginning. But in the history of Christianity, along about the third or fourth century, the idea that God created out of nothing became really popular. It was actually invented by a couple of Gnostics who believed that the world was inherently evil, and a good God wouldn't want to have his fingers messed up in this evil stuff. But many Christians picked up on it because it seemed, to them, to portray a God with more power. I mean it sounds intuitively like a God who can create something out of nothing is more powerful than a God who has to use stuff to create things. But the problem that I point out with this view is that it makes giving a good answer to the problem of evil, I think, impossible.
Seth Price 1:41
Hey, there, everybody. How are you doing? Welcome to November. The year is almost over. We're doing it people. It's almost done. Thank the Lord. Ahhhh, I'm so glad that you're here. quick announcement, because I realized I forgot to say this anywhere. So throughout the month of October, I was raising money for Black Lives Matter. So I ended up spending about $266 in support of Black Lives Matter. And that is all from you. Well, to be clear, I pitched in a little bit of my own money as well. But that is from people that went and they bought anything throughout the month of October at the store for the show where you can get any merchandise that you want. The current best seller has been the beanies as well as the shirt based on Amos as it relates to justice and compassion. Thank you so much every single one of you for your support in that it was an honor to do that. This week, I brought back a guest to be a returning guest. So Thomas J. Oord was on the show a long time ago, like almost a year and a half, two years ago, brought him back he wrote a book called God Can’t. And that book has been powerful for a lot of people. And it's the idea and the concepts of process theology. Where God is not “marionetting”, I think that's the word the entire universe in a way that he is controlling outcomes. He just can't, because that's not what love does. And he got some pushback and a lot of questions about that book. And so he wrote a follow up book that honestly I think is longer than the first book as he runs through some of those questions. You know, what do we do with prayer? How do we handle miracles? What's the whole freakin point? So brought him back on and we had a good discussion about it. I think that you will enjoy it. Here we go.
Seth Price 3:44
Dr. Thomas J. Oord
Thomas 3:47
You can just call me Tom.
Seth Price 3:48
I know but it feels good to say it once and get it out of the way. (laughter) I see your name bandied about so much online and everywhere else. I feel like we need to put the doctor in there just so you know. People know we're serious. And then we can jump into it. So how have you been man? (laughter from both
Thomas 4:07
Well, not too bad considering the pandemic but trying to get out and do some hiking despite the smoke that's in the air here in Idaho.
Seth Price 4:16
Yeah, your pictures are amazing.
Thomas 4:20
Oh, thank you.
Seth Price 4:22
Oh, yeah. I'm annoyed. Amazing. So your pictures and then a friend of mine. I've no idea if he listens to the show. A friend from when we lived in Lynchburg. He's a wedding photographer, but he also takes just, you know, I pulled over on the side of the road because this looks like it would be a good picture and you're like, man, why are you so talented? This is annoying. Just just annoying the way I am with my pun game. I felt like he is and you are with the pictures. So are you able to still get out with all of the smoke and everything else and or is there nothing to really take pictures of besides landscapes?
Thomas 4:57
Well, yeah, there's not a lot of photo ops right now. Sunday afternoon, I hiked up to a lookout on the Oregon-Idaho border and my legs are feeling it today. But, you know, there's nothing for the lookout to see except just smoke that maybe you might be able to see a quarter mile maybe a half mile. But yeah, it's not much good in terms of landscape photography.
Seth Price 5:19
Yeah, for those listening, I'll put a link in the show notes. Do you put them somewhere a repository that I could point people to?
Thomas 5:27
well, actually, yeah, you can go to my website, and there's a link to a few of them, maybe 100 of them on my website. So yeah, ThomasJOord.com.
Seth Price 5:37
Perfect. We normally do this at the end. But anyway, I didn't intend to go there. But what else has been new? So your since the last time I talked to you…you're like the director of something for open theology, or I'm saying that wrong, like, what has been keeping you busy as it gets onto that front there?
Thomas 5:55
Yeah, we were saying earlier, it's been a couple of years. So in the last couple of years, I now work at Northwind Theological Seminary and direct doctoral students in open and relational theology. It's a fully online seminary, based in Florida, and I live in Idaho. So everything's online, which I really enjoy. So that's happened.
Another book came out a follow up book to God Can't called Questions and Answers for God Can't. And last summer, I started the Center for Open and Relational Theology, of which I'm a director, and there are over 100 people involved. And if you want to go to a website and check that out the web, it will just type in Center for Open and Telational Theology.
Seth Price 6:41
I want to get to the q&a. Honestly, when I got the q&a, Thomas, I was like, I'm have read the other book, I felt pretty good with it. And then as I read through, I was like, actually, I don't have a lot of these questions. However, I hear a lot of these questions. But before I get there, what do you mean open theology like, relational I kind of understand, unless you're using that word in a different context? What do you mean open theology?
Thomas 7:07
Yeah, well, open theology is a word that's typically used for the idea that God actually experiences time, moment by moment, like we do. And therefore the future is truly open to God. God not only doesn't predetermine things, but also God can't, for no with absolute certainty, everything that's going to happen, because such knowledge is available to nobody, because it's not yet happened.
Seth Price 7:35
Hmmm. So like open theism.
Thomas 7:37
Yeah, that's open theism.
Seth Price 7:40Yeah, the last time I tried to tackle that topic I had Greg Boyd on and it was like eight episodes deep into this. And I was not prepared. And his is one, I tell often, when people are like, well, when was the most times or one of the times that you were most embarrassed on the show? And I didn't edit it out, because I tried to be as authentic as possible. But he's talking to me, and I didn't record the videos then. And he's like, “Seth, stay with me. I can see juice dripping from your ear. Stay with me”. (Laughing)
And he's still not like I did. I did the transcript for that one not long ago. And I was like, God, it still doesn't make much sense to me. I should probably try to tackle it. But that is not why I brought you here today, though. Maybe I bring you back for that. Maybe I'll get you and Greg to do that. And then I could feel entirely ignorant that for the entire time. Is that actually I do want more question on that. So is that a thing that the the church is pivoting back towards that view? Or is it more of a new thing? where you're like, yeah, we're building some larger foundations like what do you feel as the director for that for kind of the future?
Thomas 8:45
I feel like there's lots of people who are interested and endorse it, it's probably something this, you can find a few people here and there in Christian history who've endorsed something like it, but it's full bodied form is really something that's emerged in the last 30 years or so. And there's lots of interest not only amongst the sort of the average person but scholarly books are being written. You know, it's it's a real major player now.
Seth Price 9:16
And this is again, another ignorant question. Do you feel like that's because of our further and further and deeper understanding of kind of quantum mechanics and the way the universe works? Or is it more of a religious thing?
Thomas 9:27
You know, the motives for people to come to open theology vary pretty widely. And a book I wrote in 2015, called The Uncontrollable Love of God. I've pointed out sort of four major strands. Some people come to it, by the way (that) they read the Bible in which there's lots of passages of God changing his mind repenting. Some people come to open theology kind of through theological questions about free will. Others come from philosophy and questions about God in relation to time. And to your point, there's a significant number of scientists who believe in God who think that believing or endorsing an open theology view is really the best way to reconcile the best of contemporary science and theology.
Seth Price 10:18
Yeah, I'm about to dig into this more and more. So let's pivot to the actual thing that I'm prepared for, as opposed to this nine minute riff of ignorance. But those are my favorite parts of the show. So you wrote a follow up, or compiled a follow up , to God Can't, which for those listening is the last thing I had you on for you can go back in the archives, I have no idea what episode it is. I do remember when I did the transcription, having a lot of links to some of the other things that you said as it linked out to the internet. So why did you need to write a follow up to God Can’t like the q&a? What's its purpose? Why did it come to be?
Thomas 10:59
Yeah, well, I was playing defense and offense. So the idea of God Can't is that God's love is inherently uncontrollable, which means God can't control anyone or anything. And this has lots of implications. But the one that I focused on in that book God Can't, is the problem of suffering and evil. If God can't single handedly Stop it, then we don't have the kind of questions we usually have of why a powerful and loving God doesn't prevent evil. Now, when that came out, people were asking me really good questions about the implications of that view, like, you know, well, if God can't single handedly stop evil, then can I really pray and ask God to do something and think that God's gonna fix it? Or what does this mean about the afterlife? And so I was kind of, in this book. playing defense in the sense of saying, you know, you can still believe in prayer, you can still believe in miracles and the afterlife, and also believe in the Uncontrolling Love of God view. Yeah, the offense side was to say, not only can you believe in prayer, and petitionary, prayer, etc. Also, this is actually a better way to think about prayer, miracles, God's action, and all that sort of stuff. So it's not just sort of, yeah, it's okay for you to continue to believe x, it's actually warranted and you're justified, it's more plausible to believe in it, if you think God is inherently uncontrolling.
Seth Price 12:35
Yeah. So if it's alright with you. So there's eight chapters, which I assume are the eight largest questions that that people sent in to you. I'll be real clear, I didn't read the little intro. Because I feel like that often gives away some of the stuff in the book. And I would just rather read the book. And in yours, I tended to jump around. I didn't read it from A to B, because it was not a book like with a central thesis, it's just answering questions. So I wanted to tackle a few of the topics and a few of the chapters specifically, and maybe if it works, quote some of your book back to you, and kind of have you rip those apart. Because I don't remember exactly what we spoke about in the prior episode. But I do remember a lot about theodicy, and pain and suffering, cancer, specifically. As it relates to what my wife does for a living. And, yeah, on miracles, which you brought up just a minute ago, I'm gonna read this to you. So you say
my beliefs about miracles had undergone change. But I'd done no academic research on the subjects.
And that as you wrote the chapter in God, can't you had questions of your own? Can you kind of break apart a bit kind of some of your belief of miracles, some of that research and how it impacted? And then how that relates to people saying, and I would also agree, you know, if God can't do something, How do I explain this miracle, or that miracle? And people have amazing stories and I have no idea how to fact check or vet those stories? I don't even know if that's the point.
Thomas 13:58
Yeah, miracles are important. Because, on the one hand, if you say you don't believe in miracles then you've got to give some kind of answer to really weird, wild, and good things that occur. And folks, you know, claim to have seen miracles a lot of different times and places. I mean, just even setting aside what the scripture says about it. So if you reject miracles, you've got a lot of explaining to do. If you accept miracles, you got even more explaining to do! Because then the question is, why aren't there a whole lot more miracles? Why don't miracles happen more often to help us, to rescue us, to give us new insights. It seems like if God can do miracles sometimes and God has the power to do it single handedly, a loving God would do a whole lot more miracles.
And so what I tried to do in this chapter is to say, you know, we really can affirm miracles if we believe God acts and creatures respond or the conditions of creation are aligned. This means that miracles are never—and I repeat, never—actions in which God's single handedly determines outcomes. They're always actions that involve some kind of creaturely contribution, whether it's intentional or amongst inanimate objects. And what I think is the offense or the the good news about this, is we don't have to blame God for not doing more miracles when we think they should happen. But we can give God credit as the source of miracles when they do happen, but also acknowledge there was some kind of creaturely contribution.
Seth Price 15:45
Hmmm. And so that creaturely part is the part that I struggled with, not when I read your original book, but this one. So there's a partner, you talked about laws, agents, and inanimate objects. And the concept of inanimate objects, organisms, or the concept of an amoeba that appears to have no conscience? Or maybe the plant above me being a part of a miracle still makes no sense to me, at all, like how that has anything to do with anything at all?
Thomas 16:15
Yeah, so I think miracles at that kind of level of complexity are far less common. I mean, you look at the Bible, and the vast majority of Jesus miracles involve agents of some kind. Whether or not they are cells, we're talking about agency in our bodies, or, you know, if you believe in demonic beings or that kind of thing. It's more difficult, however, to think about how, you used the word amoeba, for me, I think amoeba respond to their environments. So I that's not a hard one. For me. It's harder for me to think of like dirt or rocks. Like, I don't think they're responsive. Actually, before I say dirt or rocks, let me say about the Amoeba. Just because I think the Amoeba responds to its environment doesn't mean that I think it's conscious. So that's an important point here.
I think there's responsiveness amongst very simple entities of reality. But I don't think they're sitting around thinking about it. Like, “how should I respond here?” it's very, almost automatic. And really, when you think about, you've mentioned your wife, what's the line of work she's in again?
Seth Price 17:25
She's a pediatric oncology nurse hematology, that's anything related to that.
Thomas 17:32
When you listen to physicians, talk about, you know, their subjects and people. They often talks about body's responding, cells responding, viruses responding, immunities kinds of things. There's, there's a lot of dynamic language about what's going on in the body. And I'm affirming that and saying, why don't we think about that, in terms of God acting as well? Not that, you know, cells have robust freedom like you and I have, but they have some kind of responsiveness that's going to be different from water and rocks, which I think are inanimate, but that's another topic.
Seth Price 18:09
Hmm…
Well you reference dirt and rocks earlier? How does that relate? And also, I've kind of got issues with your definition of consciousness, because like the thermostat above me that's controlling the environment that I'm sitting in, which must be similar to yours. I mean, consciousness is, I believe, unless I'm wrong, like scientifically, is just a programmed environment that responds to its environment in a predictable way. Whether or not we like the way, you know, so that my thermostat is “conscience” in that mentality that has nothing to do with dirt. (laughter from Thomas) But when I said that, I was like, I mean, my thermostat is equally as conscious as an amoeba would be, however, dirt and rocks rip that apart from me a bit.
Thomas 18:54
Yeah. So in the book, I talk a little bit about a position in philosophy, known as Panpsychism. And it's the idea that even the smallest units of reality have some kind of responsiveness. But I don't make the claim that dirt and rocks have responsiveness. And the difference between let's say, an amoeba responding, and pebble risk, not being able to respond is the way a pebble is constructed. So it's kind of a technical word in philosophy sciences, an amoeba is an aggregate. And aggregates don't have a centralized organizing individual, whereas I believe minds are organizing individual. I think dogs have minds. I think even an amoeba they probably don't have minds, but there's some sort of organizing center that enables it to respond as a whole.
So what that means for miracles is that it's easy for my scheme to account for miracles involving agents of some kind because I can say, look, they cooperated with God. But when it comes to like parting the Red Sea or Jesus walking on the water, that's a little harder because I don't think water makes, you know, choices to respond to God or not. But I do think we can talk about divine action at the quantum level, we can bring in theories or suppositions from chaos theory, and those kinds of things to help make sense of those kinds of ideas.
Seth Price 20:29
Yeah, I don't want to stay on one topic, I literally could continue. So back, like towards the back end. So you’ve got a chapter called If God's Creating the Universe Why Can't God Stop Evil? And in the middle of that chapter, so about page 126, you talk about creatio ex nihilo. And I'm not sure if I'm saying that right? Because I don't know Latin.
And for those that aren't listening, that's just basically like, you know, from nothing comes something right? I'm saying that correctly or maybe I'm getting backwards. And so you talk a little bit about the significance of that in Christian theology and in Christian history, in the early Christian thought, you know, Philo, and a bunch of people, but then you go on to talk about a new theory of what you call initial creation. And you call your initial creation…crealito…x…
Nope, not gonna say it right. I'll let you say, I don't know how to say those words,
Thomas 21:21
The English is the creation out of creation, everlastingly in love.
Seth Price 21:25
Yeah. So first off, what is that if you could maybe rip apart both of those and kind of interplay them together? And then what does that have to do with God stopping evil?
Thomas 21:35
Yeah, if you picked out randomly 100 theologians out of a mass of professional theologians, and let's say Christian theologians, and you asked them, did God initially create the universe out of absolute nothing? At least 90% would say, “Yes”, (but) I would say no. The idea that God created the universe, initially, out of nothing is not in the Bible. In fact, in the early verses of Genesis, it talks about the Spirit “hovering over the face of the deep”. There's something there at the very beginning.
But in the history of Christianity, along about the third or fourth century, the idea that God created out of nothing became really popular, it was actually invented by a couple of Gnostics, who believed that the world was inherently evil and a good God wouldn't want to have his fingers messed up and this evil stuff. But many Christians picked up on it, because it seemed to them to portray a God with more power. I mean it sounds intuitively like a God who can create something out of nothing is more powerful than a God who has to use stuff to create things.
But the problem that I point out with this view is that it makes it giving a good answer to the problem of evil I think impossible. Because if God can create something out of nothing, then God would be able to do that assumingly in the present. God should be able to instantaneously create a steel wall to block bullets, or whatever. My proposal, which I think here is the first time it's, maybe…no, no, I published it another place of well, but anyway, it's still relatively unknown. It's the idea that God has always been creating our world is only a world in a chain, our universe is only in a chain of universes. And God has always been creating out of that which God previously created. And this creative process is everlasting. It's a really big new idea but I think it's important for helping us to answer the problem of evil.
Seth Price 23:51
So that's my question. So why? Why is this creation, all this continuous creation, an answer for the problem of evil? Because if anything, I think people would say, well, evil exists and so maybe God created it. And the fact that he continues to create maybe means that's why we still have evil. At least that's the cynical part of my mind is like yes of course we still have evil because he still sucks at creating, we're really doing it guys.
Thomas 24:16
Yeah, that's exactly the right way to think I think if you believe in God can create something out of nothing. But if you're like me, and you think God has always been creating out of that which God previously created, that means that God always works out of what's already the case. God can't instantaneously shift things one way or another because there are other creative agents and processes alongside of God.
So that means God, in my view, didn't create evil. First of all, I don't think evil is a thing. The possibility for evil is built into the very fabric of creation because creation always has some kind of creative interplay or process or response to God, and creation at whatever levels of complexity can sometimes choose to do other than what God wants.
Seth Price 25:11
Hmm.
Can I go back to what you said three sentences ago? You said, evil isn't a thing?
Thomas 25:16
Yeah, I don't think evil is a thing.
Seth Price 25:18
Tell me more.
Thomas 25:20
So um, maybe it's kind of obvious when I put it this way. You don't open up your drawer and find evil sitting there. You don't look up in the sky and see evil flying by. It's not an actual thing. What I think evil is, is a quality that describes some events in the world. I think a genuine evil is an event that all things considered makes the world worse than it might have been. So it's the quality of any event that makes it good or evil.
Seth Price 25:48
Yeah. So if miracles are things where you, I, may be me, the doctor, the organisms, the rocks, the whatever, all are conspiring, I'll use a word from Mark Karris, for things to kind of come together in shalom would evil then be me choosing instead to break things? Or making it a choice so selfish that it does break things for my gain. Well, what I think is gain.
Thomas 26:14
That's one instance of evil, I think there's natural evil. So I believe in random chance events that can make the world worse. So it wouldn't just be free will choices that are negative it could also be other events as well.
Seth Price 26:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let me go. So this is a big one that I have gotten even this week, and I've been extremely, not extremely I've been a little more devil's advocate then I want to let on here, Tom, just because not everyone is read either of the books. So I'll back up a bit.
So what my view is on the kingdom of God and possibly Hell, I think don't line up with most Christians. And so because of that, the way that I pray, and the way that I view sin, and evil, and hell, and pain are a little bit different. But in here, there are a lot of questions about so, and you talked about it a bit at the beginning on why do we pray? So is prayer for me have any point at all? Or is it just like a placating pacification to make me emotionally ready to do something else? Like, what is the purpose of prayer if God can't do anything, and I have to act as the agent?
Thomas 27:25
Yeah. So I don't say God can't do anything. My phrase is God can't bring about results single handedly.
Seth Price 27:35
Okay.
Thomas 27:37
So, here, I'm assuming we're talking about petitionary prayer. But there's obviously lots of forms. So my view is that our prayer has a real influence on God. I'm a relational theologian, as we mentioned earlier, so I think God is affected by our actions. I also think that we live in an interrelated universe. So our actions not only affect God, who is divine, but also creatures in the world. It also affects our own bodies.
Now, I think all those actions don't control others don't control our even our own bodies or God. But, moment by moment, they change the world in such a way that new possibilities, new opportunities, new avenues for action, might emerge because we prayed in one moment. So prayer, yes, can have benefits for ourselves. But I think it has benefits beyond ourselves. Because a God of love works with whatever is happening in the world to try to bring good.
Seth Price 28:39
Yeah. So you have a Facebook, I think it's a Facebook group, like an Uncontrolling God Can’t kind of Facebook group. I spent some time in there over the last year looking at some of the questions that other people have asked. And there's a chapter in here, that (it is) chapter five on Jesus that I didn't see a lot of people asking (about). And so I'm curious if that's just you, like, hey, this should have been in the first book, we really need to talk about Jesus. Or if maybe there's a bunch of people that just really didn't want to put that out on the internet. And so instead, they just called you or email you privately, like, how does Jesus fit in? And I'm just going to use your wording here.
How does Jesus fit into a theology of um, controlling love?
Like, I'm glad that chapters there, but I didn't see a lot of people asking it.
Thomas 29:22
No. No, they don't. And when I speak at public events and conferences, very few people ask me about Jesus. I think, because most people assume Jesus is an example of love. But I wanted to put this in the book because I think I can make really strong claims about Jesus expressing uncontrolling love, even on those kinds of events that people are going to wonder about, like, what most people call the virgin birth, or Jesus's miracles or the resurrection of Jesus. In that particular chapter, I point out that we don't have to believe that God single hand handedly controlled, maMaryry, or any of the people healed, or even Jesus in the resurrection to believe that those miracles actually happened? And God acted and creatures responded.
Seth Price 30:13
So Christologically then how do I wrap that up? So there's a pastor listening, and they're like, yeah, I really need to begin to maybe incorporate some of this into messages on Sunday, or Saturday, really doesn't matter; or whatever day your zoom church happens to meet, because that's the world that we live in.
Christologically, how would one begin to prepare a congregation to hear something with a framework of canonic love? Because it's not the way traditionally that Jesus has been approached or talked about.
Thomas 30:44
Yeah, what I would do is begin with all of the passages that talk about Jesus responding to God's call in his life. It's what scholars call the Spirit Christology. That is, what makes Jesus so unique and is at the source of why we call him divine is that he responds perfectly to God's action in the world and in his life, the Holy Spirit, we might say. Jesus was not omniscient. He wasn't omnipresent. He wasn't omnipotent in either the classical sense or even the sense that I would want to use that word. All of those key divine attributes don't fit Jesus.
But there is one that I think does and that is Jesus seemed to love perfectly. And so if I was talking about Jesus to my congregation, I would want to talk about how this particular individual (is whom) we need to imitate because Jesus responds perfectly to God's call in his life, moment by moment.
Seth Price 31:47
The first question in that line of question I asked was about miracles. And so the reason I wanted to pivot to Jesus is I wanted to book end those two together a bit. Either Jesus just really bats. I'm not good at baseball. I don't know if you're supposed to bat 1000. Or if you're supposed to bat 0001, whatever is the good number, like swing and connects…
Thomas 32:07
A thousand!
Seth Price 32:08
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. He's crushing the ball every time he's up at the plate. So either he is more accurately reading the scenes and able to make things work together towards like, for miracles, or I'm misunderstanding something. So why can one person's ability to enact miracles be so much, vastly…exponentially larger? And then even even afterwards you have the apostles, and so there's just a huge disconnect there for me.
Thomas 32:37
Yeah. Well, let me begin by saying the Bible often talks about miracles Jesus can't do. Jesus goes to his hometown and a couple of the Gospel writers say he doesn't do miracles there. He can't because they don't have faith. The Gospel of Mark talks about Jesus going into a town and healing many but not all, Jesus shows up to a pool called Bethesda. And one particular guy can't make it to the pool whenever the waters are ruffled, and Jesus heals him, but nobody else there. Once you begin to look at the gospel stories to an uncontrolling love perspective, all of a sudden, things start popping out that you didn't notice before. So Jesus didn't bad 100%.
Secondly, even if he didn't bat 100% his percentage seems a lot higher than most people. So what's going on there? Well, I think there's a couple of things we should think about. One, if you're writing a book, to talk about how amazing this Jesus is, you're probably not going to influence all the times didn't things didn't work out very well. In other words, when the gospel writers…
Seth Price 33:49
It is edited.
Thomas 33:51
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we all do it. In some ways. It's amazing that so many stories are there that in which Jesus like the hometown one that are there at all? So yeah, they've got a particular angle to present and I'm all in favor that angle. I'm just saying we need to take that into account
Seth Price 34:34
Well, and honestly, when you say it that way, that feels a lot like what social media is now. Like the Facebook that I present, that's the edited version, that's the version with the good haircut, and, you know, delete that picture. It doesn't look right. And all the garbage has got hadn't really thought about it that way. Um, I want to pivot to some of the questions that I had that I didn't ask my group that I don't believe are in there. So two of the things that I've been wrestling with With and then just, I don't think I've said this on the internet yet. There's probably too many people listening to the show but I'm gonna say it anyway. So I buried my dad a few weeks ago, which is why I was so late and getting back to you. I had to go across the country there. And so I have really struggled with, I actually took your book with me, I took your book and a book on prayer from Scott Erickson, and then the Bible as well. And I read that quite a bit, because I was just so mad, I’m still mad and angry. So I really struggle with this view of, you know, God can't and cannot make love with any form of in time theology, as it relates to either the kingdom of heaven, or hell. And I didn't see a lot of people asking about that. And so how do you view eschatology either heaven or hell, or both? through a lens of what you're getting at in either of these two books?
Thomas 35:56
Yeah. Let me give you my answer by first giving you what I think are three major views on the afterlife and then give you my view as a fourth one.
First view, (the) common view heaven and hell. Good people go to heaven or God chose who goes to heaven. (The) unrighteous go to have hell for eternal conscious torment. I think that views crap, I don't believe it.
Seth Price 36:23
I don't either.
Thomas 36:25
Yeah, I don't think the Bible supports it. And I'm not alone in that.
Second view, we'll call it classical universalism. Everybody goes to heaven, no matter what they did, all the all income free, a sovereign God who also loves guarantees that every last person goes to heaven. Problems with that. First of all, it seems to mean that our lives are ultimately insignificant or meaningless. I mean, why in the world should I try to stop climate change right now, if I think everyone in fact all of creation, eventually gets to heaven for eternal bliss? Why not just be a hoo of resources, or any of my decisions actually, do any of my decisions really matter if in the end, no matter what I do, even if I don't want to go to heaven, I'm going to go there because the sovereign God is going to put me there. There's some real problems with a what I'll call classical universalism.
Third option annihilationism, or some people call it conditionalism. This is the idea that the unrighteous get wasted. They burn up people who like this view, like to look at Biblical passages about fire. This view either says God actively annihilates them or passively annihilates them by refusing to resurrect them. The upside of this view is God sends no one to hell. But the downside is, and the reason I don't accept it, is it sound like God just gives up on people. You know, God says, well I gave Seth 7,892 chances, I'm not going to give him 7,893. It doesn't go with the idea of God's steadfast love, at least in my understanding, it doesn't fit with the Apostle Paul says in Corinthians 13, that love never gives up. It always hopes.
So here's my view. God always invites us to eternal life, always invites us to love. We can choose to say yes or no. And that choice continues on in the afterlife. When we say no to God's love there are natural, negative, consequences that come. God's not in the business of punishing, getting pissed off and you know, wailing away on people. But there are natural negative consequences that come from saying no to love and God is all about love. We say yes, obviously, we experience those consequences.
But in the afterlife, there isn't a time which God says you know what your time's up, no more chances. Nope.
God's love is truly relentless.
It's why I call it the relentless love view. Now, this particular perspective doesn't guarantee universal salvation, but it has the real hope that eventually everyone, from you and me to Hitler, will eventually say yes to God's persuasive love.
Seth Price 39:23
And if you end up not?
Thomas 39:36
You reap the natural negative consequences, moment by moment, but God never gives up on you. So this doesn't guarantee universal salvation, like a classical position would. David Bentley Hart would be a good example of someone who has that view. My view has the hope for that, but not that kind of guarantee.
Seth Price 39:43
So the next view is, and this again, may just be formed by…so I was brought up in “all of creation is broken” and the only hope is Christ and I don't believe that I believe in more of an original blessing view of everything now. But as I read through your text, and I've given it more thought Especially as I now have like two hours back and forth to work cumulatively each day. So I just have a lot of time to drive over the mountains thinking. And so I've been thinking over the last week or so I think that humans create because we are image bearers of God who continually creates. And I think partly we create evil. And so my question is, if God can't create evil, and we're image bearers, why do we do it so easily?
Thomas 40:27
Yeah, great question.
I think one of the key differences between God and us is that God has an everlasting, unchanging, the classic language would be immutable nature of love. God must love because that's God's very nature. You and I, we have a choice whether or not to love or to do evil or to do something that's maybe morally neutral. But you get the point. We're not going to always do love because we don't have that kind of nature. God couldn't have created us with that kind of nature because only divine beings have those nature's and we're, by definition, not divine as creatures.
So I think we can grow into the image of consistent expressions of love. But being made in the image of God doesn't mean we have eternal natures of love. It means the capacity to love freedom. You know, theologians sort of spin out the image of God all kinds of directions, but I'm making the claim it doesn't mean having an eternal nature of love.
Seth Price 41:28
This will seem like a tongue in cheek question, but go with me. Here's the reason I ask. So is this view of “God can't” and I'll say that in quotes for people that can't see the video, no pun intended on the word cat there? Is it viewed overall in the grander scheme of the church, proper church, Big C Church as a heretical view or as an unorthodox view or no?
Thomas 41:52
You know, I don't know that people have really discussed this view in the history of Christianity. But, I suspect if you got that 100 theologians that I was mentioning earlier, the majority would at least say it's unorthodox or uncommon. You know, people who like it will point to particular theologian history and say, well, that person kind of says something like that. But when I talk about my particular view called essential kenosis, which is kind of the technical view. Yeah, I think that's original. I don't think anybody's done that. The broader view of limitations on God's power, there have been some other people who've gone down that road..
Seth Price 42:37
So to piggyback off that is the question that I want to ask. So zoom out is 50-60 years from now. What, if you feel like, as you know, people continue to get educated and this and like, you know, I can get behind that this changes the way that we live, because we're actively processing what we're doing as we're creating and, and being in community with each other. What changes do you hope for or do you anticipate or maybe with long to see in the church for the decade, maybe not after you, but after my children? What do you think would institutionally change with this framework, underpinning thing, as opposed to where we're at right now?
Thomas 43:18
A lot of Christians think God is pissed at them. That would change. A lot of Christians think what they do really doesn't matter. Because God's got the kind of power to fix it all. What if God wants to do so at the end? So their lives, (and) choices don't really matter? In my view, really matters. People got to actually do something. Now the whole world is not on your shoulders. But your choices really do make an ultimate difference. Not just you know, screwing around, monkey playing. It matters for eternity.
Seth Price 43:54
(laughter) What is monkey playing?
Thomas 44:00
(laughs) I don’t know!
Seth Price 44:05
Love it. It's always good to be able to laugh in these. Oh, good. Yeah. So is the church, a larger church? Does it own the same amount of property? Like do we still hoard wealth in this view? Or does is it a poverty stricken faith? Like what would that look like?
Thomas 44:25
Yeah, I mean, I think the church is going to change no matter if people accept this view or not
Seth Price 44:29
Correct. Yeah. Coronavirus is exacerbating that at exponential levels. Yes, absolutely.
Thomas 44:34
Yeah. I think a lot of people are asking themselves because of the pandemic, “why do I even go to church?” And that's a legit question. A lot of times we do things out of habit, and we don't really think about the consequences. And I would say a fair number of people, either consciously or subconsciously, go to church because they're afraid God's going to punish them if they don't. I've got a theology that says that God never punishes. So maybe this means people stop going to church. But I suspect there's more to the gospel than going somewhere on a Sunday morning or wherever you go. I suspect that the gospel is fundamentally about community of love, at work in the world responding to God's love at work in all places. So even if the word church is not used, or even if Christians not used, I think of a vision of a loving God begins to permeate our consciousness become a central idea and civilization, that we can actually have a better world, we can actually be more like Jesus, it actually could be more like what I think authentic Christianity is should be about.
Seth Price 45:49
Last question, and I've asked this of everyone this year. So when you try to explain to someone you know, when I say God, here's what I mean. Like, if you try to wrap words around a concept that nobody really can, what comes to mind if you're trying to talk about that with someone?
Thomas 46:04
Well, as a theologian, I think about this a lot. So I probably can't give you a little pat answer.
Seth Price 46:12
So far, no one, I don't think out of every episode, no one's given the same answer. I mean, a few people have worked the word Jesus in there and that type of stuff. But overall, every answer has been entirely unique, which has been fascinating.
Thomas 46:25
Okay, let me resist your suggestion and to make it short and kind of lead up to what I want to say is that okay?
Seth Price 46:35
Literally, everyone in my house is asleep. So you take as long as you need.
Thomas 46:39
A lot of people have thought of God as an old guy in the sky, or maybe an emperor who gets angry and sends down lightning bolts. And they've seen the problems with that. And they've shifted away from that. And they no longer believe in a personal God. And the kind of language they will use; and when I say they, I mean professional theologians, popular Christian people that you and I would admire, I could say names. And they'll use words like “the divine” or a love, “ground of being” they use all kinds of these kind of abstract language, it gets away from the personal, but is leaning toward “transcendence”. I like the personal.
So I want to avoid the old man in the sky, or the divine monarch throwing down lightning bolts, and I can do that by emphasizing God as a universal spirit that can't be perceived by our five senses, and yet is giving and receiving moment by moment, motivated by love. So it's not just love. It's a Being who loves but is omnipresent. That way of thinking, to me, makes a lot more sense of my intuitions about what love ought to be like, and aligns pretty well with personal language in the scripture without getting too anthropomorphic. And also, I think covers the really important view part of thinking about God, and that's God's universal presence.
Seth Price 48:19
Yeah. Yeah. See, nobody has the same answer. I love it. I love it.
Thomas 48:24
I'd like to hear what other people have to say. Was there more abstracting?
Seth Price 48:30
Oh, gosh, one of my answers that I laughed out, not when she said it, but when I edited it later. She said something to the point of anybody that thinks they can try to wrap words around God is just being logically inconsistent and arrogant. She's like, “but let's do this?” And she like leans in. She was she was a Jewish woman that I was speaking with. And she's brilliant. But yeah, there's just been so many. So many good answers. Yeah, it's been, I don't know, I think next year, I may have a different question, like a consistent question, because it's genuinely like a thread that knits everything together. If I get really ambitious, I may actually go back through all 48-50 whatever episodes and just pull those sections out. And make it like one huge continuous episode, but I don't even that might just be a dumpster fire. I don't know what that would be.
Thomas 49:21
Let me guess at another thing. I bet you've heard. I bet a lot of people drop the “M” word, the “mystery” word. One that I really don't like, but no? Not so much.
Seth Price 49:32
Not that comes to mind. But that doesn't mean that they haven't. There's been a lot of conversations this year. A lot of hours. Well point people to where they should go. They definitely should buy the book, which is available everywhere. At least from what I understand. And like where do you want people to go and engage in and do things?
Thomas 49:56
Well, what I want people to go do is to go live a life of love. But I think what you really mean is…
Seth Price 50:03
(Laughter) I’m tying to let you plug the places.
Thomas 50:08
(chuckles) Yeah, you know, my books are on all the major, you know, online stores and a few face to face kind of stores=. So you can find them there. You can go to my website. But yeah, any of those kinds of things. I think these books can really help people. So obviously I want to encourage people to get them. But I truly do want to encourage people to think about living a life of love. That's my goal. That's at least my attempt to be the heartbeat of my life. And I recommend it to others.
Seth Price 50:44
I will say this, this is just an aside, I've no idea if I'll keep this in the episode. So the last time you were on a few months later, someone at my wife's hospital, asked her a question. Another child had died. And to be honest, I don't remember which one because it's just, it's an ongoing river of sadness there. But they were really struggling with a bunch of stuff. And they had asked her because they knew that I have conversations like this, what should I dive into? I actually bought them your book and gave it to her. She gave it to them. And from what I remember, they said, you know, this has been extremely helpful. Yeah, and that was years ago. So yeah, so it definitely is it's reframing this in this way is extremely, I think, very powerful. Also very hard. But very powerful. But yeah. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming back on.
Thomas 51:36
It has been my pleasure, Seth. Thanks so much. It's an honor.
Seth Price 51:41
And I will, I'll have you back. We'll do open theism. So there's a few topics I'm terrified of that one is one of them. Because I just, it doesn't make logical sense to me. And, I love logic, I work at a bank for a living like I just doesn't compute to me. Like geometry also doesn't compute like, it just feels like made up numbers that obviously work because I'm living in a house that was built with geometry. But it just makes me so mad.
Thomas 52:08
That’s kind of strange to say that because a lot of open theists embrace the notion because they think it is more logical than the alternative. So the next time we talk we can do that.
Seth Price 52:20
Logical, yes, but it's not deterministic. So it's hard for me. Like, I can run amortization tables in my head. And I always know the answer I'm gonna get and I like, like, input A results and output B. Yes. I can't do that with that. And so that's why I say it's just infuriating where I'm like, No, no, like, and I think a lot of it is me. If I was God, it would really piss me off. Argghhh Like, just frustrating. What have I done? I created this thing. And what did I do? This is not what I wanted…oh my gosh!!
Thomas 52:56
I can think of a few Biblical passages to support what you're saying right there.
Seth Price 53:00
So yeah, I just like, ahhh!!! Anyway, but that's a me thing. So anyhow. Thank you so much I’ve enjoyed it.
Thomas 53:09
Yeah, you're welcome. I've enjoyed it too.
Seth Price 53:34
That’s the show for the week. This show is mixed & edited by me and recorded in my basement. However it is produced by the Patrons and so I wanted to welcome our newest patron Shayne Wright. Welcome to the community my friend. That is the only way that this show is possible. So very thankful for every single one of you, consider supporting the show there. You can find links to that in the show notes or at the website. You can also follow the show on all the social medias. I think all the social medias, though some of them are more active than the others. And one of the best ways that you can help the show if you're unable to financially support the show, is just share a part of your favorite episode on social media. tag a few friends in it-it is one of the best ways that new people and new year's find the show. I wanted to thank AC and Brady James for their music in this episode. You can find more information about Brady James and AC at BradyJamesmusic.com. And you will also find in the playlist for the show on Spotify the links to this week's music as well as all of the past week's music.
I'll talk to you next week, be blessed everyone.