Are There Things God Can’t Do?

Thanks to my good friend Fred Herren, last year I became acquainted with theologian Thomas Jay Oord. God Can’t (2019) is the only one of his many books that I have read in its entirety, and initially I was “put off” by the book’s title. After reading it, though, I mainly agreed with Oord’s main points. 

Thomas Jay Oord was long a pastor and theologian in the Church of the Nazarene. Born and raised in Washington state, Oord (b. 1965) graduated from Northwest Nazarene College (now University, NNU) in Idaho in 1988.

After serving as a pastor of a Nazarene church for several years in Washington state, he enrolled in Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, graduating with a Master of Divinity. While in seminary, he was a pastor in nearby Lenexa, Kansas.

After earning his Ph.D. degree at Claremont Graduate University in California, he taught theology at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts and then for sixteen years taught at his alma mater (NNU). Since 2020, Oord has been directing doctoral programs of the online Northwind Theological Seminary.*¹

God Can’t, Oord’s thought-provoking book, is about theodicy, the attempt to resolve the problem of evil that arises when all power and all goodness are simultaneously ascribed to God. If God can prevent all evil, why doesn’t a loving God do that? That is a basic problem for traditional theology.

Oord explains his reason for writing God Can’t: “I wrote this book for victims of evil, survivors, and those who endure senseless suffering. I wrote it for the wounded and broken who have trouble believing in God, are confused, or have given up faith altogether” (3).

His book, though, is also of considerable help for all of us who know people who have trouble believing in God's existence because of the suffering in their own lives or that which they see starkly in the world around them.

Oord insists that “God loves us all, all the time.” He goes on to assert, “Every idea I advocate in this book assumes God is loving” (11-12). This leads him to reject belief in God’s omnipotence and to emphasize what he terms God’s amipotence.*²

According to Oord, “God’s nature is uncontrolling love.” Thus, “God’s love is inherently uncontrolling” (26). That is why God “can’t prevent evil singlehandedly. God’s love governs what God can do” (27). So, here is Oord’s “Belief #1”: “God Can’t Prevent Evil Singlehandedly” (44).*³

How could God be considered all-loving if God could unilaterally prevent evil but didn’t do so? By substituting amipotence for omnipotence, though, Oord concludes, “I can whole-heartedly adore my uncontrolling Creator, knowing God neither causes nor allows the evil I’ve experienced or know” (183).

And then he leaves these final words: “The Lover of the Universe empowers and inspires us to live lives of love. Let’s cooperate with this uncontrolling God of love!” (186).

Much more needs to be said about Oord’s challenging book, but I will mention just one more important thing I realized afresh from reading it. Much of what Christians have said about prayer is based on an erroneous view of God. So often God is asked to do what an uncontrolling God cannot do.

Back in August 2016, I wrote about this in connection with reports that Jimmy Carter was “cancer free” after being diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2015. I encourage you to (re-)read that post (here).

I realize more fully now that it is simply “wrong” to pray for God to heal anyone or to perform other “miraculous” deeds. Yes, I believe in prayer, but not prayers that seek to change God or to “beg” God to do things that God could not do.

So, yes, given the loving, noncontrolling nature of God, there are some/many things God can’t do. But rather than that decreasing our devotion to God, such realization should cause our faith in God to deepen and to strengthen our determination to work with God for the betterment of the world around us.

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*¹ For more detailed information about Oord, see his website at https://ThomasJayOord.com. That site includes this recent news: “In 2024, Oord was taken to trial in the Church of the Nazarene for being queer affirming. The verdict was the removal of his ministerial license and membership in the denomination.” Last August, my friend Brian Kaylor interviewed Oord about his expulsion from the Church of the Nazarene. You can  hear that interview here.  

*² In April 2023, Oord published a new book under the title The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence. He coined the latter word, which means all-loving, to use in place of the former word, which means all-powerful. Christian theology has often talked about God as being omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Those are not biblical terms, however, and Oord firmly believes that the latter term should be replaced by his new term, amipotence.

*³ Oord’s other basic beliefs articulated in this book: #2, “God feels our pain”; #3, “God works to heal”; #4, “God squeezes good from bad”; and #5, “God needs our cooperation.”

Note: Thinking Friend Anton Jacobs reminded me that Rabbi Harold S. Kushner’s bestselling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1991) presents ideas quite similar to Oord’s. I read Kushner’s book back in the 1990s but didn’t remember that similarity while reading Oord, who does not mention Kushner. 

In Support of Harris and Walz

Delegates of the Democratic National Convention in a virtual roll call vote (completed on August 6) officially certified Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the Party’s nominees for President and Vice President in the upcoming November election. 

How greatly the political landscape changed in just four weeks! On July 13,  ex-President Trump was wounded by a young man who apparently sought to assassinate him.

Then on the 21^st, just eight days later, Pres. Biden announced that he would not accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for POTUS.

Beginning the very afternoon of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of his Vice President to be the Democratic nominee, there was an outpouring of verbal and financial support for VP Kamala Harris.

In light of the overwhelming early support received by Harris, virtual voting by the DNC delegates began on August 1, and by the next day, Kamala already had enough votes for the nomination. Now, she and her pick as a running mate are the  Democratic candidates for the election to be held in just 88 days.

The nation’s short-term, and perhaps long-term, future depends greatly on the November 5 voting outcome. This is the fateful decision facing the country: will voters elect Kamala Harris rather than “the worst presidential nominee in U.S. history,” as I dubbed Donald Trump in my July 20 blog post?

There is also this worrying question in the minds of many: if Harris is elected, will Trump accept the election results? Or once again will he claim that the election was stolen and seek to use unlawful means to attain election?

Kamala Harris has my full support. When in 2019 there began to be talk of who the Democratic candidate might be in 2020, Harris was my first choice. I already thought Joe Biden was too old to be President. (Now, though, I think he has done a very commendable job—and was wise to “pass the torch.”)

Kamala has a diverse religious background, but she has long been a member of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. She is quite complimentary of her pastor, Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, as is he of her.*¹

On July 22, Thinking Friend Brian Kaylor posted “The Next Baptist President of the United States?” on his blog (here). It was largely about the interview he had with Brown in 2020. The elderly pastor told Brian that Kamala “is a role model for womanhood, and just human decency and dignity at its best.”

MAGA Christians, though, are highly critical of candidate Harris in many ways, including denigration of her Christian faith. At the Turning Point USA Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach on July 26, TP president Charlie Kirk declared that Harris “stands against everything that we as Christians believe.”*²

Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau, says that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel in a way that will be even more ominous than Hillary (Clinton) because she’ll bring a racial component, and she’s younger.”

What about Harris’s pick for Vice President? Gov. Walz (b. 1964) has not been widely known nationally, but I think he was a good choice. In some ways, he reminds me of Harry Truman, another plainspoken Midwesterner, who 80 years ago in 1944 was elected VPOTUS.

Like Truman, Walz is more of a “commoner” than many high-profile politicians. JD Vance, the GOP VP candidate, graduated from Ohio State University (BA) and Yale (JD); Walz graduated from small Chadron State College (BS) in Nebraska, his home state, and Minnesota State University, Mankato, (MS).

Before becoming a politician, Vance practiced law for slightly under two years and then moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a venture capitalist; Walz was a high school teacher and football coach for about ten years before entering politics.*³

Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, were married in 1994, and they have two children, Hope (b. 2001) and Gus (b. 2006). They are affiliated with an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation in St. Paul.

Please join me in support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I am confident that they will not only preserve our national democracy but will also work to enhance liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens—and will have compassion for the needy people residing in our country who are not citizens.  

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*¹ Brown (b. 1941) has been pastor of 3BC since 1976. That church is duly aligned with the American Baptist Churches USA and the National Baptist Convention USA. He is also currently the president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP. Brian refers to him as “a civil rights icon.” You may also like to read this pertinent article about Brown posted by Sojourners on July 25.

*² Donald Trump also spoke at that TP meeting, and among other things, he said, “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.” (From Heather Cox Richardson’s July 26 newsletter.)

*³ Jess Piper had this to say (here) after hearing that Walz was to be the Dem. VP nominee: “Walz is so perfect for the job of VP. He’s a rural progressive. He’s my people. A dirt road Democrat. He’s a liberal guy who lives among conservative folks.” (Some of you may remember that I introduced Ms. Piper in my March 14 blog post.)

  

 

But What About Biden’s Support of Israel?

There are several reasons why President Biden’s re-election as POTUS is uncertain despite the undesirability of his only real opponent. In this post, I am dealing with only one of those, which is the main reason some people, including some of my Thinking Friends, say they cannot vote for Biden. 

Pres. Biden contemplating what to do about Gaza.

Why is Pres. Biden supporting Israel so strongly? This is a question many people, especially younger people, in the U.S. are asking. And most of those asking that question are quite critical of the President because of that support.

In contrast to Lord Tennyson’s well-known words, “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die,” concerning Israel’s retaliation against Hamas and the U.S. President’s support of that warfare, it is incumbent upon us to ask the reason why—and to ask why so many Palestinians have had to die.

The attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was an atrocious event, one not unfairly compared with the September 11, 2001, attack on the U.S. True, the deaths on 10/7 were around 40% of those on 9/11—but the population of Israel is only about 3% that of the U.S.

Do you remember the reaction of the U.S. government to those horrendous attacks on 9/11/01? On October 7 (in a remarkable coincidence of dates), the U.S. officially launched Operation Enduring Freedom against Afghanistan.

In that war which ended on August 30, 2021—an ending for which Biden has also often been strongly criticized—at least 175,000 (and probably far more) people were killed, including more than 46,000 civilians.

If that is how the U.S. first responded to 9/11 even though the attackers were not Afghans, it is not surprising that Israel responded with strong military action against Gaza, where most of the Hamas terrorists lived.

Support of Israel has been U.S. policy since 1948 when Israel became a nation, and the U.S. under Pres. Truman was the first to recognize that new nation, and this country has been Israel’s primary ally ever since.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding, receiving about $300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance.

What else could Pres. Biden do but stand by an old ally? As I wrote in my blog post on Dec. 21 last year,

I don’t think Biden’s position is any different from what any other President’s would be, including Hillary Clinton (who could well have been nearing the end of her seventh year as President if it had not been for her inexplicable loss in 2016).

Near Election Day in 2016 when I thought Clinton’s election was assured, I wrote “an open letter to Madame President.” Among other things, I implored her to ease up on her support for Israel in order to lessen the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

Pres. Biden’s support of Israel has lessened over the months since last October, and his support for humanitarian aid for Gaza has increased notably.

Four weeks ago, Senator Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S. and a staunch ally of Israel, gave a powerful speech criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu and called for new elections in Israel, for if held now, Netanyahu would most likely not be re-elected.

Pres. Biden praised Schumer’s speech. In contrast, it was also widely reported that leading Republican lawmakers were quite critical of it. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the U.S. needs to stand with Israel and give its friend and ally its full support.

What would happen if Trump were President? Two weeks ago, Trump said he would have responded the same way as Israel did after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas but urged the country to “finish up” its offensive in Gaza and “get this over with.”*¹

On that same day, “U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan who used to serve as a Baptist pastor, suggested at a town hall meeting during Holy Week that the Gaza Strip should be nuked.”*²

I certainly wish Pres. Biden—and the U.S. government—had a far less supportive position toward Israel and a far greater humanitarian position toward Gaza.

Hearing what Trump and the Republicans are saying, though, why would anyone think voting for them rather than Biden would be better for the Palestinians?*³

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 *¹ This was widely reported in the news media; here is the link to what the Associated Press wrote.

*² Here is how my friend Brian Kaylor, president & editor-in-chief of Word&Way, continued, citing Walberg: “‘We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,’ [Walberg] declared on March 25 after a constituent asked about the U.S. effort to build a port to deliver humanitarian aid to starving people in Gaza. ‘It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.’” (Word&Way is a Christian [Baptist] media company based in Missouri since 1896.) 

*³ Please note my contention in the March 20 post that not voting or voting for a third party candidate, especially in swing states, increases the likelihood that Trump will be re-elected. 

Seeking to Understand Salvation

Here is my 1,001^st blog post—and I have been wanting to write this since making the Dec. 26 post that was largely based on Habakkuk 3:17. This article begins with Hab. 3:18—and focuses on just one word in that verse: salvation (or Savior, depending on the translation). 

What is the meaning of salvation in Habakkuk 3:18? That is the first matter to be clarified. In evangelical Christianity, salvation is primarily thought to be the future gift of “eternal life” in Heaven that we humans can receive through the forgiveness of our sins by faith in Jesus Christ.

That, obviously, was not what Habakkuk meant in referring to “God of my salvation” (NRSV) or “God my Savior” (NIV). Habakkuk lived 600 years before Jesus was born, and the context is about being “saved” from the effects of crop failure.

As in much of the Old Testament, salvation here primarily means deliverance from physical hardships in the present, not salvation from the punishment of sin and blissful life after death.

Salvation in the OT usually means deliverance from some physical calamity or liberation from bondage. Of course, even in modern times, we sometimes use that same terminology. For example, a child is saved from death in a burning building, or a company is saved from bankruptcy with a large loan.

So in spite of the fig tree not budding and there being no fruit on the vine, the song of Habakkuk 3:17-19 rejoices in the God who the prophet expects to deliver God’s people from doom. At the very least, the people’s faith in God delivers them from worry and frees them from fear of the future.

What did Jesus say about salvation? Jesus didn’t talk much about salvation or people being saved—although there was certainly much about that in the New Testament after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

One of the very few times Jesus used the word salvation was in the story about Zacchaeus as recorded in the 19^th chapter of Luke. After Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’s house, treating him as a person worth respect rather than an enemy of the people, Zacchaeus said,

Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.

Jesus responded by declaring, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham” (vv. 8-9, NRSV).

Was the salvation Jesus was referring to here the gift of eternal life in Heaven? No, Zacchaeus’s promise to generously share his possessions was not him buying a ticket to Heaven.

Jesus was most likely thinking of salvation in the ways the Jewish people of his time, and for centuries before, had generally thought of salvation. It was deliverance or liberation for the present, not for some future state of existence. But from what was Zacchaeus saved/delivered?

He was saved/liberated from his alienation from his own people by his working as a hated tax collector for the Romans. By releasing much of his ill-gotten wealth, he was freed from allegiance to Rome and became, again, a member of his Jewish community. He became, again, “a son of Abraham.”

Concurrently, Zacchaeus was saved/freed from his greed, his love of riches, his self-centeredness. He committed himself to boldly helping others, not lining his own pockets as tax collectors then regularly did.

Because of Zacchaeus’s repentance (=180^o change of direction in his way of living), salvation came to his house that day.

What does salvation mean for us today? Certainly, I am not disparaging what the followers of Jesus later said about “eternal salvation,” even though there are, undoubtedly, many misunderstandings entwining that important concept.

What I am emphasizing here is the need to understand salvation also, or maybe first, in the way Jesus spoke of salvation to Zacchaeus.

Perhaps it is primarily the “prosperity Gospel” preachers, the “Foxvangelicals” (to use the term my friend Brian Kaylor recently used with reference to Robert Jeffress), and so many U.S. Christians who are so entangled in consumerism who need to consider this the most.**

But what about you—and me?

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** Kaylor is President and Editor of Word&Way (the Christian media company based in Missouri since 1896). He used this term in a Jan. 17 article (found here) titled “A Tale of Two Services.” I highly commend this piece comparing/contrasting what former Vice-president Pence said at First Baptist Church, Dallas, and what President Biden said at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, this past Sunday.