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. 

What More Can We Do?: One Week until Election Day

Although several of you USAmerican Thinking Friends have likely already voted, Election Day is one week from today, and I assume most of you will be voting then, as I plan to do. But is there anything more we can do this week? 

“A Return to Abnormalcy? Perish the Thought!” That was the title of the article I originally planned to write this week before the election. “A Return to Normalacy?” was the title of my blog post just before the 2020 election. My point: the election of Joe Biden would be a return to normalcy in the U.S.*1  

The current presidential polls continue to indicate this year’s election will be very close, and there could very well be a return to the “abnormalcy” of a second Trump presidency. I certainly would like to “perish the thought,” but I also definitely thought he would not be elected in 2016. 

If Trump is elected next week, I predict he will not serve for four years. Whether by impeachment and removal from office, using the 25th amendment to the Constitution, or because of debilitating health issues, I think it is quite unlikely Trump will be in the White House until January 2029. 

But sadly, the country (and the world) would perhaps not be much better off with JD Vance as president.  

But recognizing that I might be wrong, I am nevertheless sticking by my prediction that VP Harris will be elected and there will fortunately be no significant abnormalities with her as POTUS. 

What Can We Do? Most of us live in states where there is little doubt regarding which presidential candidate will get our state’s electoral votes. Nevertheless, we should vote anyway. Even if our votes will most likely not help elect our candidate, the total number of popular votes is still important. 

In addition to the presidential election, there are other important races in most states. Don’t overlook the importance of voting for down-ballot candidates. Control of the Senate and the House is also at stake, and that control will make a huge difference regardless of who becomes POTUS. 

Unfortunately, some of us live in states where there is little doubt regarding who will be elected for the two houses of Congress as well as which presidential candidate will get the electoral votes.  

Some of you might be interested in checking out VoteMaximizer.org, which analyzes what they call “voter power.” The closer the race, the higher the number (from one to 100) of one’s vote. The bad news for us Missourians is that no state race has high enough voter power to be listed. 

The only matters listed as being uncertain enough in Missouri to be listed are Proposition A and Amendments 3 & 7. So I will go to vote mainly for the popular vote outcome of the presidential election and the outcome of the three issues mentioned.*2 

It is different especially for those of you who live in swing states, such as you Thinking Friends who live in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Since your voter power number is high, work hard this week for the presidential candidate whom you intensely want to win.  

“All we can do now is pray”: this is what some may say at this point since many have already voted and most have already made up their minds about who they will vote for—or since the outcome in their states is quite certain.  

That may be true, but what will we pray for? Does anyone think that if enough of us prayed in the right way we could convince God to manipulate enough voters to cause our preferred candidate to win the election? And what about those praying for the other candidate to win?  

There are some things God can’t (or won’t) do, and manipulating people is one such thing. (I plan to write more about this matter in a blog article next month.) So, I am quite sure that prayer by itself will not change the outcome of the election.*3   

However, as a means of lessening our anxiety and promoting peace of mind, prayer is quite important as we face anxieties about the future of our country during this week before Election Day.  

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*1 Here is a link to that Oct. 20, 2020, blog post if you’d like to read it (again). The words in the title were based on the slogan of the 1920 presidential campaign of Warren G. Harding. 

*2 My recommendation to you Missourians is voting Yes on Proposition A & Amendment 3 and No on Amendment 7. 

*3 Not long after I wrote this sentence, I saw this post regarding Franklin Graham’s public prayer asking God to cause Trump to win the election.