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 about “The Shack”?

“An African-American, a Jew, and an Asian walk into a bar” might be the beginning of somebody’s joke. But Wm. Paul Young is dead serious when he centers his 2007 novel The Shack on three such persons—and this weekend the movie by the same name opened in theaters across the country. 

DESCRIBING “THE SHACK”

Young (b. 1955) is a Canadian novelist who self-published The Shack after his manuscript was turned down by 26 publishers. Remarkably, by June 2008 it had sold a million copies—and now sales are said to be over 25 million!

While definitely fiction, the book is also a theodicy, an argument for God’s goodness in the face of evil. Much of the book is response to Missy’s question about “how come [God’s] so mean?” (p. 33).

The book/movie is also a reflection on the nature of the Trinity. While clearly a temporary manifestation to Mack, the central human being in the book, God appears as Elousia, an African-American woman usually called “Papa”; Jesus, a Jewish carpenter; and Sarayu, a willowy Asian woman. 

When first meeting these three “persons,” Mack asks which one of them is God. “’I am,’ said all three in unison” (p. 89).

What a marvelous time, and what a healing time, Mack spends with this amazing Trinity!  

TRASHING “THE SHACK”

There have been some very negative reviews of the book—mostly by conservative Christians. In 2010 Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called it (here) “deeply troubling” and declared that it “includes undiluted heresy.”

Earlier, in May 2008, Charles Colson advised his readers (here), “Stay Out of The Shack.”

These are just two of many written criticisms of the theological content of The Shack. In addition, though, just about a year ago a 79-minute documentary film was produced with the title “The Shack: Its Dangerous Theology and Error.”

There are perhaps some legitimate concerns about the theology of the book—but the more conservative or traditional one is, the greater those concerns will likely be.

In addition to the conservative Christians who criticize the theology of The Shack, there are now many secular movie critics who trash the film.

Returning home after watching the movie, with delight, late Friday afternoon, I looked up some movie reviews of the film—and was disappointed in what I found. They were mostly negative—especially the one by Peter Sobczynski on RogerEbert.com. 

Perhaps “The Shack” is most appreciated/enjoyed by people with a moderate/liberal Christian worldview.

PRAISING “THE SHACK”

“When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize, the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” 

These words, by Eugene Peterson (of The Message fame) are perhaps the most effusive in praising The Shack, but there have been numerous clerics and moderate to liberal Christian writers who have had positive words about it.

Many of you know and appreciate Richard Rohr. (I wrote about him, here, in Nov. 2015.) Last year Fr. Rohr published The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. I found it interesting that in this major book about the Trinity, Rohr had Young write the Foreword, mentions Young in the Introduction, and calls him a “dear brother” in the Acknowledgments. 

Except to my most (theologically) conservative and most secular friends, I highly recommend this delightful book/movie. It offers much to think about regarding the Triune God, dealing with grief, relationships (with God and other humans), as well as freedom of choice and the problem of evil.