See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
Welcome back everyone to another episode of Cabernet and Pray, the unusual podcast where we talk about Christianity in maybe less than traditional ways, usually with a glass of wine. Today we even have a twist to throw in at you, and I'm excited for that. Today we're going to talk with another author, someone that I've had a chance to get to know a little bit over the years has written many, many things, and I'm very excited to dive into these ideas, many of which I'm just going to put out there. If you are a Christian, if you have grown up in evangelical circles, as most Christians in America have, some of these ideas you're going to hear today may be like a little bit confusing to you and you may be going wait a minute. I thought we all understood how this worked and now you're challenging it, so I just wanted to prep you with that of if you're hearing these ideas for the very first time. Might be a little bit of whiplash, but I want to encourage you just to hang in there. The beauty of a podcast is you can listen to this again or watch it again and maybe go back and revisit it once you've had a chance to see where the overall argument goes. But today's guest is putting new thought out there, and I love that. I love when we have people who are alive. You know, these are not just authors reading from centuries past. These are modern day authors who are providing fresh, new ways of how to understand God, how to relate with God, how to make sense of this thing that we call life, and today's guest is going to be great at that.
Speaker 1:Today we have Dr Thomas J Ord. Some call him TJO for fun. He is a theologian, philosopher and scholar of multidisciplinary studies. He's the bestselling and award winning author, having written or edited more than 25 books. His academic influence ranks him among the most influential theologians in the 21st century. Ord directs a doctoral program at Northwind Theological Seminary and directs the Center for Open and Relational Theology. He is known for his research on writing on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, evil and power, and the implications of freedom and relationships for transformation. Welcome to the podcast, tom. How are you today Doing well?
Speaker 2:Jeremy, as you were talking, I was checking out those photographs on your back wall.
Speaker 1:Are those?
Speaker 2:on the Oregon coast.
Speaker 1:They are.
Speaker 2:I am not familiar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my heart is in Oregon, so that gives me a chance. I'm in Arizona, but I look over and I feel like I'm there.
Speaker 2:I like it. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for the invitation to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything else we need to know about you? I try to give a little bit of flavor, but you've done a lot of things so I don't know that. I just scratched the surface there. What else do we need to know about you?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in the Pacific Northwest and I enjoy backpacking. I'm a photographer, so I'm in the outdoors trying to capture something of the beauty in the world. I'm also married, have three daughters, two grandchildren, so I have a family as well.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, we appreciate you taking the time today. Now what we do at this point in the show is we got to talk about what we're drinking, and so today I am drinking my favorite varietal of all time, which is a Pinot Noir. But this is actually normally. I drink Oregon Pinot Noir. I did this week.
Speaker 1:I literally got back from Oregon last night, but this is an Oregon Pinot Noir from Domain Vorek called Mercury, and this is actually get the camera for those who are watching on video. This is actually from France, this is from Burgundy, so what is often considered the home of Pinot Noir, where it really originated, and this is really nice. It's got more minerality than I'm used to. So if you normally hear me talk about Pinot Noir than this, normally I'm talking about Oregon Pinot's, because those are what have my heart. When you go to the old world, you see a different style of making it different, different vibe. If you will so much more fruit forward when you come to Oregon. But when you get the old earth or older world versions, you get more earthiness, more minerality to it, and so I'm enjoying that today. What are you drinking? You've got some. You've got a twist for us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm drinking some mint tea, some organic mint tea. I had planned to do this because I'm a tea drinker, but also it turns out it was very appropriate because, as I look out my window to my right, it's snowing pretty heavily right now, and so nice hot tea seems appropriate on a snowy afternoon.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect, it's a little bit cooler. In Arizona, we had rain last night. I do not have snow out my window, so I'm jealous of you enjoying the seasons and I'll vicariously live through that with you today. Very good. I want to begin with a question that I love asking each of our guests on this show and I love to model to people that faith is an active process. This is not something where you arrive at all the right answers and then you lock them in and then you hold on to it. You know, white knuckle it till you die. But, people, this is a growing process, and so my question for you as we begin how has your faith changed over the last 10 years?
Speaker 2:I think, as I thought about this question, I think probably what has changed the most is that in the last 10 years I have grown bolder in my convictions.
Speaker 2:I still don't think I know things with certainty, but I'm a bigger risk taker than I used to be, and it just so happens in the last 10 years. I was fired from my job as a theologian about eight years ago after going through a trial, and then began a new job doing a doctoral program, and that shift in my life made me rethink my strategies for talking about things that matter a lot to me. So, for instance, I'm a queer affirming person and I have been for 30 years, but the former job I was in I had to do a different. I had to have a different strategy and how to approach that, and now I'm bolder and a bigger risk taker along those lines. So I think that's the first thing that comes to my mind Not so much a change in basic ideas although I've had some changes in less basic ideas but more a holy boldness. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1:So would you say, more of your posture then has been the thing that shifted for you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I care less now about what people think about me. I mean, I care some. I always I'm very skeptical of people who say they don't care at all about what others think of them, because I think, okay, that's not probably healthy. But I care less about what at least some people in authority think about me than I used to.
Speaker 1:I would suspect that is a product of your journey, and the split and some of the pain that you've had to endure Sometimes, when you lose some of those things that you were trying to maintain, does provide a sense of clarity. Well, here's who I'm talking to then. Yeah, and there's another thing too.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about this the other day, when I was exercising and feeling old, I was thinking you know, I'm in midlife, I'm in my fifties and who knows how much longer I have left on this planet. When you start thinking about my legacy and what I want to do with my life before I die, and that sort of at least for me inspires me to be a better person, At least for me inspires me to take bigger risks too.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's interesting on this podcast, when I've asked that question, so many answers talk about pain, talk about a loss of something as the shift and I don't know, it's just, it's something I'm noticing, a trend. I'm noticing, as I'm doing more of these episodes of how God really does use some of the worst parts of our journeys that are just so brutal and is able to help us see new life and new beauty and there is a rebirth in that. So I appreciate hearing a little bit about your experience. Now I want to focus most of our time on your latest book, which I had a chance to read. You had written we talked before we were recording.
Speaker 1:We last time you and I had lunch was after a different book called God can't, and that was the first time I had really dove into some of your ideas and I remember then going this is super intriguing. Not sure I can wrap my head around all of it, but like very intrigued and not. You know, some books I read I'm like that is, that is baloney. I don't, you know, I don't buy that at all. I didn't have that reaction to it. I just, you know, didn't know if I could, if I could understand where you were going on certain things and so I felt like having this chance to read this latest book, I'm like, okay, now I think I'm better understanding some of the ideas, so maybe it just took me a few, a few goes at it. I'm not on the same level as you took me a few tries at it, but there's still a few things that I'm like okay, I'm still trying to work through my head and so I'm excited to.
Speaker 1:I always, you know I often read with my daughter in the afternoons when she gets home from school. She's my reading buddy and you know she'll ask me dad, is that book? You know you reading that book for your podcast and you know, oftentimes it's someone I'm interviewing and you know she always like it must be nice to be able just to ask the author. You know about questions. I'm like it really is nice.
Speaker 1:So yeah like something, circle it and be like we're going to get to that. So we got a few of those we're going to get to. Now the book is called the death of omnipotence and I don't even want to pronounce the other part of it because I want to hear how you pronounce. You coined a new word.
Speaker 2:How do you say this word? I say it amipotence and and nippitance, and Ipitance and and mippitance and mippitance.
Speaker 1:Pronounce these words as we go, but we're dealing with someone who's literally corning new terminology here, so that's right. So this book here's what I would just describe and anyone listening or watching this is like a workout for your mind and your face. I mean you, you talk about exercise if you want to put a good sweat on. I mean you just want to, you know, burn some mental calories. This book will do it, because it's just not one of those books that you read and it makes you feel good and just affirms everything. It's one of those books that goes, hey, we're going to look at the really hard things In life. That you go how on earth do you make sense out of it? And then you, you have the audacity to go let's, let's take a shot at it. Let's, let's attempt a way to try to make sense of it, and I just applaud you for that.
Speaker 1:And I really enjoy the process of my brain hurting as I'm reading you, so I love it. Hopefully that comes out as a compliment. Now, in case you're wondering okay, what are we talking about? You in this book are challenging the assumption that god is Omnipotent. Uh, which the god is all powerful? Very kind of traditional way that we do it. And uh, you say this line experiences of pointless pain and Unnecessary suffering leads some to doubt god is in control. Evil leads others to doubt that god exists at all. In either case, evil ends omnipotence. Now I actually need such refreshing news if we lean into this, but this is not the way most christians make sense of it. So I'm curious from your vantage point, how do you find most christians explaining away God's lack of involvement when it comes to pain, suffering and evil?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the usual Responses are to say things like well, your pain is just a part of god's good plan for your life, or your pain is a way for god to teach you a lesson to build your character, or your suffering is suffering because god is punishing you, and those kinds of answers although I think most of us have heard them, they they grow thin pretty quickly because we can think of instances in which it seems pretty clear that it's not building up someone's character to go through the pain they're going through and they're not really learning lessons.
Speaker 2:And uh, sometimes innocent people suffer and it's hard to imagine how Any crime or sin that they did was somehow, uh, bringing upon the harm that they've, they're enduring. So the punishing god doesn't make a lot of sense. So what a lot of people who are, who have been around the block a few times, they will eventually get rid of those kind of trite responses and play the mystery card. They'll say we don't understand suffering, we don't understand why god allows it, but we believe god exists. We're finite creatures and god is infinite. You know who? Who can know the mind of god? You've probably heard the phrases um, and I'm also criticizing that approach to things because I think people who make that kind of claim Are failing to reconsider their fundamental ideas about god, and in this book I'm asking you to reconsider god's power.
Speaker 1:You know, the sad irony of this is that atheists are the ones who Are are more intellectually honest. You know when it's like well, if, if this evil we Find in the world and you have this view of god, then that view of god can't, that god can't exist.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, although I will say that, even though atheists are often more intellectually honest on this issue. I've had conversations with atheists and said to them yeah, but I don't think god is omnipotent, or I don't think scripture requires an omnipotent god. And sometimes it's the atheists who are most insistent on omnipotence. They say, well, if god's not omnipotent, that's not god. And christians say the same thing Uh, so you are right when you present this whole conversation as me um, not just Chiseling at a bedrock belief of many people, but pulling the whole thing right out from underneath them. I'm saying god is not omnipotent.
Speaker 1:Why? Why do you think just Emotionally? Why are we so reluctant to to embrace this?
Speaker 2:I think it varies depending on the person. Some people Just like to have the security of thinking they've got, you know, a fundamental view of god right. Other people like the security of believing that even the crap that happens to them is somehow a part of god's plan and a good god is good, and so that gives them a sense of at least psychological security. And then there are some who are just, you know, they're just fans of the tradition in the church and they say well, this is not the way christians have always believed, so you know, it can't be right. And sometimes they'll, you know, attack me personally. They'll say, oh, who do you think you are? You're smarter than thomas equinus or some other person. And so I think those are at the basis of most of the kind of negative reactions I get.
Speaker 1:You have this line and you you reference something that I hear all the time. You say. I consider the popular phrase god is in control To be a form of god exerts all power. Most christians desperately Want god to be in control, and that is a very reassuring idea. So why is this not as helpful as we might think it is?
Speaker 2:Well, I get letters almost every week from people who've read this book or the book god can't, and most of those people have suffered genuine evil. Many of them are Uh survivors of sexual abuse or torture. Some of them have had major accidents or tragedies, and their lives are family members and the security that they once felt in believing that god is in control has evaporated, because they just can't believe a loving god would allow the horrific things they have endured. And so, to those people, hearing that god is not in control is actually good news. It gives them a breath of air. They're like okay, I can finally make sense of that. So many of them have been told that god allowed the bad thing to happen, and that seemed okay for a moment or two, until they thought to themselves Okay, if god allowed it, that implies god could have stopped it, but chose not to. And you know it means that you and I are sometimes more loving than god. If we sometimes stop the evil that we can stop.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great point you make about the book you often talk about. You know, in a parent An analogy of as a dad. You know, if I could stop this, I would. So then, yeah, we end up realizing we are more, more loving than than this view of god, and that's problematic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, think about it like this. I mean, how old is your child?
Speaker 1:again, I have five, our oldest is 15.
Speaker 2:Okay, uh, maybe this doesn't apply perfectly to you, but suppose, uh, you're going out on a date and you need to hire a babysitter, would you hire a babysitter who had the ability to stop bad things from happening but chooses not to do it, a babysitter who's going to always pledge to do the best he or she can to stop things? I'd rather have that second babysitter. Yeah, in other words, we wouldn't want the god of the universe as most people understand god to be our babysitters when we go out on a date.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a line. We would not hire God as a babysitter, right, yeah, that's good. Now I personally think your argument that God cannot exert all power and creatures exert some power is your easiest way for someone to make sense of the argument. It's like oh yeah, if God is all powerful, then I have no power. There's not both. Those can't be possible. Can you elaborate on that, because I think that's a very helpful way for someone to go Okay, if we, if we want to keep holding on to God has all power, we have none, and that doesn't make sense either. So how have you found this to be kind of a way of looking at this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all live our lives assuming we have some kind of power. Most of us actually think we have something like free will, and even those who deny free will act as if they have it. But we all at least even people who reject free will think they have some kind of agency. And yet if God is literally the one who exerts all power, then God is the one, the only one, with any agency. So it just goes against our basic way of living.
Speaker 2:Moment by moment it gets worse, however, because we also at least most of us think that something like moral responsibility also is linked to our agency. In other words, we blame or credit people based on their choices in relation to good and evil. It's what you do with your kids, I'm sure you know. Sometimes your kids choose something that's unhealthy or hurts them and others, and you figure out some way to try to steer them in the right direction, whether that's you know whatever the discipline is going to be. Or sometimes your kids does something really great and you say good job, we're so proud of you, which assumes they use their agency in a good way. And so if you have a God who literally exerts all power and therefore you have no agency, then all this moral responsibility stuff, our praiseworthiness, our blameworthiness, it goes right out the window.
Speaker 1:So we want to have our cake and eat it too.
Speaker 2:essentially, yeah, I think we do want to have some agency. The question is, what are we going to say about God's power, given the way we live our lives and our intuitions that we have freedom and we're blameworthy or praiseworthy, depending on the situation?
Speaker 1:Now, do you think having an open or relational theology framework is kind of a prerequisite to understanding this view of power?
Speaker 2:I think it's the best possible one that I know of. Maybe there's something else out there, but the view of power that I propose is a relational view. It says that God really does exert influence in the world. In fact, I think God is the most powerful, but God never, ever, controls anyone or anything. Or to put it another way, God never is the only power in a situation or circumstance. And open or relational thought I think provides at least the best framework I know of to talk about that.
Speaker 1:Okay, one of my questions that I'm hoping you can clarify a little bit. Good, you say this line a benevolent being who can stop evil does stop it, which seems like logic 101, but again is illustrating the problem in a lot of the ways that we Christianize things. If God is good essentially I would paraphrase it then he sees evil and he would stop evil, like if that's what God can do. I would say a benevolent God would also intervene when possible without waiting to be asked. Now I go back to the babysitter or back to a parent analogy right, if I am at the beach and one of my children, I see them drowning in the water, I am not going to stand there as a parent and say, well, if they ask me for help, I will gladly go out, swim out and save them, but I don't want to force myself on them. So, unless I hear them, meanwhile, watching them drown, like no good parent is going to do that.
Speaker 1:So where I struggle a little bit is like what really, then, is the role of prayer? Because is God really waiting right? And again, assume the things that he can control or she can control, however, one type of God, not just okay, god can't do that, but let's say this is something God could do. Is God waiting for us to ask? Because? If so, then again I go back to the analogy of then I'm better than God, because I wouldn't do that with my kids. How do you make sense of this with prayer, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I make sense of it by beginning with a few assumptions. Assumption number one In any particular moment, god is always going to do the very best possible God can do. Assumption number two God moves moment by moment through life, not in the future, not in the past, but in the moment, experiencing moments, gaining information from our relationships and what's going on in the world, but moment by moment, just like you and I do. Assumption number three God is relational. God is not only affected by what we do and what others do and what the whole universe does, but also our prayers, our activities that have some influence upon God. So, given those assumptions again, they're the assumption that God is moving through time, that God always does the very best God can do in any moment, and that.
Speaker 2:What was the third one? I already forgot it, oh, the interrelation, I guess it was. Then the question is, or the answer to your question, is our prayers in one moment, present new relational information or relational data that God can use in the next moment, in whatever situation is there? Our prayers don't make it the case that God can control, because I think God never controls and that's impossible, but God takes everything into the divine self in one moment and uses that responds to that in the next moment. So if we have that in mind, it seems like our prayers are not going to be prayers asking God to control others or control situations. They're probably going to be more prayers like God, I commit myself to cooperate with you and the actions you're up to in the world. Or prayers like God give me insight and information about how I might best exert my agency moment by moment.
Speaker 1:Hmm, you know it's interesting, I would say, after you and I talked a few years back, after your God can't book, I found myself praying differently and I think the way I would define it now, looking back I couldn't have articulated this in the moment is that I was constantly giving God permission over things.
Speaker 1:So, I think I operated this framework of okay, god doesn't want to be coercive, god doesn't want to be infringing upon any part of free will. So therefore I'm just going to constantly invite God into everything. Yeah, I think that helped a little bit and maybe it was a little bit clarifying. But where I get stuck on that is like I would never pray for healing from that point of view, because I'm thinking, God, you know, I want this healing, or for me, or for this person, right? So like that's a no-brainer, I'm fully in submission to whatever you can do here. I'm doing whatever I can do. That should be, you know, brutally honest to you. And so that's where I found myself getting stuck. I'm like, well, what am I praying? And so I think your answer is interesting of it's almost like you're saying our prayers are more about changing us than they are what we're asking God to do. Is that accurate enough?
Speaker 2:I think it's both. I think it's both. It's a change in us. But our very change in us makes it, opens up new opportunities or new avenues for God to work in the next moment. And so another way to put it is what we in the world do in one moment actually affects what is possible for God to do in the next moment.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I will pray, and I'm doing it primarily to remind myself of things. I believe I think a lot of Christians do that. But other times I'm praying because I want to sort of consciously focus on what I think might be the positive elements, the loving elements God wants of me. So a very common practice for me.
Speaker 2:For instance, when I wake up in the morning, I do a little breathing exercises and I symbolically breathe in God and then symbolically breathe out love, and I'll do that for a little while and then I'll say to myself then I'll say God, what is it that we might do today that will make my life and the life of others better? How might I live a life of love? So I'll symbolically breathe in and just sort of let my imagination run wild. I'm not sure that this is God putting these ideas in my head, but it's theoretically possible, and sometimes some of them are really great. And since I think God is the source of everything that's good, great, loving and excellent, I can say God at least inspired that. And then I breathe out and symbolically commit myself to do those things during the day.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I like that. I would say that seems to be more focused on attuning you, to be ready to be responsive. So let me scratch this itch a little bit more, because I became an open theist. The trigger point for me was the story of Hezekiah. Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:I read Hezekiah and I felt like no one was being honest about the story of Hezekiah around me, because I would ask the question like how did this happen? And the story I'm referencing is basically Hezekiah prays. He's told by God that he, as Isaiah, tells him you put your house in order, you will not recover, you're going to die. He prays to God. God hears him. God changes God's mind. So he says hey, hezekiah, you're going to get I think it's 15 more years to live. And I remember reading this going what? Now? This is a fun fact for you. I got in trouble in my ordination all the way. This is almost gosh. We're almost 20 years, almost 20 years ago now, coming out of college, getting ordained because of the story of Hezekiah, and I didn't know open theism was even a thing.
Speaker 2:I didn't ever even heard of it, I just knew like I'm seeing something here.
Speaker 1:And you know, everything I'd ever heard about prayer was like prayer changes us and I think your posture of prayer is great. That is centering you, focusing you. But there is a biblical element that prayer changes God. I'm still not quite sure with this framework. How am I changing what God can do or how am I unleashing the fullness of God in my prayers? And I'll also add this little twist I'm curious do you ever get theologically stuck when you're praying, like you find yourself just in the moment praying something and then, theologically, your brain goes God doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely I'll answer that last one first. Yeah, I mean, I developed certain habits growing up in church, especially habits related to like public prayer and certain phrases, and I had to unlearn those habits. So it doesn't happen as frequently as it used to, but it used to be the case that, like every time I prayed, I was committed to praying a prayer that I could actually believe. You know, when I got to a certain point in my life I was not going to pray cliche prayers and that meant I had to be very careful about what I said and I eventually got out of some of those bad habits that I had accumulated. But let's go back to your first question Now. I'm just to repeat myself. When I think about praying, I'm saying that my prayer is not going to make it the case that God can force something or someone, because God can't control, but there's new information and new available things for God, avenues and opportunities for God that might not have been there had I not prayed. Let me give you an illustration of how this works in our day to day lives and then apply it to God.
Speaker 2:Suppose we jump back 30 years in the life of Tom and Cheryl, my wife, back when we had very little money and we rarely ate out. Suppose I got 30 bucks and I say to my wife, hey, let's go out to our medium price restaurant that we like that we can get a, you know. Let's say it's Applebee's, we can get a two for for 30 bucks, you know. And she likes Applebee's, I like Applebee's is not our favorite, but you know it's there. So as we're going to Applebee's she is reading her phone this is 20 years ago so that probably wouldn't be but yeah, and she comes across an ad that our very favorite, the best restaurant in town, has an ad that if you bring it in, you get your two best meals. Two people can get their best meals for also 30 bucks.
Speaker 2:Now I know that that we like that food better. In fact it's probably even better for us as higher quality. But I didn't know that information until my wife told it to me. That would be new relational information that I gained in a particular moment that would then affect how I chose to act in the next moment. Now my wife could still say, no, I'm not going there because she's got free will. So that new information doesn't force us to go there, but it would probably prompt me to say well, why don't we go there instead of Applebee's, which is good, but not nearly as good? So that's an illustration of how we as humans, get new information, have a change of course. Why can't we apply that to God as well?
Speaker 1:I'm with you. I guess my question is what new information in real time are we providing God? That that God doesn't know? And so I mean, even take the story of Hezekiah, like what is God discovering? Did? Did God assume Hezekiah would embrace death? That that you know, as guy would be fine with it? And God's like oh wow, you, I didn't know you wanted to live. I I would just say, you know, with my limited, very limited knowledge you know, I don't have all knowing anything I can anticipate a lot like with my family, with my wife, with my kids, I can guess fairly accurately how they're going to react to things. So there's just times when I'm like, okay, and I think God's got that, you know, on steroids, god can Understand and knows things, even with an open view. I guess I thought I'm just, I still just get stuck like what am I? What new information, tom, am I giving God that God has already have?
Speaker 2:I think every single moment, god gets Billions of data, of new information. Now, some of those, you're right, god can anticipate as being there. But anticipating is not the same as it being actual. Let me give another story to illustrate this.
Speaker 2:30 some years ago I I buy a ring and I'm gonna go to my girlfriend and propose to her. So God knows that I have in mind to propose to my girlfriend. But until I take that ring out and say, will you marry me? The option for my wife to say yes, I will, that's not on the table. God knows it's possible, but maybe I'll get cold feet seconds before I take that ring out of my pocket. So until it's actually the question will you marry me? There are certain things that God can't present my girlfriend now my wife as an opportunity. So every single moment, things like that happen that God Think might happen but can't be sure until they actually happen, and then, soon as they do, god takes it into the life of God and then prompts Whoever it affects to have options for good or ill. In this case, I'm hoping it was an option. To say yes was the best option for God, but for I mean God inspiring my girlfriend, now my wife.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it seems like that one's worked out well for you. So I Think so too, I like, I think that I think that's helpful and, you know, I think maybe we just say God wants to keep you from eating it up a piece, that's.
Speaker 2:I Lesson for the day. I love it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think the Probably the hardest thing for me. You're helping me with the prayer in, so I appreciate that. Probably the hardest one for me, though that I I still just get stuck on. And I got stuck on it with God camp we talked about it still was stuck on it. I was stuck on it with this one, but you address it, I think, more aggressively in this book. So I was like, oh okay, but I'm I'm still still working through it.
Speaker 1:The hardest part of your argument for me to map, wrap my mind around is the physical limitations of God as a spirit, and you reference God exists out here. Therefore, when we just assume God should be able to do X, y and Z, often what we're assuming would take a physical form to do that, and God doesn't exist in that form. And so you have this line that I think is is one of your dicier lines in this book and I'm curious the feedback you've gotten on this line. I'd love to know if you've gotten any nasty emails. You say this scriptures that describe God doing such physical activities are metaphorical, not literal. While God is present to all creation and influences everything, the spirit doesn't have a divine body to literally perform these actions, claims about divine embodied action, are metaphors.
Speaker 1:So, for those of you who have not read the book, what are you saying in this is basically you, all these examples? You may be thinking right now Well, what about Abraham and this? And what about you? Know all these examples he's saying? These are, these are metaphorical representations of God, not literal. I Can go there Okay, you're not. You didn't lost me there, but here's where I get confused, since I would assume you don't think Jesus's physical body is metaphorical. How is that different?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it. Okay, let me start by making sure the folks who are part of this conversation understand why I'm get to this point, and then I'm gonna answer your questions directly. I Get to this point because I'm thinking about why it is that sometimes you and I Can stop evil, even though people are using their free will to do something else. So I think maybe in this book Maybe it's another book I give the illustration of two people walking down the street in New York. One freely turns to step into the street, to cross it, not realizing there's a car coming. The other person sees the car, reaches out, grabs the shoulder of the person stepping into the street, pulls them back, saves them from harm, which seems to be an obviously loving act in my way of thinking. But it's not controlling the other person, it, but it is thwarting their free actions. Well, if that's love for you and me to do, if it's loving for you and me to do that, then why doesn't God do that? Well, my answer to that is that God doesn't literally have a divine hand to pull people from traffic, because God is a universal spirit, in Kapoorio, to use the classic language and this is not a new idea, although not a lot of people have worked with it, but it's very common to say God is bodiless in in the theology of Christians, jews and Muslims.
Speaker 2:But it is the case that biblically there are stories of a Moses seeing God's but or Adam and Eve Walking with God in the garden, as if God is a embodied figure. So they're there I don't think they're the majority, but they're in Scripture. But then you have Jesus coming along and saying you know, god is spirit and we worship God in spirit and truth. And Ruach and Newman, all these spirit kind of language, are in Scripture. So I'm, as you rightly say, in making the claim that all the embodied talk In Scripture is metaphorical, it's trying to talk about a relational thing. In fact, I would say something even more controversial God doesn't speak, god doesn't Hear, because those things require tongues or ears, but God does communicate. So we we talk about God speaking in metaphorical ways as well. But anyway, that's that's kind of get inside track for a moment.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, I want to come back to that, because that's okay. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 2:So who doesn't like this? You know I don't get very little pushback. The only pushback I can think of that I've received from this are from my Mormon friends, because in the Mormon theology God really does have a body, in fact. Hey, little side anecdote Once when I was teaching undergraduate students, we got to talking about this issue and one of the undergraduates Sophomore said okay, does God have a penis?
Speaker 2:And so I said you know, I've got a friend who teaches theology at BYU. I'm gonna send him that that question. And he, my friend, responded by saying yes, god is large and has a rather large penis. So I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all. I'm in the camp that God is at universal spirit. But then the question comes up what do you do with Jesus?
Speaker 2:I'll be blunt, jesus of Nazareth is not God. That's heresy right there. For most people. I think I can say Jesus is divine or Jesus expresses the divine nature.
Speaker 2:But one of the essential characteristics of God seems to be omnipresence. But Jesus of Nazareth is not omnipresent. Another is that God can somehow know everything knowable. Maybe not the future, like you and I, as Open Theists, would say, but God can at least know the past. And here Jesus is walking along and a woman touches him and he feels something, power go out of him and he says who touched me?
Speaker 2:Well, that's not an omniscient being. So we have this Jesus of Nazareth who doesn't have some of the classic characteristics of God, and another one would be that this individual has a localized body and God is bodiless. Now, how do we get to that place? Well, those who have a particular view of Jesus as divine will say that Jesus momentarily or temporarily set aside all those divine attributes, took on a human body, and that's a canosis Christology. Others will say Jesus is never God in that sense, but he's divine in the sense that he responds perfectly to the spirit's activity in his life, and that's why Christians should call him divine. So there's some ways to get around that and avoid heresy, but you don't have to end up saying point blank Jesus of Nazareth is God because his body is divine, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how does, to use your wording how does the divine enter a physical body then, in the person of Jesus?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean the divine enters my body and yours right now. So my view of incarnation is that God is incarnate in all creation, not just in this Jesus of Nazareth. But what makes this Jesus of Nazareth unique is that he seems to respond properly to the call of God's presence in his life, moment by moment, and because of that he reflects the divine nature of love better than anybody I know. So he stands out as different in that way.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is a hot take.
Speaker 2:I didn't know where you were going with this.
Speaker 1:My brain is firing here. Well, this is actually.
Speaker 2:Let me say a couple of more things about incarnation, because I know that might also make people a little uncomfortable, but I'll continue to make them uncomfortable. That's what we like on this podcast. I really don't like around Christmas when people talk about Jesus as the incarnation. It makes it sound as if God wasn't around and then decided to come into history in Jesus and then, when Jesus ascends or leaves, or however you're under one, understand that God's now gonna be gone until Jesus comes back. That just totally undermines divine omnipresence. It undermines the idea that God is present in our lives, encouraging us, inspiring us, warning us, whatever. And so I think it's better just to say God is always incarnate in anything that exists, not the same as everything that exists, but incarnate in the sense of inspiring, empowering. But Jesus is unique in the way he responds to the spirit in His life.
Speaker 1:So, in that framework, how do you make sense of like? Hebrews 1, 3, the Son is the exact representation of God. Colossians 2,. This is the radiance of God's glory exact representation. What does that meaning, then, if this is just physical representation of the divine?
Speaker 2:That phrase, exact representation, reminds me of a jacket I wore in high school. The inside cover on the back. You know where the label was. It said genuine imitation leather.
Speaker 1:This is really imitation leather.
Speaker 2:This is not imitation. Imitation leather, this is genuine. And think about that phrase. Exact representation Represent means that it's not the same. It's a representing of something. If I say I'm gonna represent the United States at the Olympics, I am not the United States. I'm representing something that's other than myself. So we've got a really weird thing going on. The translators are saying one thing about exact and another thing is a representation. So I interpret that something like this Jesus gives us the clearest revelation of who God is and God's nature, and that's not the same, because it's a representation according to the text. But it's the closest thing we've got. And the radiance of God's glory. I mean, you don't have to be divine to radiate the divine glory according to the biblical passages. Lots of people do that, and even you and I can sometimes.
Speaker 1:So again, I'm not saying this, but isn't it Colossians 2 that says it's the fullness of God?
Speaker 2:It could be, I don't remember it off top of my head. So if fullness means that Jesus has 100% of everything we talk about as God, then it's clearly false, since he's not omnipresent, omniscient, all those things I mentioned earlier. So fullness must mean something different than that, and I've been proposing what that might be.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is great. Okay, so going back to your other little nugget you just dropped in there. So, if I'm understanding what you're saying, are you saying God never audibly speaks, because that would require a voice?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm saying there's. I mean, god might inspire you and I to use our vocal cords and we might say that we're God's metaphorical voices. But I'm saying that God doesn't literally have divine vocal cords.
Speaker 1:So the story of Paul and the Rhodotarsis, that is a metaphor, then.
Speaker 2:Or a better one, I think, is Jesus' baptism. They hear a voice saying this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well, please listen to him, or whatever. Yeah, wherever that voice comes from, if it's in the people's heads or if there's an actual audible voice, that must come from some vocal cords. I don't think God has those vocal cords, so God might have inspired someone to shout it from the crowd. It might be something people had in their own minds. The writer, I think Mark actually is. A couple of people have it, but whoever, that might have been something they were thinking. There's a number of ways we can account for the communication without having to say God literally has vocal cords.
Speaker 1:Tom, I would love I just thought I would love to see people watching this video right now, or see them in their cars driving going. What the hell is going on right now Like this is blowing my mind, cause I think I mean, these are ideas that are just complex. And again it's like this is why you're reading your books as a workout. It's like, wow, I'm gonna have to go process that and this is good. I appreciate the way you think deeply on this and you invite an explanation. Thanks.
Speaker 2:I think you're right that a lot of people are gonna go yeah, what in the world is going on? What's he saying? But my experience is that when I speak at universities or colleges or churches or wherever, a certain percentage of the audience comes up to me afterwards and they say you know what? I've been thinking that, but didn't have the words to articulate it, or that really matches my intuitions, but I didn't have a label for it. And so, while it is unusual what I'm saying, I think a lot of people are intuiting at least some of the ideas I'm putting on the table.
Speaker 1:No, I definitely agree, and that's why, you know, I resonate with so much of this, and it's like, yes, that you know you are literally creating words for things, that we are feeling that the words didn't exist. So you wrote a book and you made up a word, which is pretty cool, that's a pretty cool mic trap. I'm just gonna say, okay, you have a line in here and I think I know we're gonna go with this based on your last answer, but this is something I had written down my notes and, by the way, hopefully people are well into a glass or two of wine as they're listening to the podcast, so I think these ideas are way easier with a bit of there you go. You say this line God cannot do activities that entail ontological, mathematical, geometric or logical contradictions.
Speaker 1:So then I thought okay, what about the incarnation, which, again, you just referenced? I didn't know your answer. Obviously, I wrote this question Cause I, in my thought, was like well, jesus, being fully God and fully human is the definition of a logical contradiction. So, again, what do you make of that in light of that being a logical contradiction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think it's a logical contradiction. Technically speaking, it's called a paradox in the tradition and the question would be is it a logical paradox or some other kind of paradox? And most of the scholars would say it's some other kind of paradox. Because if you look at the majority, in fact 90 plus percent, of Christian theologians and philosophers, and for that sake also Jewish and Muslim, they're all gonna agree with me that God can't make one plus one equal 237. They're gonna agree with me that God can't make a round square. They're gonna agree that God can't make a married bachelor. They're gonna agree that God can't make a rock so big. Even God can't lift it. So all of these conceptual, logical, geometrical, mathematical conundrums that I lay out there I'm not the weirdo putting those out there they are widely accepted. What makes me different in this book is I put a bunch of them on the table in my argument to show that, talking about omnipotence, in order to do it responsibly, reasonably coherently, you have to make so many qualifications that I think the word loses its power.
Speaker 1:And I think you absolutely make that point in the book and to those who are listening or watching, if you're going, yeah, I don't know, you gotta give this book a read, because we're kind of assuming that premise, because I don't wanna. You know you do such a good job in that in the book I wanted to get to bonus material for those who read it. Okay, let's get to your word that you made up. You coined a new word to help offer a solution. I always love when someone's gonna point out a problem, but they're not just gonna leave you with the problem, they're gonna offer a better way forward Amipotence or something along those lines. They do my P-O-E-N-C-E's For those who are going. What are they saying? It is a new word that he has coined in this. Here's what you say about it.
Speaker 1:How different is amipotence from the usual views of God? This is easier if they see it, but you have to listen to it. An impotent with an I, god would watch from afar or be present without engaging. An omnipotent God would control always or on occasion and therefore be responsible for all that occurs, both good and evil. But the amipotent God loves by empowering and inspiring, and part of the evidence for the strength of amipotence comes in positive, creaturely responses. That if I had to give like one quote that just like puts all the blocks together for me, that was when I was like, wow, that is so powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. I should have put it on the back cover of the book. That's a nice summary of my argument, isn't it? You're welcome.
Speaker 1:You can quote me on that. I just wanted to, I just wanted to. Here's my question on that how can someone watching or listening, how can they incorporate this view into their life?
Speaker 2:Well, there's so many dimensions to that. Maybe, if you're asking about incorporating into their life in terms of like conceptualizing it, I think a fairly good analogy not perfect, a fairly good analogy is talking about three types of parents. There's some parents who try to manipulate, dominate. They basically they're helicopter parents and they try to control their kids and we all know that that's very unhealthy. The kid doesn't thrive, kid doesn't have a sense of self. It's just bad parenting. There are other parents who have a total hands-off policy. Some of them are literally not with their kids, some abandon them. But others are kind of present but they don't have any interaction, any engagement whatsoever. They're absentee parents.
Speaker 2:But I think most people know that the best parents are engaged. They do influence, they try to teach their kids to love and demonstrate examples of love. They try to nudge, coax, encourage their children toward thriving. And that's an in-between space between doing nothing or relatively nothing and trying to control. And that's the amipotent God. The amipotent God is constantly loving you and I as parents, we're not constantly. We try our best, but this God is constantly loving because constantly present. You and I can't do that because we're localized. This God could be with our kids at school and wherever they're at you and I can't do that all the time. And this God, moment by moment, encourages, nudges, warns, et cetera, with the aim of promoting their wellbeing, but never, ever, ever controls.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I think you're offering a better view of God Once you get there and go. Oh, this is actually a really compelling, beautiful version of God and, yeah, I think for people to experience a God like that would be a game changer for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not only experience God, but it's kind of like the way I'm trying to live my life. I mean, I actually think that we should imitate that God. I think the Apostle Paul is right in what is Ephesians, chapter 5, when he says Imitate God as dearly beloved children and live a life of love like Christ loved us. So Christ is our sort of representative of what love looks like. But ultimately I'm actually trying to imitate the God of the universe.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got a few few all-encompassing questions that I like to ask people. I've got a new one adding to this episode. You're the first one, but this is going to be a reviewer, but I love comparing people's answers on these, so here's a new one I got from a previous guest. That was one of the questions they get asked. They asked on their podcast and I thought I'm stealing that because it's so good. What is something that's blowing your mind right now? What blows Thomas J Ord's mind? I want to know.
Speaker 2:I've been on the podcast listener. I've been walking around while exercising trying to get my mind around the philosophical dimensions of the AI phenomenon, and so my mind is being blown as I'm trying to bring in the data. The computational power required for AI is just mind-blowing to me. I'm trying to work philosophically on how to understand that. So there you go.
Speaker 1:Have you done much with AI in your own work or no?
Speaker 2:Some the book I'm currently writing. I'm using AI for some things, like I'll give it a prompt and then take what they give me and change it, make it mine. Sometimes I'll ask it questions, like I'm writing a book now called God After Deconstruction, and so one of the chapters is on church abuse. So I went to AI and I said what are the top 10 reasons people are saying or ways in which people are saying the church has abused them? And so they'll give me a list and I'll look at that and I'll take some of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Very cool yeah. What do you see as the main issues facing Christianity in America today?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean setting aside God's power. Well, no, let's work with God's power. One of my favorite lines in this book that we've been talking about is a line I make about Donald Trump. To give you a little background, I make some arguments in this book that if you believe God is omnipotent, then you ought to believe that God either installed every political leader, or at least allowed them to be installed when God could uninstall them at a whim, and this creates all kinds of problems. And so I make the argument that if you think there's someone in power who shouldn't be there, let's look at Donald Trump, since I'm not a Trump fan.
Speaker 2:If you think that Donald Trump got elected into power but shouldn't be there because he's not a good representative of God's loving ways in the world, and yet you think God is omnipotent, you got a real problem on your hands because this God isn't taking Donald Trump out of power single handedly. This God allowed the voters to put him into the presidency. So you know, most evangelicals I know don't have a problem with omnipotence, and then, when Biden gets in the White House, they got to figure out what to do with that. You know they've got their own things, but I'm more thinking about people like, who are moderate to progressive Christians, moderate to progressive Christians. This is an argument for why you ought to stop calling God omnipotent. If God's omnipotent, god wanted Donald Trump to be president of the United States, and if you can't believe that, then give up on omnipotence.
Speaker 1:There you go. I was like, wow, fine, you know, now I got to go and do something. Well, that's great. What do you see as some of the main issues facing the church in America today?
Speaker 2:Right now I think the queer issues are the number one issue that, at least in the churches I'm a part of. That's the question, and I'm a fully affirming person and I'm trying to encourage the denomination I'm a part of to become fully affirming. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but I think that's the biggest question. Will the church in America become really love queer people by affirming their healthy sexuality, their identities, their orientations, et cetera?
Speaker 1:Just I'm curious to say I see you taking this on all the time you know online from afar. What's the overall response you've received to that?
Speaker 2:You know it varies. There's some people who are really encouraged and it's fun to see the community of folks who are encouraged that has developed, it's incurred, it's emboldened others to take a stronger stance. But of course the critics are come back and they're upset. I'm actually was charged with teaching against doctrine and I was told I was going to go to trial this last fall. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will happen soon. So yeah, there's real consequences toward taking that kind of stand.
Speaker 1:Okay. When you say go to trial, what do you talk about here?
Speaker 2:The Nazarene thing, yeah, the denominational thing. Yep, the manual stipulates that a person who is charged with the teaching doctrines contrary to the church has to face a trial of seven jurors. It has to be in their region. So yeah, that's what I've been given official papers saying is going to happen to me.
Speaker 1:You get flogged if you lose, or how does this work?
Speaker 2:I'm not exactly sure, but I assume if I lose, I will lose my credentials as an ordained elder. That's what I assume is at stake, but I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 1:To anyone who thinks it's easy to stand for what you believe in you keep finding examples of what it costs you. Yeah and I'm not the only one.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are others in my denomination, others in others' denomination, so yeah, there's a lot, but what's the problem you're trying to solve right now?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people are deconstructing for legitimate reasons. They're getting rid of bad ideas about God, they're pointing out the faults of the church, they are pointing out the faults of Christian nationalism and people who don't understand religious pluralism all kinds of things like that. I think deconstruction is legit in the vast majority of cases, but most people don't know there's a better alternative, a better view of God that can overcome the crap that they rightly reject. So what I'm trying to solve today in this part of my life is to present that alternative vision, because I think a lot of people are grasping for it and hoping for it, but just don't know that it's there as a possibility.
Speaker 1:That's so good. What's something you're excited about right now?
Speaker 2:Can I talk about the Center for Open Relational Theology? Go for it. I'm excited about this is going to sound like a promotional plug.
Speaker 1:This question is what do you want to plug?
Speaker 2:Okay, there's five events coming up in the next seven months or so that I'm excited about and I'd love to invite your listeners to. One is a live event at Drew University called God After Deconstruction February I think, 10th and 11th. The second is a fully online event called Open OrteLine 24, open and Relational Theology, and we're looking at 25 books written in the last year and having panel discussions, so like an hour a book over a three-day period, that's February 22 through 24. Then in April there's another God After Deconstruction conference in Denver, but it's preceded by a conference called Persuade, which is asking the question what does Open, relational and Process Preaching look like? And that's the Denver area. And then finally, this summer, ortecon 24, open and Relational Theology conference at Grand Targi Resort a whole week getting together and talking about Open and Relational Thought at a resort at 8,000 feet between the Teton Mountains and Yellowstone. There you go, I'm excited about those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would be. That sounds like a good time. Well, hey, I so appreciate this conversation. Is there anything that I didn't ask you, that you're like I wish you would have asked, or anything you feel like you didn't get a chance to talk about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to say something that I was going to say kind of in the middle of it and then I forgot to.
Speaker 2:You know you began earlier in the conversation. You mentioned me writing this book God Can't, which is written for a wide audience and it's explaining why God exists and is loving but can't prevent the evils in the world. And you can imagine, with a book with that title, you know it gets lots of controversy but also lots of good nature jokes, and one of the things that came up over and over again is that people were clear that I thought God can't stop evil single-handedly, but they weren't as clear about what I thought God actually was doing in the world. And this book that you have been talking about today the death of omnipotence and the birth of amipotence that last chapter is trying to spell out how I think a loving God actually is at work in the world in powerful ways, but always an uncontrolling way. So, as you said at the start, this book is kind of a natural flow from the God can't, except it has this more constructive chapter at the end when I'm proposing amipotence.
Speaker 1:Did you consider calling it God can?
Speaker 2:I have considered that possibility. This is what God can do.
Speaker 1:And when. I talk about things God can't do. Yeah, hey, tom, I seriously just want to thank you again. You are a super busy guy with tons of things on your plate, and just the fact that you spend the time with us means the world to me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I heartily endorse it to all who are watching and listening.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 1:This is a great resource, again, not an easy book to read in the sense of. You've probably not thought this way about God or heard this often, but I do think, just to encourage you. I do think there are more and more people looking for something like this and going okay, the rest of the stuff that we got was garbage. Is there anything better? And part of why even this podcast exists is to show people there are other ways to think about this. There are other people exploring God and trying to make sense of this and not the ways that you had to deconstruct, and many of us have had that journey, and so I just want to say thank you personally on behalf of all of us in that community. Thank you for being a voice offering a way forward, offering solutions, charting the course with new words. I mean, you're doing it all seriously. Thank you for today. We really appreciate all that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Thanks for those kind words, jeremy, and thanks for the opportunity to have this chat, because you've clearly taken this book seriously and picked out some of the most, I think, compelling parts of it, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, make sure you quote me on that. That's part of the recovery. Well, everybody, thank you for tuning into another episode of Cabernet and Pray. I mean, you might need to go dive into another bottle with a friend and unpack this episode together and we don't know what that looks like. But hopefully this is a lot to think about, a lot to process and hopefully realize maybe God's even better than you had believed possible. So love that you're part of it, love that you are sharing this with your friends and with others, and we'll catch you all next time.