A Systematic Theology of Love

A review of Thomas Jay Oord's new book

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Perspectives

Musings | June 29, 2026

Thomas Jay Oord is a new friend and colleague whom I admire greatly for his work as a “God is love” theologian. He is an up-and-coming figure in the progressive Christian world. He is an independent scholar with a PhD from Claremont School of Theology, where he studied under the noted theologian, John Cobb. Tom served on the faculty of an evangelical Church of the Nazarene seminary until he was pushed out for his progressive theology, and he lost his ordination in that denomination because of his affirming stance toward queer sexuality. We have swapped books and had lively conversations about the focus of his writing and teaching.

Tom is a proponent of what he calls “open and relational” theology, which is grounded in the work of Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead’s early 20th century project was to develop a philosophy and a theology that would be compatible with quantum mechanics in physics. His essential insight was that the fundamental entities of the universe are not “things” but rather are “events” that result from relationships, and that God is the mediator of the creative process of novel events continually coming into being. On this structure of process thought, Tom Oord has built a new edifice of theology, aiming his work at a lay audience as well as to his fellow academics. His work is exceptionally readable.

My introduction to Tom’s work was “God Can’t”, his book focused on the problem of evil. How can a good God allow evil to exist in the world? His answer is that God can’t stop evil, because God’s nature is love, and love is not controlling. Love does not force, but rather attracts. So due to God’s loving nature, God can’t prevent bad things from occurring.

Early in “A Systematic Theology of Love,” he offers lists of reasons to believe and disbelieve in God. He goes through the traditional arguments for God’s existence and finds all of them inadequate. It appears that his own basis for belief in God is a Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” that admits the absence of any firm proof for it. After a period of doubt in his youth, he came back to belief in God: “I wanted to think my life and life in general were ultimately meaningful. I couldn’t imagine how this could be true if there were no ground of ultimate meaning most people call “God.” This need for meaning didn’t prove God’s existence, of course, and even today I’m not certain. But my quest for meaning led me back to belief…. I felt that love must answer our most important questions…. I surmised, therefore, that a Lover exists as the impetus for my intuitions of love.” (pp 50-51). Toward the end of his book, he cites the “problem of good” as an argument for the existence of a personal God: he feels there must be a source of the positive values that originate beyond our whims. He also cites ecstatic experiences in his life that have “nudged” him toward belief in God.

But I find it jarring to read his many definitive pronouncements about the nature of God, given his admission of uncertainty that this God exists.

Tom cites 1 John 4:8 – “God is love” – but he says that love is not God. For him, God is a “person” who cannot help but love the world and love us. A “person” whose love lures all of creation toward the promotion of well-being. But for him, this “person” isn’t love itself. As he wrote, “When biblical writers instruct readers to ‘love one another,’ they’re not telling them to God one another. Love is an action, while the Spirit, I will argue, is a universal person. Persons don’t act, acts don’t person.”

For Tom, God is an incorporeal omnipresent being whose actions cannot be effective without the cooperation of human beings and other entities. Rather than through the exercise of “omnipotence”, God acts through “amipotence” – the attractive power of love, which Tom defines this way: “…to love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being”.

I invite Tom to put his theology on a firmer footing by releasing his string-thin belief in God as a distinct “person,” and embracing not only that “God is love” but also that “love is God.”

Tom is devoted to love – he has no doubts about love’s existence. Upon this unshakeable foundation, he can put his prodigious scholarship and brilliant writing skills to bear.

If God is love and love is God, then God is a relational consciousness that, to put it in Martin Buber’s terms, turns every “it” into a “you.” To put it in terms of Moses’ encounter with Yahweh in the burning bush, the love that is God is the pure awareness that “I AM,” flowing into compassionate consciousness that “YOU ARE.” In the Christian mystical tradition, the goal of contemplation is union with this divine consciousness. The goal is to come to the point Paul reached when he wrote “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”… when one recognizes that one’s true self is not the ego, the body, or the personality, but rather is Christ-consciousness itself. In this sense it can be said that God is every person who is awakened to this consciousness – without God being a distinct, separate entity or “person.” Love is not only something we practice: it is the very essence of our existence, the core of our being. God is the “I AM” of every person who loves unconditionally. We call this love “God” because we know it to be sacred: we experience it as the supreme emergent property of the unfolding of the universe. It is “the crown of creation.” The emergence of unconditional love is a turning point in the natural history of the cosmos: it is the universe awakening to appreciative awareness of itself.

This consciousness isn’t a matter of theological speculation. We know it to be real, because we experience it. But traditional concepts of supernatural divinity, along with Tom’s formulation of God as a “person,” are irrelevant to our experience. What difference does it make to us, or to anything, whether such a divine being exists or not? Clearly, morality does not depend on it. We now know from studies of animal behavior that positive values arise through the process of evolution. Morality is natural: there’s no need to assume that it has a “transcendent” origin. Society won’t fall apart in the absence of a personal God, nor will it collapse for lack of belief in it. Scientific inquiry has no need of it. Tom thinks of God as a “person” who showers love on us and on all creation. But there is no evidence of this love being attributable, in any particular instance, to such a divine “person.” We might find it comforting if such a divine “person” existed, but that longing does not translate into any evidence for it. That longing is not enough of a foundation for a plausible theology.

Tom is agnostic about the existence of personified evil: “When it comes to a devil, demons, or even angels, I find the words of the cosmologist Laplace appropriate: ‘I have no need for that hypothesis.’” (p 381) Laplace uttered that line to assert that there was no need to posit a supernatural God in explaining planetary motions. It is ironic that Tom invokes Laplace’s statement, because it applies as well to everything Tom claims about God’s action and influence. He offers no descriptions of any particular events or realities that are “nudged” into existence by a personal God. He says that God creates only in cooperation with all the entities in the universe. But that leaves us with the obvious question how his personal God’s love influences any outcomes. He gives us no reasons to think that the absence of God’s cooperation would make any difference in the creative work of the universe’s entities. Tom starts with a tenuous assumption that there is a personal God, while recognizing that traditional understandings of such a God are seriously problematic. He then comes up with a concept of a personal God that doesn’t violate common sense and science – but it is a God that doesn’t matter. We “have no need for that hypothesis.”  There is no evidence that the existence or non-existence of such a God makes any difference in the workings of the cosmos.

In order for theology to matter, it must be grounded in experience and practice. Unconditional “agape” love is unquestionably real, and it matters supremely! Throughout history, contemplatives in Christianity and other faiths have focused not on matters of belief or doctrine, but rather on the direct experience of God as all-consuming, all-embracing, divine love spilling over into acts of compassion. A systematic theology of love should have no need for speculation about matters outside the realm of experience. To say that God is love, and that love is God, is clear and simple. But to practice that love in the very many challenging circumstances of our lives is far from clear and simple! It is a subject worthy of tomes at least as thick as Tom’s.

Tom Oord’s “A Systematic Theology of Love” is a compelling and useful book. Along the path of his central argument, he offers a rich overview of theology from Augustine to the present, and this alone makes his book worth reading. Tom’s voice is an important one in progressive Christianity. Through the many conferences and retreats he hosts, he lifts up new voices for our movement, as well. He and I may differ in our theological premises, but we are united in promoting a theology centered on love.

The Rev. Jim Burklo is pastor of United Church of Christ of Simi Valley, California. This post is republished from his Substack blog.