Does Anyone See God?

Although biblical writers make diverse claims, most portray God as a personal agent who communicates with creatures. God reveals. They also portray creatures as at least sometimes able to perceive divine revelation. We experience God.

Biblical descriptions of revelation vary, however, and if we take them literally, contradictions abound. To propose a coherent account of divine revelation that aligns with scripture, systematic theologians must choose among competing biblical claims about divine communication and creaturely perception. They must decide which language to regard as symbolic or figurative and which is more straightforward or descriptive.

Many biblical passages say the Spirit is invisible.^[1] God is quoted as saying, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Ex. 33:20). The writer of 1 Timothy says “no one has seen or can see” God (6:16), and John’s gospel and letters say the same: “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18; 1 Jn. 4:12). These passages and others suggest that God, in principle, is not someone whom creaturely eyes can see, not now and not in the past.

Other scriptures, however, describe humans seeing God. Jacob claims to “have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered” (Gen. 32:30). Aaron’s benediction refers to God’s face: “The Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you, and give you peace” (Num. 6:25-26).^[2] Isaiah says he “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (6:1, 5). And God says that Moses “shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen” (Exod. 33:23).

So… can we see God or not?

Manifests in Physical Forms?

Some theologians say God occasionally manifests in physical form. These alleged appearances are theophanies. In them, says Wayne Grudem, “God took on various visible forms to show himself to people.^[3]” Theologians Guy Duffield and Nathaniel Van Cleave put it bluntly: “He who made all beings and things can, for His wise ends, assume any form that suits His purpose.^[4]” Many who affirm this view say creatures can’t see the divine essence, but the Spirit can take on a body to accomplish a task.^[5]

If the Spirit can take on forms, the problems of evil and divine hiddenness escalate. After all, a loving Spirit who can manifest in physical form should do so often to stop genuine evil. A loving God would also take on forms to reveal wisdom in obvious ways. The deity who does not take on forms to stop evils is guilty of negligence, and the God who voluntarily hides is culpable for allowing creatures to embrace harmful ideas about deity. If divinity can take on physical forms, God doesn’t love consistently.

Other scholars say biblical passages that describe humans seeing God are figurative or symbolic expressions of intimacy. They’re not literal sightings of the Spirit.^[6] Expressions like “face to face” suggest relational closeness. Passages that say God is “high and lifted up” don’t describe actual viewings of an elevated deity; they’re symbolic expressions of worship and awe.^[7] And biblical passages about seeing the Spirit’s back express the inability to know deity fully. They don’t mean Moses saw the God’s butt.

I side with those who interpret scripture as saying no one sees God. Creaturely eyes can’t detect an invisible deity. Never. Biblical passages that describe sightings reflect intimate experiences with or partial knowledge of God. They aren’t literally true. Even passages that talk about seeing God face to face in the future (e.g., 1 Cor. 13:12) describe increased intimacy, not future viewings.

I also reject the notion that God sometimes manifests as a body or shapeshifts to take a form.^[8] Theophanies are symbols that describe an increased awareness of the divine presence; they’re not physical manifestations of deity. I take this stance because the problems of evil and divine hiddenness compel me to portray God as steadfastly loving and uncontrolling. And because this stance enjoys good biblical support, although not every biblical passage fits.

The Spirit communicates, but no one literally sees God.

Does Anyone Hear God’s Voice?

A great number of scripture passages describe God speaking. And many biblical writers attribute verbal communication to divinity. They also describe creatures hearing from God. The Bible includes a great deal of divine speech and human hearing.^[9]

Despite the number of biblical passages that describe humans hearing God’s voice, some passages object to the idea. In John’s gospel, Jesus says, “You have neither heard [the Father’s] voice at any time nor seen his form” (Jn. 5:37). The Apostle Paul (apparently quoting Isaiah) says, “No ear has heard…what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Many passages describe God as silent or refusing to speak, so humans do not hear God’s voice, at least temporarily.^[10]

Far more frequent are biblical passages that say deity speaks and creatures hear. Adam and Eve hear God’s voice in the garden (Gen. 3:8), for instance. Abraham hears the angel of the Lord’s call from heaven (Gen. 22:11-12). God speaks the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1), and Moses recorded them. Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send?” (6:8) At Jesus’ baptism, a “voice from heaven” says, “This is my son…” (Mt. 3:16-17), and at the transfiguration of Jesus, disciples hear something similar (Mt. 17:5). While the church worships and fasts, the Holy Spirit says, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul…” (Acts 13:2). An angel says, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev. 3:22).^[11] From Genesis to Revelation, we find examples of God speaking and humans hearing.

Saying that creatures hear God’s voice leads one to wonder how divine speaking occurs. How could a bodiless Spirit talk? An incorporeal deity would have no mouth or body parts associated with speech. To my knowledge, no scripture passage says God has vocal cords, and none mentions divine sound waves. The Spirit does not seem to have the bodily capacities needed for verbal communication.

People of faith often say God speaks through creatures, especially humans. The creatures through which God speaks convey revelation in their own voices and words. Jesus makes this claim when he tells his disciples, “it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Mt. 10:20). This view makes sense only if we think the creatures involved must discern what the uncontrolling Spirit is communicating. Unless one believes God controls, saying creaturely voices and words convey divine revelation simply pushes back the question of how these communicators perceive the voiceless and mouthless Spirit.

Overcoming the Problem?

One theory about divine speaking overcomes the problem. It says that what people identify as God’s voice is actually word-thoughts, intuitions, or voices in our minds.^[12] Hearing God’s “voice” is like sub-vocal thinking, something budding readers do when they mentally vocalize. And it’s like what most people do when they talk to themselves in their heads. Biblical scholar C. H. Dodd describes this phenomenon when says the biblical writers firmly believed that God spoke “to the inward ear.^[13]”

This theory fits much of, if not all, the biblical witness. Often, biblical writers say humans hear God’s voice in a dream or ecstatic state. But they’re not saying divine sound waves hit human ears. Think of Samuel hearing God while sleeping, for example, or the Apostle Paul hearing a voice on the road to Damascus (1 Samuel 3:4–10; Acts 22:6–9). Or think of Julian of Norwich, who in solitude wrote Revelations of Divine Love.^[14] Each of these people likely heard voices, but those voices were at least partly generated by their minds. This “hearing” didn’t involve divinely-generated sound waves hitting their ears.

Saying that past and present claims about hearing God’s voice are actually thoughts and voices in our heads does not mean humans entirely fabricate revelation. If the Spirit always influences all creation, this influence would include the thoughts and voices in our heads. We can rightly believe, therefore, that voices in our heads may communicate messages that reflect what the Spirit intends. Our intuitions, impressions, ideas, hunches, nudges, and inaudible voices may reflect divine revelation. We might also believe that what other creatures say reflects well the inner voices and hunches they have about the Spirit’s communication.

Of course, creaturely voices and thoughts sometimes don’t reflect the Spirit’s communication. At least not reflect it well. Sometimes, they reflect other influences more than deity, whether self-derived or external. And we can’t be certain the inner voices and thoughts we and others hear express God’s communication perfectly. Christopher Cook is right when he says, “There is a danger in too much self-confidence in one’s own experience of hearing God’s voice, or in certainty of one’s own ability to identify or interpret God’s voice correctly.^[15]”

Even biblical writers were sometimes not confident the revelation they received was from the Spirit.^[16] “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God,” says John on this issue (1 Jn. 4:1). And the writer of 1 Thessalonians tells readers to “test everything” (5:19-22). Even when our confidence in divine revelation is rather strong, we may misunderstand. We’re fallible.

God communicates, but a bodiless Spirit can’t literally speak.

Other Puzzling Language

Perhaps most puzzling are the biblical passages that, if taken literally, portray divine revelation and human perception in confusing ways. The writer of Ephesians, for instance, talks about “the eyes of your understanding” or “eyes of your heart” (1:18). Hearts don’t have eyes; eyes don’t understand. Paul says that through the natural world, “God’s invisible qualities . . . have been clearly seen” (Rm. 1:20). But if something is invisible, it can’t be seen, let alone clearly. Jesus is recorded as saying “the pure in heart shall see God” (Mt. 5:8). How does having a pure heart enable literal eyesight? Biblical writers sometimes identify God as light, but they also say deity can’t be seen.^[17]

The same is true of biblical language about God communicating. Yahweh answers Moses with a voice of thunder (Exod. 19:19), for instance, and divinity speaks out of fire (Deut. 4:12). But thunder and fire aren’t voices. God talks to Moses from a burning bush, but bushes have no mouths (Exod. 3:2-6). A disembodied hand writes a message on a palace wall, but severed hands can’t do this (Dan. 5:5-28). Yahweh “speaks” and Elijah hears a “still small voice” or “the sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:11-13). But silence has no sound, and a still voice can’t literally be heard.

This language is not just in scripture; we use it today. We’re told to “listen to” our bodies, for instance, which means we should assess our pain, passion, or fatigue. This doesn’t mean listening for sound waves by our bodies. When our bodies are “telling” us something, they’re not using words. To describe trying some new activity, some say they want “a little taste.” This doesn’t mean they’ll lick it. And when we overcome confusion, we might say, “Now, I see.” This doesn’t mean we were previously blind or were closing our eyes.

These examples indicate that biblical writers and everyday people use sensory language in non-literal ways. I take these statements to be clues about how we should regard biblical references to God speaking or creatures hearing a divine voice. Just as we don’t take literally the idea that hearts have eyes, we shouldn’t take literally descriptions of God talking. Humans can’t actually see God’s face, smell the Spirit, and so on. And when people talk about “the hand of God,” they shouldn’t mean a literal hand. Thomas Aquinas was right: “It is impossible for God to be seen by the sense of sight, or by any other sense.^[18]”

We cannot perceive an incorporeal God with our senses.

Despite this, I believe creatures do experience God. I think we directly perceive divine revelation. Part of my explanation for this involves recognizing that much of what we know doesn’t come from our senses. It comes from nonsensory perceiving.

(This is an excerpt from a fuller essay available to paid subscribers on Substack. See this link for info.)

In a chapter of my Systematic Theology of Love, Volume Two, I’m addressing the question of whether creatures can perceive God. Such questions connect to the problem of divine hiddenness. This problem wonders why an omnipotent and loving God’s self-disclosure isn’t obvious to everyone.

The problem of divine hiddenness doesn’t simply ask why God isn’t obvious. A host of answers could be given to that question, from blaming rebellious sinners to claiming God is self-absorbed to saying finite creatures can’t fathom an infinite deity. In its strongest form, the problem of divine hiddenness asks why an all-powerful and all-loving deity doesn’t overcome the obstacles that prevent people from perceiving God in obvious ways.

An all-loving God would want to self-reveal to enable loving relationships with all. That’s part of what “all-loving” means. An all-powerful God could overcome every obstacle that prevents creatures from knowing deity. That’s part of what “all-powerful” entails. But this allegedly omnipotent and loving divinity isn’t obvious to everyone. And some people who seek relationships with God fail to experience them, at least in the ways they expect.

The Bible Says God Hides

The writer of Isaiah says God hides: “Truly you are a God who hides yourself” (45:15). The Psalmist also assumes God chooses not to self-disclose: “How long will you hide your face from me?” (13:1). The Psalmist also asks God, “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (10:1). During his suffering, Job says, “If I go forward, [God] is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him” (23:8).

The problem of divine hiddenness includes the problem of ambiguous and contradictory revelation. Those who say they’ve experienced God sometimes make claims that contradict what other believers claim. And sacred writings — including the Christian Bible — have contradictions, include mistaken perspectives, and lack clarity. An omnipotent deity could singlehandedly fix these problems, and yet they remain.

The Problem of Divine Hiddenness

J. L. Schellenberg is an influential contemporary philosopher in discussions of hiddenness. He says a loving deity would want to self-reveal to anyone seeking meaningful relationship with the divine. But some sincere seekers fail to experience this relationship. As a result, many conclude that God doesn’t exist. Unreciprocated seekers are, therefore, evidence against the existence of an all-loving and all-powerful deity.

We might formulate Schellenberg’s argument like this:

1. God is all-loving.

2. An all-loving God seeks meaningful relationships with everyone capable of them.

3. Meaningful relationships require that those in them believe the other exists.

4. An all-loving deity would want to ensure that no sincere seeker lacked belief in God’s existence.

5. An omnipotent deity could ensure that no sincere seeker lacked belief in God’s existence.

6. Yet many sincere seekers come to doubt that God exists.

7. Therefore, an all-loving and omnipotent God does not exist.

Responding to the Problem

Most responses to the problem of divine hiddenness aren’t persuasive. Some say God hides to inspire moral growth. Others say God provides confusing messages because crystal-clear revelation would undermine free decisions to know and love God. To these responses, we might ask, Would a loving parent hide as a tactic to develop healthy relationships? And would a caring parent confuse their children to facilitate moral development?

No. Good parents make their love obvious and provide clear instructions about what matters. A good divine Parent does the same. “If you who do evil know how to give good gifts to your children,” asks Jesus rhetorically, “how much more will your Father in heaven give good things?” (Mt. 7:11). Besides, children confused or abandoned by parents suffer psychological damage. Deception and neglect harm dependents, and an all-loving Spirit wouldn’t engage in such behavior.

Skeptical theists respond to the problem of divine hiddenness by claiming God must have reasons to hide from or confuse us. We just can’t fathom them. Most skeptical theists say deity is omnipotent and, therefore, could reveal in unambiguous ways. But on questions that matter most, they play the mystery card. Skeptical theism is an explanatory dead end.

An adequate systematic theology of love offers plausible answers to why revelations can be contradictory and some sincere seekers don’t find relationships with God. Before I propose such answers, let’s look at divine revelation in scripture.

(For the material preceding this and the material after, see the essay “Perceiving God” on my Substack account.)

This book is the second in a projected three-volume set proposing a systematic theology of love. I’ve been very happy with the sales of the first volume and the feedback from readers. Many people sent notes expressing their appreciation that I was undertaking a sustained exploration of love from a systematic perspective.

Most reviews I have received from readers of the first volume have been positive and constructive. As I expected, some reviewers disagreed with points here and there. Others expressed their wish that I had expanded on particular points. And, not surprisingly, some asked questions about topics I aim to address in volumes two and three. But the overall response to Volume One has been extremely positive. I’m grateful!

This volume two picks up from the first by addressing divine revelation. It moves to issues surrounding to incarnation and the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. A chapter on the Trinity will come after a discussion of Jesus. Following a sequence common to systematic theologies, the issues of sin and salvation are then addressed. As in the first volume, I address these key topics from the perspective of love. My claims about divine and creaturely love expressed in the first volume are brought to bear on topics in the following volumes.

Before exploring these topics, let me recap ground I covered in volume one.

An Open and Relational Systematic Theology of Love

I began the first volume by saying that, to my knowledge, I am writing the first book with the title, A Systematic Theology of Love. That this is the first with that title should surprise us, given the centrality of love in scripture and the witness to love by people of faith. Many people consider love primary to understanding life and establishing healthy relationships with one another and creation. Because Jesus of Nazareth lived a life of love and made love central in his teachings, Christians have additional reasons to prioritize love in their theological reflection. Love matters most.

Rather than love, most systematic theologians take sovereignty, glory, grace, or a related issue as their orienting concern. But most themes taken as central clash with love, because most theologians assume God is impassible, timeless, and omnipotent. Those systematic theologies fail to resolve the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and say God determines our destinies. An impassible and timeless deity does not engage in give-and-receive relations with creatures.

Admittedly, the word “love” has many meanings. Biblical writers use love words in diverse ways, and we find diverse theological visions in sacred writ. For instance, sometimes New Testament writers use the Greek word agape to describe divine love, but other biblical passages they use agape in ways that don’t describe what’s good and godly. The same is true of other biblical words translated “love.” Confusion reigns.

If a systematic theologian is to make love their regulative idea and propose consistent doctrines in light of that idea, defining love well proves crucial. I define an act of love as acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, with the aim to promote overall well-being. This definition differs from other definitions on offer. For instance, Augustine equated love with desire, and many theologians have not thought love essentially relational. Defining love as active and relational distinguishes this systematic theology from those that portray God in all respects unchanging, non-personal, and essentially independent.

This systematic theology of love operates from an open and relational perspective. While open and relational theologies come in many forms, they champion the idea that God is relational, and the future is open to everyone, including God. These theologies are known for rethinking divine power, affirming genuine creaturely agency, and taking experiences of life seriously. This theological framework is ideal for those who prioritize love, both creaturely and divine.

It doesn’t do much good to write a systematic theology of love if there are not good reasons to think God exists. People of faith appeal to various sources and arguments to justify belief in divinity, however. Scripture, religious traditions, personal experiences, and nature are among these sources, but none successfully prove that God exists. Arguments from creation’s design, beauty, causation, morality, and more have merit, but are not, in themselves, convincing as proofs.

A fair assessment of God’s possible existence includes arguments against the existence of deity. The two strongest are the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness. These problems and others underscore the importance of asking what kind of God might exist. The best arguments against belief in God assume deity is omnipotent. If we deny omnipotence, the case for God’s existence grows stronger.

We can make a good abductive case for God’s existence. Drawing from experiences, various sources, reason, and more, we can make better sense of reality as we experience it if we posit a divine Lover. Such positing gives us ground to affirm ultimate meaning and make sense of our intuitions about love. Put another way, it’s plausible that an uncontrolling God of love exists, but we can’t be certain.

God is the Universal Spirit Who Always Loves

Love is the orienting concern of this systematic theology, and God is considered the universal Spirit who always loves. Although few systematic theologies prioritize love, most theologians say God loves. But what they mean by this statement is often inconsistent with their other claims about God, and it fails to match love as we know it. When addressing divine love, I use the same definition I use for creaturely love, although God’s love differs in scope, mode, degree, and so on. In other words, God loves by acting intentionally, in relations with creatures, to promote overall well-being.

Biblical writers repeatedly speak of God as an agent who loves. But the Apostle John goes further and says, “God is love.” This succinct phrase is best understood as meaning love is God’s primary attribute, and the personal Spirit loves by necessity. Divine love is self-giving, others-empowering, uncontrolling, and pluriform. God is also gracious, merciful, compassionate, and just, although not in the way many traditional theologies have understood these words.

One of my unusual claims is that God loves freely in one sense but necessarily in another. Love is an essential attribute of the divine nature, so deity must love. That’s necessary. But how God loves is freely chosen in ongoing relations with creatures who move into an open and unknown future. Those expressions of love are contingent. In short, divine freedom bows to love’s logical supremacy in God’s nature.

Closely related to love as God’s primary attribute is the common claim that the divine ontology is spirit. Jesus described God as spirit, and deity is often compared to breath, wind, mind, gravity, breath, and the spark of life. As an active and universal agent, the universal Spirit of love does not have a localized divine body. But this Lover of all is active, receptive, intentional, living, and universal.

To say that God is spirit does not mean divinity is entirely immaterial. As the living God, deity has both material and mental dimensions. These dimensions are required to make sense of how a universal God intentionally affects all creation and is affected by it. The material dimension causally influences creatures, and the mental aspect intentionally does so in loving ways. Material-mental creatures respond.

Saying God is a Spirit who loves assumes God has a personal dimension. The writers of Christian scripture often portray God as a personal being among other beings. But saying God is personal leads many (wrongly) to assume deity must have a localized divine body that is geographically in one place but not others.

To overcome problems that arise from thinking God has a localized divine body, theologians like Paul Tillich say God is being-itself. This move carries its own problems, however. It’s impossible to make good sense of God as a giving-and-receiving, personal lover if deity is being-itself. Other theologians say God is beyond the categories of being. But this also makes it difficult to think or talk about the Spirit as a lover.

At the heart of the problems that arise from considering God as being itself or beyond being is that, philosophically, “being” is a static word. Static portrayals of deity are at odds with the dynamic activity of giving-and-receiving love. We better describe the universal, dynamic Spirit as always “becoming.” The universal Spirit who always loves is an everlasting series of divine occasions of experience. Rather than onto-theology, we should embrace what I call “gino-theology.”

God as Amipotent not Omnipotent

(To read the entire chapter, become a paid subscriber on Substack. Click here.)

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“No, I believe against him.”

It was a clever retort. If to “believe in” something is to give support to it, then we shouldn’t believe in a Devil. We should oppose sin and evil, and we should believe against them.

But my professor didn’t address the question being asked. He was sidestepping, as many professors must do when teaching in conservative institutions.

In this essay, I want to address the question head-on: Does a personal, ontological being called “the Devil” (or some similar name like “Satan”) actually exist?

The Devil and Demons?

In my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love , I address the question of the devil and demons. I do it in the context of considering issues of evil.

Exploring evil leads naturally to considering the possible existence of a devil and demons. For many people of faith, these evil characters seem ontologically real and at least partly why evil occurs. Belief in evil spiritual beings predates scripture, can be found in the Bible, and continues today.

Like N. T. Wright, I reject the idea of an eternal dualism of good and evil. I think an essentially good God exists and creates everlastingly. I also reject the eternal dualism of good and evil found in some forms of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. Elements of these ancient belief systems permeate some theologies and persist to this day.

A Devil Can’t Have Divine Attributes and Abilities

If the devil exists, I don’t believe it has the unique divine abilities I mentioned in earlier chapters. For instance, the devil isn’t all-knowing. He isn’t universal, isn’t maximally powerful, isn’t all-wise, isn’t everlasting, and so on. If the devil and demons exist, they have limits typical of creatures.

The devil and demons would be unable to control others, for instance, in the sense of being sufficient causes. Claims about demon “possession” would be inaccurate, if by this some mean demonic forces control us or others.

Many people think the devil and demons are spiritual agents, primarily due to their being invisible. Although localized, they apparently have a composition like the invisible, divine Spirit. Material-mental monism stipulates that the devil and demons, if they exist, have mental and material dimensions that can’t be seen.

People also believe demonic beings influence creatures negatively. As spiritual beings, however, they don’t have the physical capacity to pick up objects like we and other creatures have. They wouldn’t be able to control the weather through bodily impact, for instance. Their influence would primarily be mental or psychological, by luring or threatening. They might induce those with bodies to do evil.

Evidence for the Devil?

Beyond scripture, the evidence for a devil and demons typically comes from experiencing profoundly negative events or strangely harmful behavior in creatures. Some people attribute hallucinations, temporary changes of voice, flying objects, predictions, extraordinary strength, and other strange activities to demonic influence.

Some people who believe in a devil or demons attribute all evil to them. But others agree with St. James that “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires” (1:16).

All this remains highly speculative, of course. And the biblical witness doesn’t settle these questions. Biblical writers can be wrong about various aspects of nature and cosmology, so they could be wrong about the existence of a devil or demons. Scriptural references to them could be metaphors.

But in assessing their possible existence, we should ponder fairly the possibility that a devil and demons exist as ontological beings. And we should consider the possibility that their existence partly accounts for profoundly negative and odd occurrences. It’s an open question.

How Should We Respond to the Question of a Devil and Demons?

I’ve offered a description of what these negatively-inclined beings could be like, and we can see how they’re generally described in the Bible. But this systematic theology is agnostic on whether they actually exist.

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.” This systematic theology of love doesn’t outright reject the possibility of a literal devil, demons, or angels, but it doesn’t require them to make sense of reality.

If a devil or demons do exist, these spiritual beings would be negative influences in creation. Their negativity and tempting are freely chosen and likely have become habitual. But like all creatures, demonic beings could repent and, thereby, join in God’s salvation. They are not inherently evil; even the devil is redeemable.

If the devil and demons don’t exist, we can account for unusual and strangely negative behaviors in other ways. The material-mental monism model I’ve proposed in various places in A Systeamtic Theology of Love provides a conceptual framework for this accounting. In an enchanted and unpredictable world of dynamic creatures, strange things can happen.

Events some think are the result of demonic spirits might instead be the influence of dynamic entities and creatures with unusual mental and material dimensions. The more we explore the implications of material-mental monism, in fact, the greater its ability to account for the diverse and unusual expressions of existence. The world can be a strange place.

Conclusion

A growing awareness of how systems lead to evil has prompted many theologians to appeal to the demonic not as ontological beings, but as a way of describing negative systems, habits, and propensities. I’ll address this issue in later chapters of A Systematic Theology of Love when I explore sin.

Invisible systemic forces do incline us toward injustice. But those forces don’t need to be actual demons or a Devil.

When it comes to the Devil, I don’t need to believe that hypothesis.

This is the first book ever written with the title, A Systematic Theology of Love.

I say this after scouring libraries and databases looking for books with this title. I found none. Perhaps a book with this title was written long ago or went unpublished. But to my knowledge, this is the first book called A Systematic Theology of Love.

Why?

One might think those who believe God is supremely loving and who also value conceptual consistency would have written many books with this title. The bald claim, “God is love,” is found in Christian scriptures, after all, and both Hebrew-language and Greek-language portions of scripture champion divine love.

Theists in Islam, Judaism, and other religious traditions also champion love and say God loves creation. And yet, to my knowledge, no one in those traditions has written a book called A Systematic Theology of Love. In the first chapter of this book, I address this “Why?” question, while also defining love and explaining open and relational theology.

Unusual Theology

This is the first of a three-volume systematic theology. As the subtitle indicates, I address in this book the doctrine of God proper, including the usual issues theologians ponder. But the responses I give to those issues differ from traditional fare. In some cases, those differences are radical!

The majority of this book addresses the details of what it might mean to believe in a loving, universal Spirit whom most of us call “God.” I address issues like God’s nature, what it means to be a spirit, divine knowledge, God’s relation to time, divine incorporeality, what it means to say God loves, whether God is personal, divine becoming, God’s relationality, and so much more.

An entire chapter is devoted to explaining why theists should stop saying God is omnipotent. But another chapter is devoted to a replacement view of divine power: amipotence.

God and Creation

In the second part of this book, I address God as creator. I reject the creation from nothing theory and offer an alternative that I think better fits scripture, reason, science, and experience. That alternative says God is “the Ever Creator.”

I also wade through a host of issues pertaining to providence. Those issues include miracles, creaturely free will, the problem of good, emergence, agency among smaller entities, divine-creaturely collaboration, material-mental monism, and God’s will. In one chapter, I explore the problem of evil and solve it.

Formats

This book is now available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. The audiobook is so long I divided it, calling the second audiobook, “The Ever Creator and Amipotent Providence.” That second audiobook covers chapters 11-15.

As usual, I’m working with a host of online book distributors. In addition to Amazon, look for the book at your favorite outlet.

I’m excited to offer this new book, A Systematic Theology of Love! And I look forward to hearing responses from readers. For the Amazon link to the book, click here.

In my newly published book, A Systematic Theology of Love, I put love at the center of my theology. I argue that God is the ultimate lover. And I emphasize the Johannine claim, “God is Love” (1 John 4:8, 16).

But how should we understand, “God is love?”

God IS Love

The biblical text is open to a variety of interpretations. But after exploring this variety, I’ve come to think that “God is love” means that love is an essential attribute of the Spirit’s nature. The Spirit loves, because love is what deity does.[1]

God inevitably loves, no matter the condition of creatures and creation. And God loves everyone and everything, in the sense of acting for their good. God is not free to do otherwise.

To put it another way, there are no circumstances in which deity exists and doesn’t love creatures. And because not even the Spirit can change the divine nature—God “can’t deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13)—the Spirit of Love should be understood as essentially loving.

Jacob Arminius Says God is Necessarily Not Freely Good

Theologian Jacob Arminius helps us understand how God loves by nature and, therefore, necessarily. Arminius argues that God doesn’t freely decide to be good. “It is the summit of blasphemy to say that God is freely good,” he says. “God is good by natural necessity, according to his entire nature and essence.”[2]

God’s essential goodness is at stake in this debate. “If God be freely good, that is, not by nature and natural necessity,” Arminius argues, “[God] can be or can be made not good.” After all, “as what anyone wills freely, [God] has it in his power not to will; and whatever anyone does freely, he can refrain from doing.”[3] Therefore, God is, according to Arminius, necessarily and not freely good.

Applying Arminian Logic to Love

When we apply this way of thinking to God and love, it means the Spirit isn’t freely loving. With Arminius, we should say that God loves by nature. If God were to decide freely whether to love, God could freely decide not to do so. Not even God could keep God from doing evil, because love would not have logical priority nor be the Spirit’s reigning attribute.

If love doesn’t come first among God’s attributes, there’s no reason to think God will always love us. Or has always loved us. To put it negatively, we can’t trust a God whose nature isn’t love. Such a deity could break bad; the divine could do dastardly deeds. Put positively: we can always trust the Spirit whose nature is love and, therefore, loves necessarily. This Spirit always acts for the good of creation.[4]

Is God’s Love Also Free?

When I explored the definition of love in an earlier chapter of A Systematic Theology of Love, I said love involves freedom. I also said various forces, factors, and actors limit a lover’s freedom. So, does saying the Spirit necessarily loves mean my love definition doesn’t apply to God?

No, it does apply. God loves by necessity in one respect but freely in another. By nature, the Spirit must love, because love comes before choice in God. The divine nature limits what the Spirit can do, if “limit” is the right word for this logical entailment based upon a metaphysical reality. To the question whether the Spirit will love, the answer is God loves necessarily.[5]

But God loves freely as an experiential free agent. As the Spirit moves moment by moment into an open future, deity freely chooses which forms and expressions of love to enact. God can’t be certain which will yield the best results, because the future isn’t something actual to be known, and creatures freely contribute to outcomes.[6] To the question of how the Spirit loves in each moment, therefore, the answer would be that the Spirit freely chooses among the best options in relation to creation. In this sense, God loves freely.[7]

Only in God does love necessarily come before free choice. After all, God is love.

Scriptural Diversity on Love

Saying the God who is love also freely chooses how to love fits important aspects of the scriptural witness. According to scripture, God sometimes regrets and repents.[8] To regret is to wish one would have made a different choice. To repent is to make a different choice than previously or change plans about what will be done in the future. Regretting and repenting language assumes God makes free choices among possibilities, and God can’t be certain which will be most fruitful.

To claim, as I have, that God necessarily loves all requires me to deal with biblical passages that portray God as unloving. For instance, the writer of Malachi has God say, “I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert” (1:2-3). Because God is love, in the sense of necessarily loving, I interpret this passage to reflect the writer’s perspective and not the truth about God.[9] This portrait of the divine comes from mistaken humans.

Does God Need to Be Reminded to Love?

Or take the story of God’s reaction to Israel making a golden calf to worship. The writers of the book of Exodus have God say, “I have seen these people, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them” (32:9-10). But Moses says to God, “Turn from your fierce anger; relent and don’t bring disaster on your people” (32:12). Moses then reminds God of the promise of ancestors and land. Exodus says, “the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (32:14).[10]

I don’t think God needs to be reminded to do good, and I don’t think God ever considers destroying or hating people.[11] I conclude these scriptures don’t accurately portray God. To claim God necessarily loves, therefore, requires us to interpret some biblical passages as reflecting the misunderstandings of the writers that penned them. While the overall portrayal of God points to a Spirit of steadfast love, some passages (wrongly) portray God as unloving.

Or take the writer of Hosea as one who offers diverse biblical language about God and love. At times, God is portrayed as one who threatens humiliation upon Gomer/Israel because of her unfaithfulness. But these threats aren’t genuine, because the text also says the compassionate Spirit can’t abandon or destroy the beloved.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart recoils within me;

my compassion grows warm and tender.

I will not execute my fierce anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim,

for I am God and no mortal,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath (Hosea 11:8-9).

When the writer portrays the Spirit saying, “I am God and no mortal,” we find a fundamental distinction between the One who must love and creatures who can choose not to love. This passage suggests that God’s nature is love.

All of these examples suggest that biblical writers, like us, were learning what love looks like.

Conclusion

To say God loves necessarily in one sense and freely in another overcomes a host of theological problems that arise in most systematic theologies. It allows us to say love is God’s superessential attribute — the divine “heart.” But because God freely chooses how to love, the Spirit is not an automaton.

For more, I encourage you to read the entire chapter from which the excerpt above comes.

^[1] Ilia Delio writes powerfully about God’s nature of love in The Emergent Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2012).

^[2] See Works of James Arminius, William Bagnall, trans. (London: Derby, Miller, and Orton, 1853), 344, 345.

^[3] Ibid., 345. Emphases added.

^[4] John Peckham addresses issues like these in The Love of God: A Canonical Model (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015). He argues that God’s love for the world isn’t necessary but also not arbitrary. Given that Peckham predicates God’s love ultimately upon the divine will, I see no way he can overcome the charge of arbitrariness. On this, see Peckham’s chapter, “The Volitional Aspect of Divine Love.”

^[5] Some open and relational theologians put God’s free choice logically before God’s nature. Or they affirm divine freedom and dismiss divine essence altogether. For reasons I note in this and future chapters, I disagree. But for examples of open and relational thinkers who prioritize freedom above all else, see Paul Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) and Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2024).

^[6] Ryan Patrick McLaughlin explores this in relation to my claims about amipotence. See his arguments and my response in “The Loving God Incapable of Love,” originally published in Amipotence, vol. 1, Chris S. Baker, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[7] The helpfulness of distinguishing between God’s nature and experience seems to have eluded Arminius, influenced as he was by Luis de Molina.

^[8] Terrence Fretheim writes often and well about divine repentance in scripture. In addition to Fretheim’s books, see “The Repentance of God: A Key to Evaluating Old Testament God-Talk,” Horizons in Biblical Theology, 10.1 (1988), 47-70.

^[9] John Wesley assumed problematic biblical passages could be interpreted to affirm God’s love. “No scripture can mean that God isn’t love, or that his mercy isn’t over all his works.” See “Free Grace,” The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, Vol. 3 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1984), 556. On Wesley’s hermeneutic of love, see Rem B. Edwards, “John Wesley’s Non-Literal Literalism and Hermeneutic of Love” Wesleyan Theological Journal 51:2 (2016):26-40; Edwards, John Wesley’s Values — ​And Ours (Lexington: Emeth, 2013).

^[10] On this story and others like it, see Matthew Korpman, Saying No to God: A Radical Approach to Reading the Bible Faithfully (Glen Oak, CA: Quoir, 2019); J. Richard Middleton, Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2021).

^[11] Eric A. Seibert addresses divine violence well. See Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009); The Violence of Scripture: Overcoming the Old Testament’s Troubling Legacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012).

Some people think of God as personal, others as impersonal, some as a force, others as a concept or set of relations. I like to say God is spirit. But what does that mean?

Below is an excerpt from my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love. It addresses this issue.

God’s Spiritness

Theistic traditions speak of deity as Spirit or a spirit.[1] We find this true to varying degrees in Christianity (pneuma, ruach, spiritus), Judaism (ruach and shekinah), and Islam (ruh), although the meanings of “spirit” vary greatly in these traditions.[2] Those in Bahai, Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions also use spirit language to talk about deity, and many indigenous peoples and animistic traditions speak of the Great Spirit.[3] Theologian Jay McDaniel rightly concludes that “Spirit isn’t reducible to Christianity.”[4]

How each tradition understands “spirit” varies, of course, and this diversity increases when one looks at movements and figures within each religion.[5] But the fact that many religions think of God as spirit is highly significant for making sense of divine universality, incorporeality, and invisibility.[6] Conceiving of God as Spirit also orients us toward our experiences of the divine within history. A universally interactive Spirit can’t be contained by any person, any tradition, any creature, or even any universe.

Using “Spirit” as a word for God involves speculating about divine ontology or God’s being. Spirit language prompts us, says Sharon V. Betcher, to think of God “within the planetary and cosmic milieu.”[7] As a self-described “crip” theologian of disability, Betcher argues that emphasizing God as Spirit points us to present realities, including our suffering and embodiment.[8] This same Spirit, says Betcher, can be seen as an “ever newly emergent force for making the world go on” despite suffering, disability, empire, and more.[9] The language of God as a loving and wise Spirit supports diverse forms of flourishing here and now.

Many others speak of God’s spiritness.[10] Biblical scholar Marcus Borg says divine spiritness “stresses relationship, intimacy, and belonging.”[11] Feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson says Spirit “evokes a universal perspective and signifies divine activity in its widest reaches.”[12] Reformed Theologian Jürgen Moltmann says divine spiritness “means that God is present in creation and in history in the ungraspable, life-giving energy.”[13] Womanist theologian Deloris Williams says, “the Spirit is the sustaining presence of God who enables survival, giving Black women energy to endure and resist.”[14] And Amos Yong, the preeminent theologian of Spirit, says, “God is Spirit, and . . . ​the Spirit is the one who creates, renews, and empowers all cultures to respond to God in their own tongues.”[15]

In this chapter, I address these key dimensions of God as Spirit. Note I’m exploring God’s composition as a universal and incorporeal spirit. I’m not yet addressing what some Christians call the Holy Spirit as the third member of the trinity.[16] I’ll address trinitarian issues in a later chapter.[17] Here, I’m exploring the ontological “stuff” of which divinity consists: spirit.[18]

Jesus Describes God as Spirit

Although various scriptures call God “Spirit,” Jesus identifies the very stuff of the divine as spirit. The writers of John’s gospel record Jesus saying, “God is spirit” (4:24). I read this not as a reference to the third person of the Trinity but apparently a statement about the composition of the divine.

This statement comes in Jesus’ conversation with a woman from Samaria. The woman has come to this conversation alone, and she’d been married many times. Jesus’ disciples would have considered her a foreigner and a member of a false religion. In other words, in this story this Samaritan was of the “wrong” faith, at a place not considered holy, without community—and also female, while not maintaining the primary relationship of wife that society expected.

Jesus tells her that worshiping God isn’t confined to mountains or Jerusalem. He twice says believers “worship God in spirit and truth” (4:23, 24). Then Jesus says, “God is spirit.” The point seems to be that true worship will be possible anywhere and for anyone, because God is a universal spirit rather than a localized object or regional deity. The Spirit of Love, it’s implied, isn’t confined to sacred spaces, groups, genders, social expectations, or religions. God is uncontainable.

What is Spirit?

Like “love,” biblical writers use the Hebrew and Greek words we translate “spirit” in diverse ways. The two most common words for spirit are ruach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek). Each word occurs about 400 times in scripture. Later, the Latin spiritus was used for both words.

Biblical writers often use “spirit”’ when referring to God,[19] but sometimes they use it for air, wind, or breath.[20] Other times, “spirit” refers to a spiritual being[21] other than God, such as angels, demons, or other deities. Sometimes “spirit” refers to minds, hearts, or souls.[22] Other times, it denotes a general way of thinking, an attitude, or pattern of living.[23] The diversity of meanings can be bewildering!

Unfortunately, the context of the biblical word translated “spirit” doesn’t always indicate clearly which meaning applies. Consequently, biblical translators make choices when rendering the ancient languages. Wise people can nevertheless disagree on how to interpret the biblical passages in which we find the word for “spirit.”[24] The word is slippery.

The diversity of meanings should remind us that biblical writers are grasping to give an account of themselves, the world, and God.[25] Their accounting has always been influenced by various experiences, cultures, theologies, and more. Accounts of God and reality will never be perfect—even in the Bible. We have license, therefore, to draw from ancient descriptions without being wholly constrained by them.

Although analogies and metaphors can’t ever account for God fully, I turn to four analogies I believe help make sense of God as an invisible, incorporeal, and universal spirit.

God is like wind or breath

We find comparing God to wind or breath typical in scripture, and this analogy has several advantages. A common word for God in the Hebrew scriptures, yahweh, is pronounced as if breathing in and out. Jesus compared God to the wind and said it influences us without our knowing from where it comes (Jn. 3:8). We can see the wind’s effects, because we observe tiny particles whisked about, see trees swaying, or feel a gust. These effects point to the fact that wind and breath have causal force and a physical dimension.

Just as we can’t directly see wind and breath, however, we can’t see God. In fact, we seem unable to perceive God with any of our senses. People of faith typically say at least some events reflect divine causation. But most can’t articulate well how God’s causal influence works, even though they perceive themselves as affected by an unseen Friend, Comforter, Presence, or Force. The Spirit influences.

We can find at least two downsides to comparing God to wind or breath. First, airy entities don’t typically have intentionality. We don’t think of breath and wind making free choices, thinking, or acting purposively. And they don’t love. I will argue that the Spirit does all of these activities and more.

Second, we don’t usually think of wind and breath as universal. We inhale or exhale air in a particular place, and we feel a gust in a specific locale. Every atom comprising a rock, for instance, isn’t present to air. By contrast, the universal Spirit is directly present to all.

The breadth of divine Breath is ubiquitous.

God is like a personal mind

Greek and Hebrew words translated “spirit” sometimes refer to minds. Thinking that God might be like a mind has advantages, because minds have intentions, make decisions, plan, and learn. Minds typically have a subjective unity and are aware. To give an account of ourselves as experiencing subjects, in fact, it makes sense to say we are or have minds. Denying the reality of creaturely minds would be self-refuting; only minds are capable of the psychological activity of denying!

Talking about God as a Mind also has the advantage that minds both influence and are influenced. Creaturely minds are affected by bodies, events, and creation, and they show affect in response. We can’t perceive creaturely minds with our five senses. A scientist can’t cut open a human cranium and see a mind mingling amongst the brain and neurons. Likewise, we can’t see the invisible Spirit.

To say God is mind-like,[26] therefore, aligns with saying the Spirit is an experiencing subject with subjective unity. The Spirit is affected by creaturely others, and it affects them. And just as we can’t see minds when we cut open heads, we can’t perceive the divine Mind with our five senses.

But there’s a downside to comparing God to creaturely minds: our minds aren’t omnipresent. We typically think of minds as residing in a person’s head. They’re localized. Creaturely minds also apparently have a beginning, but, by contrast, an everlasting Spirit has no origin. To talk about the Spirit as mind-like, therefore, we have to be careful to add that God is universal and everlasting.

God is like invisible gravity

To my knowledge, nothing in scripture compares the Spirit to gravity. Neither Jesus nor the biblical authors were conscious of gravity in the modern sense, although they felt its effects. Many people today also function with no cognitive knowledge of gravity, and yet it influences them moment by moment. Most scientists consider gravity universal, although this universality can’t be measured and gravity’s pull varies in intensity.[27]

Similarly, an invisible Spirit influences even those not cognitively aware of its existence.[28] That includes those who deny the reality of God. Like gravity, the Spirit exerts causal or attracting influence, despite not being able to see it.[29] Like God, gravity appears to be universal.

The downsides of comparing God to gravity prove similar to the downsides of comparing the Spirit to wind and breath. Gravity as an active force doesn’t have intentionality, make free choices, think, or act purposively. Gravity can’t love, if one thinks love involves acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being. Deity is like gravity in some ways, but God is unlike it in others.

God is living

Biblical writers often say God is “living.”[30] And we sometimes identify “spirit” as active life or a life-force, either when talking about creatures or Creator. According to the biblical witness, the Spirit is dynamic, animated, and organism-like.[31] Rather than dead or static, the Living Spirit affects creation, and creation affects deity. God is a dynamic actor.[32]

Combining the Spirit as living with the Spirit as breath, various biblical writers say divine breathing is a creative force in the universe. In the book of Job, for instance, Elihu says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives me life” (33:4). The Living Spirit enlivens others; Life creates life.

We can see one disadvantage in this way of thinking in the tendency to imagine a Living God having the same limitations as creatures. Living creatures have limited influence, for instance, because they’re always located in a specific place. Living creatures are also typically embodied (ghosts being a possible exception), whereas the Living Spirit is universal and doesn’t have a divine body. And living creatures are born and die; God remains everlasting.

In sum, saying the Spirit can be compared to wind, breath, or air points to the causal force of an invisible deity. Saying the Spirit is like gravity acknowledges God’s invisible but universal influence. Saying the Spirit lives indicates that deity is a dynamic, relational actor. And saying the Spirit is like a mind supports the intentionality and relations necessary for love. Rightly understood, these various claims and images trying to capture the universal, incorporeal, and living Spirit support the notion that God acts intentionally, in relational response, to promote overall well-being.

More

For more on how I think about God as the universal Spirit who loves, see A Systematic Theology of Love.

^[1] For a classic exploration of God and/or ultimate reality as Spirit or spiritual, see Ninian Smart’s book, The Religious Experience of Mankind (New York: Scribner, 1969).

^[2] Grace Ji-Sun Kim explores the relation between spirit and chi in The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

^[3] See, for instance, JoJo M. Fung, “The Great Spirit in Indigenous Peoples’ Lives and The Future of Pneumatology,” Asia Pacific Mission Studies: Vol. 6: 1.6 (2024). Available at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/apms/vol6/iss1/6; Vine Deloria, Jr., God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (New York: Fulcrum, 1992); Randy Woodley, Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonialized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2022).

^[4] Jay McDaniel, Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism (St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2000), 5.

^[5] Amos Yong has done immense work in applying pneumatology to interreligious dialogue, especially with Buddhism. See Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003); The Cosmic Breath: Spirit and Nature in the Christianity-Buddhism-Science Trialogue (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow Through the Middle Way? (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

^[6] Many Hindu and Indian religions speak of God or ultimate reality as spiritual consciousness. On this, see Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969); Swami Padmanabha, Evolution in Divine Love: The Eternal Becoming of God, Soul, and Matter (Inword, 2025); Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927).

^[7] Sharon V. Betcher, Spirit and the Politics of Disablement (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), 2.

^[8] Ibid., 3.

^[9] Ibid., 24.

^[10] In some ways, my work is an example of what LeRon Shults and Andrea Hollingsworth say is the 21st century task of “interpreting the experience of the Spirit of the biblical God.” See The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 89.

^[11] Marcus Borg, The God We Never Knew (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 71.

^[12] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 83.

^[13] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, Margaret Kohl, trans. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 9.

^[14] Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 127.

^[15] Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 18. For others who equate God and Spirit, see Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996); Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995); Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990).

^[16] Blair Reynolds addresses the Holy Spirit from a process theology perspective. See Blair Reynolds, Toward a Process Pneumatology (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1990).

^[17] Pneumatology. I am grateful to Amos Yong for his conversations and writings on pneumatology. I consider him to be the expert on the spirit. Among his many books on pneumatology, see Spirit of Love (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012). Sallie McFague explores the advantages and disadvantages of calling God “Spirit.” I find none of her disadvantages convincing. See Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 169-71.

^[18] Among those who have written well on the spirit, see Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture, and Community (Cleveland, TN: CPT, 2009); Michael Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012); Bradley Shavit Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2013); Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996); Joshua D. Reichard, Pentecost, Process, and Power (PhD diss., University of the Western Cape, 2010); Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God-Christ-Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006).

^[19] See Gen 1:2; Exod 31:3; 2 Chr 15:1; Matt 28:19; Mk 1:8; 3:29; 12:36; Lk 1:15, 35, 41; 2:25–26; Jn 20:22; Acts 1:2, 5, 8, 16; 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Thess 4:8.

^[20] See Gen 3:8; 6:17; 7:15; Exod 15:8, 10; Num 11:31; Job 1:19; 9:18; Ps 1:4; Prov 25:23; Eccl 1:14, 17; Isa 11:4; Ez. 37:7-10; Jn 3:8; Heb 1:7.

^[21] See Mt 8:16; Mk 1:26; Lk 24:37; 4:36; Acts 19:12.

^[22] See Gen 7:22; Gen 41:8; Gen 45:27; Deut 2:30; Job 7:11; Ps 51:10; 51:17; 77:6; 78:8; 143:4; Prov 15:13; 17:22; Isa 26:9; Lam 4:20; Mk 2:8; Lk 23:46; Rom 8:16; 1 Cor 2:11; 1 Cor 5:5; Col. 2:5.

^[23] See Isa 29:10; Rom 8:15, 11:8; Eph 2:18; 2 Tim 1:7.

^[24] Jack Levison notes that a theologian’s presuppositions incline her toward particular pneumatologies. “With so many references to spirit in scripture, a plethora of possible starting points present themselves, each of which will lead in a distinctive direction . . . ​The choice of a starting point therefore determines the sort of pneumatology a reader cultivates.” John (Jack) R. Levison, “The Spirit in the Christian Bible,” St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, Brendan N. Wolfe, et al., eds. (https://www.saet.ac.uk/ Christianity/TheSpiritintheChristianBible Accessed: 19 December 2024).

^[25] Michael Lodahl explores Jewish and Christian understandings of Spirit in Shekinah/Spirit (New York: Paulist, 1992).

^[26] In his writings, Keith Ward often compares God to a mind. For an example, see Sharing in the Divine Nature (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020). See also Wm. Curtis Holtzen and Roberto Sirvent, eds., By Faith and Reason: The Essential Keith Ward (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2012).

^[27] Jay McDaniel compares the Spirit of love to plasma in “Felt, Not Grasped: The Spirit as Plasmatic Love,” in Renewing Faith, Sheri Kling, ed. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[28] Among those who compare God to gravity, see Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being (New York: Orbis, 2014); Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, Bernard Wall, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1960); Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, Emma Craufurd, trans. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952). Bradford McCall brings together a collection of Philip Clayton’s writings under the title, God and Gravity (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018).

^[29] Philip Clayton explores the action of the Spirit in a collection of essays called Adventures in Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2008).

^[30] E.g., Deut. 5:26; Ps. 42:2; Matt. 16:16; Acts 14:15.

^[31] “When spirit is understood as pure, undifferentiated consciousness, it fails to express the personal character of God.” John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Scribner, 1966), 152.

^[32] Rory Randall makes a strong argument for the compatibility of open and relational theology with Spirit-oriented theologies. See An Open Theist Renewal Theology (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2021).

Why is love not given prominence?

I’ve not conducted an official survey to answer this question. But here are my guesses based on my readings and interactions:

Love Has Many Meanings

In English, “love” has many meanings, and this diversity leads to different languages of love and connotations. For instance, there are significant differences between loving strangers, romantic partners, ice cream, family, God, enemies, and rock-n-roll. And yet “love” is used to describe them all. The meaning of love lacks clarity.

It’s not just that love has multiple meanings in everyday use; love also has multiple meanings in scripture. Biblical writers don’t use the Greek and Hebrew words we translate “love” consistently. And some translators consider a variety of biblical words not usually translated “love” as synonyms for the word.[1] Consequently, there are multiple biblical theologies of love, because the scriptural witness is multi-vocal.[2]

We might wonder, for instance, whether biblical writers instruct us to love the world. God “so loved the world,” says the Apostle John, and many biblical writers say believers in Christ ought to love one another. But other writers reject love for the world. John’s first letter says, “Don’t love the world or anything in the world” (1 Jn. 2:15-17). And the writer of 2 Timothy chastises Demas because “he loved the world” (2 Tim. 4:10). So, should we love the world or not? In these cases, the meaning of “love” changes depending on the context.

We find other examples too. Sometimes biblical authors endorse love for oneself (e.g., the second greatest commandment).[3] Or they assume self-love would be natural (e.g., Eph. 5:28). But other times the biblical writers criticize self-love (e.g., 2 Tim. 3:2). So, should we love ourselves or not? We can point to many instances in which biblical writers say God wants us to forgive and love our enemies. But other biblical passages have God saying, “show them no mercy” (Deut. 7:2) and seemingly endorsing violence toward enemies (e.g., Exod. 23:27; 1 Sam. 15:1-3).[4] Does love do violence or not?[5]

We can’t solve these conflicting biblical claims by simply examining the Greek or Hebrew words for love. In fact, the word translated “love” in the conflicting New Testament passages above is agape.[6] Agape has many meanings in the Bible, and those meanings don’t always agree with one another. When love has such diverse connotations, theologians will be tempted to choose an orienting concern other than love to anchor their systematic theologies.

If love is to be central in systematic theology, we need to address its meaning.

Theologians Rarely Define Love Well

A second reason systematic theologians have not taken love as their central theme relates to the first: few theologians define love clearly.[7] Even “those who write best about love,” says Jules Toner, “devote very little space to considering what love is.”[8] Without a clear and coherent understanding, we can’t craft a clear and coherent theology of love.

The few who do define it often choose definitions that undermine love’s primary meaning in the Bible. Flawed definitions often lead to flawed conclusions. St. Augustine is a perfect example. Although biblical writers mostly use “love” to describe actions that promote abundant life, blessedness, or well-being, Augustine defines love as desire.[9] Countless theologians adopt his mistaken approach.[10]

In Teaching Christianity, Augustine poses a question: “How does [God] love us?” Because Augustine defines love as desire, he thinks God desires by either enjoying or using us. If God “enjoys us,” says Augustine, “it means he is in need of some good of ours, which nobody in his right mind could possibly say.”[11] We have nothing of value, according to Augustine, because God already has all values eternally. So, God can’t love/desire us in the sense of needing us.

Because he defines love as desire, Augustine says God loves by desiring what’s valuable.[12] Being wise, God desires only the most valuable. This means, says Augustine, God only desires/loves Godself. The world and its creatures aren’t of highest value, so God doesn’t love them, at least not for their own sakes.

The only way God can love/desire us, according to Augustine, is to use us. “He doesn’t enjoy us, but makes use of us,” he says. “Because if he neither enjoys us nor makes use of us, I can’t find any way in which he can love us.”[13] Augustine realizes his definition of love leads to a problem. Because he believes God must be entirely self-sufficient, Augustine says God “doesn’t make use of us, either.” At least not “in the same way as we use things.” He explains: “Our making use of things is directed to the end of enjoying God’s goodness.” But “God’s making use of us is directed to his goodness.”[14] In short, God only loves Godself. By defining love as desire, therefore, Augustine is forced to conclude that God doesn’t love the world.

Still more problems arise for Augustine because of his unhelpful definition of love. According to him, creatures love properly when they desire what’s most valuable. The most valuable is God. Consequently, proper desire doesn’t involve love for neighbors, oneself, or creation, at least not for their own sakes.[15] We shouldn’t actually love one another.

Augustine tries to explain this contorted view: “Every human being, precisely as human, is to be loved on God’s account,” he asserts. “All things are to be loved for God’s sake.”[16] We should “take pity on each other,” he says, “so that we may all enjoy [God], not one another.”[17] This means that “when you enjoy a human being,” says Augustine, “you are really enjoying God rather than the human being.”[18]

With Augustine’s definition of love as desire, it’s difficult to make sense of even the most basic Christian themes about love for neighbors or love for ourselves. And given the confusion this definition of love has generated, it might be tempting to say defining love at all must be misguided venture. Love is inherently indefinable, says one argument, because words can’t capture love’s profundity. Consequently, only fools would attempt a systematic theology of love.

I agree with those who say words can’t capture love fully. But words can’t capture God fully either, and yet theologians write tome after tome. No definition captures all relevant truths of any subject, person, or activity. But words convey some truth, and they’re necessary for written communication. An adequate systematic theology of love, therefore, must define love clearly and use it consistently, while admitting that words can’t capture love fully.[19]

Systematic theologians often fail to define love and define it well.

Systems Can’t Capture Love

A third possible reason theologians don’t write systematic theologies of love pertains to skepticism of grand belief systems. Although good systematic theologies attempt to account for God and reality, some theologians give the impression their systems capture all truths. An all-inclusive system would be the Final Word.

By contrast, I doubt that any systematic theology can address everything. Some of the largest and most comprehensive—e. g., the work of Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth—fail to account for crucial ideas. God and the world are bigger than any system. Theologians who realize systems of thought can’t capture love fully, therefore, may choose not to write systematic theologies of love.

My systematic theology also isn’t the final word. But systematic theologies that account for what we think important, and those that strive to be rationally consistent, should be preferred to theologies that ignore major issues. Organized knowledge is preferable to chaos. I agree with Alfred North Whitehead that “an attack upon systematic thought is treason to civilization.”[20]

In this work, I aim to orient ideas about God and life systematically around love, while seeking existential fit. I seek harmony of understanding and adequacy to life.[21] But this book will likely overlook important topics, and I don’t aim to provide all truth for all time. Other readers and scholars will need to add to, revise, and enhance my proposals.

Although this systematic theology isn’t the full and final statement on God, love, and existence, I aim for it to be better than unsystematized theologies and those that ignore the primacy of love.

Love is Considered Sentimental and Not Intellectually Rigorous

A fourth possible reason systematic theologians have not taken love as their orienting concern pertains to its perceived “fluffiness.” Love isn’t capable of intellectual investigation, goes this argument, because it isn’t intellectually rigorous. In fact, some who champion love for theology do so to express anti-intellectualism.

Blaise Pascal gets at this issue with his pithy line, “The heart has reasons that reason knows not of.” Pascal isn’t opposed to reason, but he believes it can’t account for crucial aspects of life. He thinks reason comes second to experience, for “it is the heart which experiences God,” says Pascal, “and not the reason.”[22] I like his emphasis upon experience, and I admit that propositional statements fail to account for love. But I don’t think we should pit experience against reason and intellectual sophistication.

To counter the criticism that love must be fluffy, squishy, and opposed to reason, I won’t shirk from intellectual sophistication or academic rigor in this systematic theology of love. While I write in accessible prose, I consult and cite leading theological, biblical, philosophical, and scientific scholars. I also draw from poets, artists, and activists. I suspect most readers will be surprised at my logical consistency.

Other theologians may not regard love as systematic theology’s central motif because they consider the term too sentimental, permissive, or choosing the status quo. Stanley Hauerwas has these worries, for instance. He says love is too sentimental to do the hard work needed for building character and making difficult decisions. “The ethics of love is often but a cover for what is fundamentally an assertion of ethical relativism,” says Hauerwas. It is “an ethics of tolerance that makes kindness the central virtue” and “becomes a justification for our own arbitrary desires and likes.” “Great immoralities are not the result of evil intentions,” he says, “but a love gone crazy with its attempt to encompass all mankind within its purview.”[23]

Hauerwas rightly criticizes simplistic and misguided views of love. And he rightly emphasizes the importance of communities and practices for living well. But Hauerwas’s attacks on weak versions of love-based theology don’t address the strong versions. Some of the greatest examples of those who champion love—including Jesus of Nazareth—do so in the face of persecution, self-doubt, the pressures of empire, and death.[24] They’re not excessively sentimental or permissive. Hauerwas seems unaware that a theology that defines love well can account for community, hard decisions, practices, counter-cultural activism, and virtues.

As I see it, love takes sides, and it always sides with the work of promoting flourishing, justice, beauty, and liberation.[25] To do this, it sometimes disrupts and resists; it also comforts and heals. I agree with Maria Pilar Aquino, who says, “Love takes up the desires of the poor and oppressed and commits itself to the transformation of human misery.”[26]

I also reject Hauerwas’s claim that love goes “crazy” when it attempts to encompass all within its purview. Instead, I believe love has the common good in mind, although its focus is typically upon particular contexts and communities. Because love seeks overall well-being, it doesn’t advance the good of a few at the expense of the whole. That’s unjust. It joins Hauerwas in stressing the importance of developing virtue, inculcating practices, and growing in community.[27] But it seeks to promote overall well-being.

Love, as I understand it, consults head and heart, brain and body, knowledge and vital piety.

Overlooked Voices and Lived Experiences

Theological systems sometimes exclude or marginalize the voices of women, people of color, the disabled, the queer community, and the other-than-human creatures on the planet.[28] Systematic theologians may claim to address our most pressing questions, but they sometimes ignore scientific advances, the role of emotions, climate change, gender and sexuality issues, the arts, political oppression, and so on. Theologians sometimes rely upon abstract claims that oppose the practical living of diverse people.[29] A fifth reason no one has written a book called A Systematic Theology of Love, I suspect, would be that some people assume systematic theologies, by definition, neglect marginalized voices and lived experience.

In his post-colonial theology, Steve Watson argues that systematic theologies easily become univocal. They purport to have arrived at complete insights into the nature of God and existence. Systematic theologians can act as if they’ve “seen Revelation’s heavenly city in full come down to earth through brilliant thinking or synthesis,” says Watson, “usually that of a single, white man.”[30] And this means, says Marcella Althaus-Reid, “discourses on power have been systemized, classified, and organized in Systematic Theology.”[31] Systematic theology reflects Eurocentric, patriarchal, and institutional assumptions.[32] I believe we should take this critique seriously.

I recently asked an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to list the current thirty best-selling systematic theologies. The list generated was telling. Every top-selling systematic theology was written by a white man in the Reformed Evangelical tradition. All thirty! Systematic theologies have been written by women and people of color, of course, but they aren’t top-sellers.[33] This lack of diversity gives the impression that writing systematic theologies must be an activity reserved for white men who benefit from systems of power.

I’m also a white man. But I write this systematic theology influenced by many voices, including voices very different from my own. In doing so, I agree with Watson that we should be “engaging the widest variety of thinking and experience to build open-ended reflections that express our best current thinking on all things in light of God.”[34] Drawing from varieties of experience strengthens a systematic theology of love. I’m also taking a very different perspective from the dominant Reformed tradition.

Because I’m limited, I’m sure I’ll fail to include some voices. And my own experiences will undoubtedly blind me to some experiences of others. I don’t have a God’s-eye perspective, nor am I entirely neutral or objective. For my errors and oversights, I apologize in advance.

I also encourage criticism and suggestions from voices I’ve missed.[35] I join with Watson in “dialogically and ongoingly imagining and reimagining Revelation’s heavenly city in the context of our current experience of earth.”[36] And I join Hanna Reichel by reading liberation and systematic theologies together, rather than assume they must be kept separate.[37]

To prioritize love, this systematic theology of love draws from many sources, and I hope to do them justice.

Sovereignty Trumps Love

The sixth and most important reason that, until now, no book has been titled A Systematic Theology of Love has to do with the lure of other orienting themes. Although I’ve not done a survey, I suspect the most common theme orienting systematic theologies has been sovereignty. It dominates the thirty best-selling systematic theologies I mentioned. For many theologians, organizing theology around a particular view of divine power seems more alluring than organizing around love.

Starting with omnipotence can lead to a high degree of internal consistency. But omnipotence-based theologies fail to fit lived experience or scripture well. Most systematic theologies privileging omnipotence explain away creaturely freedom, for instance, and can’t solve the problem of evil. They at least implicitly endorse the status quo and institutional ways of thinking. Omnipotence-oriented theologies portray God’s love in ways that bear little resemblance to love as we know it.

The idea of sovereignty closely aligns with the centrality of divine glory in Reformed systematic theologies. The Westminster Confession claims the chief purpose of humans is to glorify God, and all creation gives deity glory.[38] If giving glory ought to be our primary purpose, glory would be a reasonable central theme for the systematic theologian. And glory-based theology should, theoretically, inspire worship.

A close look at theologies oriented around glory, however, reveals that most build from a prior commitment to sovereignty.[39] When clashes between sovereignty and love arise, the inconsistencies are often brushed aside with appeals to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways.” And what counts as divine love doesn’t correspond with what we normally consider loving. “In glory, God predestines some for hell,” theologians might say, for instance. “All glory to God!” It’s hard to make sense of such reasoning and difficult to worship a deity who sends people to eternal conscious torment.

The attraction to sovereignty was evident early in Christianity, and we can see the priority of omnipotence in the major Christian creeds.[40] The Apostle’s Creed, which is probably the most cited, starts with claims about an almighty God (omnipotens) but never mentions love. Christian alignment with empire, among other things, tempted early theologians to imagine deity as an authoritarian emperor rather than a loving nurturer.[41]

Systematic theologies that come closest to taking love as their orienting concern typically use the language of grace.[42] The words for love are found far more frequently in scripture than words for grace, but I suspect theologians appeal to grace because “love” has so many meanings. To their credit, grace-oriented theologies typically fit lived experience better than sovereignty-oriented ones, and they usually avoid describing love in incomprehensible ways.[43] But most retain the idea of God’s omnipotence and essential independence from creation.[44] And many say God punishes now and may punish the unrepentant forever in hell.[45]

Saying God must be omnipotent and essentially independent prevents theologies from answering well the atheist’s chief objection: the problem of evil.[46] If grace explains the way of an all-powerful deity, why doesn’t God gracefully prevent genuine evil? If love for creation remains primary, why doesn’t God necessarily and everlastingly love creatures? If grace is always God’s way, why would this deity punish or send some to eternal conscious torment? Failing to answer questions like these well sabotages systematic theologies, whether oriented around sovereignty, glory, grace, or something else.

It’s time to put love first in systematic theology.

^[1] For instance, Nijay Gupta includes Greek words for desire in his exploration of love as described in scripture. Those words include zeloo and epitheymeo (The Affections of Jesus Christ [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2025], ch. 3). I think Gupta errs in this practice, however. Although desire is a component of love, it is neither love itself, nor a form thereof. He may have sidestepped this error had he clearly defined love at the outset of his book. See my criticisms of love as desire in Pluriform Love, chs. 5-6.

^[2] Werner Jeanrond puts it well: the “Bible doesn’t contain any pure or original passage on love to which we could return for any timeless and unambiguous understanding of love” (A Theology of Love [London: T & T Clark, 2010], 40).

^[3] Love for oneself seems to be implied in Jesus’ second greatest commandment. See Mk. 12:28-34; Mt. 22:36-40; Lk. 10:25-28.

^[4] Several biblical scholars offer helpful ways to interpret texts of terror. See, for instance, Eric A. Seibert, The Violence of Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2012).

^[5] Jason Tripp explores the question of divine hypocrisy in “Is God a Hypocrite?” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[6] I explore the various Hebrew and Greek words translated “love” in my book Pluriform Love. See chapters 3-7.

^[7] In his The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis explores types of love but never defines love. Jason Lepojarvi notes this omission (God Is Love but Love Isn’t God [PhD thesis University of Helsinki, 2015], 68).

^[8] Jules Toner, The Experience of Love (Washington, DC: Corpus Instrumentorum, 1968), 8. Edward Collins Vacek also complains that scholars fail to define love well. See Love, Human and Divine (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994), 34.

^[9] “Love is a kind of craving,” says Augustine (Eighty-Three Different Questions, 35, 2). Augustine lays out what this means theologically in Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), John E. Rotelle, ed., Edmund Hill, trans. (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1996). See my evaluation of this in Pluriform Love, chs. 5-6.

^[10] Many have criticized Augustine for his views of sex. My criticism of Augustine’s focus on desire extends far beyond his particular issues with sex. For a sustained theological criticism of Augustine, see Werner Jeanrond, A Theology of Love.

^[11] Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book 1, paragraph 31.

^[12] Hannah Arendt explores this in Love and Saint Augustine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

^[13] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 32.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] See my full discussion of Augustine’s failed theology of love in Pluriform Love (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2022), chs. 5-6.

^[16] Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book 1, paragraph 28.

^[17] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 29.

^[18] Ibid., Book 1, paragraph 37.

^[19] I offer a sustained defense of my definition of love in Pluriform Love, ch 2 and Defining Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2010). I explore scientific dimensions of love in The Science of Love (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2005) and The Altruism Reader (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2012). On the science of love, see Stephen Post, et. al., Altruism and Altruistic Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

^[20] Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Free Press, 1967), 162.

^[21] Alfred North Whitehead uses this nice phrase in Science and the Modern World (New York: Free Press, 1967), 76.

^[22] Pascal’s Pensees (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958), 277-78.

^[23] Stanley Hauerwas, Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981), 124-25.

^[24] Many New Testament scholars point to love as the heart of Jesus’ and New Testament ethics. See examples of such scholars in the previous footnotes.

^[25] Gustavo Gutierrez argues similarly in The God of Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991).

^[26] Maria Pilar Aquino, Our Cry for Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 157.

^[27] Guided by the work of Pitirim Sorokin, Jeffrey Wattles expresses the importance of developing a loving character in Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016). Sorokin’s primary book of love is The Ways and Power of Love, Stephen G. Post, intro. (Philadelphia: Templeton, 2002 [1954]).

^[28] Brandon Ambrosino expresses his disdain for theological systems that excluded him as a gay man. See his book, Is It God’s Will? (New York: Morehouse, 2025).

^[29] Alex Forrester addresses this issue and argues for the power of amipotent love. See “The Supremacist Soteriology of Divine Omnipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[30] See Steve Watson, All Flesh Shalom: A Post-Colonial, Open and Relational Constructive Theology of Major Themes in the Gospels (Doctoral Dissertation at Northwind Theological Seminary, 2025).

^[31] Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology (London: Routledge, 2000), 23.

^[32] James Cone makes this kind of argument in A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990). Among those who criticize theologians for being patriarchal, see Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web (Boston: Beacon, 1986); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk (Boston: Beacon, 1983); Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, God, Christ, Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993).

^[33] See Katherine Sonderegger’s work for an example of a systematic theology written by a woman (Systematic Theology, Volume 1 [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015]). See James Evans for a systematic theology written by a person of color (We Have Been Believers, 2nd ed., [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012]). Amos Yong explores systematic theology for global Christianity in Renewing Christian Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014). So does Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Global Introductions to Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002–2004).

^[34] Watson, All Flesh Shalom.

^[35] Along these lines, I’m grateful for the criticism of my friend Karen Baker-Fletcher. For instance, see her essay, “A Womanist Liberative Response to Oord’s Theology of Amipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[36] Watson, All Flesh Shalom.

^[37] Hanna Reichel articulates this well in After Method (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2023).

^[38] See The Westminster Confession of Faith, in The Creeds of Christendom, rev. ed., Philip Schaff, ed., vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 596–673.

^[39] For an example of a systematic theology that claims to center on divine glory but is actually more concerned with omnipotence, see Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998).

^[40] On this, see Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise (Boston: Beacon, 2008).

^[41] John Sanders has written eloquently about authoritative vs. nurturant views of God. See his book Embracing Prodigals (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020). See also Chris Hanson, Open and Relational Parenting (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[42] For examples of grace-centered theologies, see Barry L. Callen, God as Loving Grace (Nappanee IN: Evangel, 1996); H. Ray Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 1988).

^[43] Randy Maddox offers an especially helpful theology of grace, and he draws from the work of John Wesley. See Responsible Grace (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1994).

^[44] Stanley Grenz chooses the eschatological community as the integrative motif in his systematic theology. Happily, this choice leads him to say God is relational. Unhappily, Grenz retains traditional views of divine power and independence. See Theology for the Community of God (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 30.

^[45] David Anzalone explores the promise of amipotence in addressing the question of hell in his essay, “Hell and Amipotence,” in Amipotence, vol. 2, Brandon Brown, et. al., eds. (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage, 2025).

^[46] For an example of this, see Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2007).

Friends,

I made a movie! This 40-minute film features my photos and videos of nature, mostly in Idaho.

The movie is called Seer, and the tagline is “A Spiritual Nature Photographer Explores Love.” I explore various types of spirituality and how nature helps me tackle life’s challenges.

In the coming months, I’m doing online and in-person showings of Seer. I’d love for you to attend! Choose a date from the schedule below…

May 3, In-Person: This Sunday morning features the premier, in-person showing of Seer. May 3, 10am. 120 14th Ave S, Nampa, ID 83651

May 4, Online: Robert Nicastro and Christogensis host me for a showing of my movie, Seer. May 4, 7pm Eastern. Register at this link.

May 8, In-Person: Join me for an in-person showing of Seer at the McCall, Idaho public library, May 8, 7pm.

May 17, Online: Join me and Wesleynexus for an online viewing and discussion of my new documentary, Seer. May 17th, 7PM Eastern. Register.

May 27, Online Join me and the Center for Spirituality and Nature for an online viewing and discussion of Seer. May 27, 7pm Eastern. RSVP Link.

May 29, Online: Join me and Interfaith Photovoices for an online viewing and discussion of my film, Seer. May 29, 4pm Eastern. Join Link.

June 2, In-Person: I’ll be showing Seer as part of a conference on The Love of Nature and Nature of Love. Linacre College, Oxford University. June 2.