God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils

Author Thomas Jay Oord says God’s love is inherently uncontrolling. God loves everyone and everything, so God can’t control anyone or anything. This means God cannot prevent evil singlehandedly. God can’t stop evildoers, whether human, animal, organisms, or inanimate objects and forces.

In God Can’t, Oord gives a plausible reason why some are healed but many others are not. God always works to heal everyone, but sometimes our bodies, organisms, or other creatures do not cooperate with God’s healing work. Or the conditions of creation are not right for the healing God wants to do.

Some people think God causes or allows suffering to teach us lessons or build our character. God Can’t disagrees. Oord says God squeezes good from the evil God didn’t want in the first place. God uses pain and suffering without willing or even allowing it.

Most people think God can overcome evil singlehandedly. In God Can’t, Oord says God needs cooperation for love to reign now and later. This leads to a better view of the afterlife he calls, “relentless love.” It rejects traditional ideas of heaven, hell, and annihilation. Relentless love holds to the possibility all creatures and all creation will respond to God’s love.