Just some not so random questions I'd like to ask Thomas Jay Oord now that I've finished reading "The Uncontrolling Love of God"...
On page 162, you say "God necessarily loves, but God freely chooses how to love in each emerging moment." My question is, if God necessarily loves, isn't God also obligated to love in a particular way each emerging moment? Is God REALLY free to choose HOW to love?
In your section on the variations of love (165-166), I didn't see much room given to the idea of God's disciplinary love. How do concepts such as divine discipline and wrath fit into your thinking (personally, I think of divine wrath as God simply accepting our relational withdraw, which we then suffer the consequences of)?
Greg Boyd attributes a lot of the non-cooperation (evil) with God in the world to the demonic realm... but your book barely mentions the demonic at all. Do you think Boyd is wrong in his emphasis?
You talk about how God's existence as Spirit is, in some sense, limiting (no 'body' with which to physically act). But besides the incarnation, we also seem to have examples of theophanies in Scripture. Do you reject Old Testament theophanies?
I felt your final chapter (on miracles) was leading toward a guilt-inducing conclusion (if miracles don't happen, it's because we aren't cooperating correctly with God), but then you concluded that your view was antagonistic toward this sort of guilt (pg. 213). Overall, I felt the final chapter was the only chapter that didn't clearly communicate your position (I'm still fuzzy). Do you plan to write more on miracles in the future?
