Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Love and agape are words with multiple meanings. We may say, for instance,
that we love our country, local sports team, pepperoni pizza, spouse, or favorite movies.
The fact that people talk of love in such varied ways prompted Sigmund Freud to say that
meant to add clarity to the confusion about how best to understand love.iii I define love
overall well-being. Loving actions are influenced by the previous actions of other
creatures, oneself, and God, and these actions are carried out in the hope of encouraging
flourishing.iv
A full explanation of each phrase in my definition of love lays beyond the scope
of this essay, but to prepare us for what I want to address later, I should briefly describe
here what each phrase in the definition entails. The phrase, “acting intentionally,” refers
degree of decisionality, limited freedom, and one’s intentions not an acts consequences
I use the word “act” to cover a broad range of intended activities, both seen and
unseen. “In sympathetic response to others (including God)” refers to the relatedness that
love requires. While sympathetic response logically precedes the intentionality of love,
both are present in a single responsive act of love. The “others” include humans,
nonhumans, and the past actions of the lover. I will explain more about what the
The final phrase, “to promote overall well-being,” points to the health, happiness,
“abundant life,” and Aristotle called it, “eudaimonia.” The qualifier “overall” refers to
my claim that although we often love with a few recipients or a narrow context in mind,
our actions should not be deemed loving if they obviously undermine the common good.
While few people are surprised to hear that the word love carries various
meanings in the English language, few seem aware that agape has been given a wide
range of definitions. In general, agape is used to distinguish one particular notion of love
from others. Those aligned with the Christian tradition are especially prone to afford
I have shown in greater detail in other writings that the meanings scholars afford
agape vary greatly. And these meanings are not always compatible. I have examined
sixteen definitions of agape offered by scholars such as Colin Grant, Timothy Jackson,
Martin Luther King, Jr., John Macquarrie, Reinhold Niebuhr, Gene Outka, Irving Singer,
Alan Soble, and Daniel Day Williams. My examination shows the truth of Robert
Adams’ statement: “agape is a blank canvas on which one can paint whatever ideal of
Christian love one favors.”v The reasons for this variance have a great deal to do with the
In this essay, I explore one particular meaning given agape. This meaning is
apparent in the agape definition of Martin Luther King, Jr., as “good will for all men.”vi
Others have defined agape similarly as “unlimited love.”vii The basic claim of these
definitions agape should not be restricted only to a few, and I would argue that love
should be extended also to nonhumans. Although this definition of agape is not one I
in general: love increases overall well-being. Agape when equated with unlimited love
leads many to wonder, Can we really act in ways that promote overall well-being? Or
are limited creatures restricted to expressing limited love? In this essay, I offer a doctrine
of God meant to support the claim that creatures sometimes promote overall well-being
Love’s Extensivity
Scientific research provides evidence that at least some humans – and apparently
primatology, animal behavior studies, neurology, and biology suggest that creatures act in
ways that promote well-being. And sometimes the primary motive of creatures is to
Sociobiologists argue that kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and other theories
generally explain altruistic action insofar as organisms act for the good of those near and
dear. Those expected to reciprocate some good deed and those genetically similar to the
altruist are candidates for altruistic love. Group-selection theory suggests, furthermore,
that altruists may assist those with a different genetic lineage and those unable to
reciprocate one’s love. Altruists may gather into groups, and evolution favors groups
whose members act for the good of fellow members. Groups comprised of altruists
which individuals act altruistically for the good of outsiders and opposition groups.
Group-selection advocates, Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson, admit that “group
selection favors within group niceness and between group nastiness.”x Strangers and
Religious groups are “rapidly evolving entities adapting to their current environments,”
says Wilson.xi These entities have moral systems that define appropriate behaviors for
their members and prevent subversion from within. In particular, says Wilson, “a
religion instructs believers to behave for the benefit of their group.”xii Judaism, early
Christianity, and Calvinism are examples of religious groups whose beliefs and rules
benefit members and allow these groups to out-compete other groups. Religions that
promote intra-member cooperation survive and reproduce better than competitors whose
members do not cooperate. But religious groups do not promote well what Wilson calls,
instructive. However, these theories do not elucidate the drive to promote overall well-
being, which includes love for outsiders and enemies. They do not endorse agape, at
least when defined as unlimited love. Loving these “unlovables” is an ethic commanded
by at least some religious traditions and Christianity in particular. And loving enemies
and strangers is apparently put into practice at least some of the time. Many people
would argue that such overall well-being must be promoted if interpersonal, inter-tribal,
and inter-religious hostilities are overcome. In the end, we need a theory to account both
for the truth that altruism can benefit those near and dear and those in one’s group as well
as the truth that sometimes creatures act to benefit outsiders and enemies. We need a
unlimited love. One theory for why at least some humans can love all others says that
enemies. In their natural state, humans only promote their own well-being and the well-
being of those near and dear. Proponents of this view say that science explains natural
love, but God supernaturally empowers at least some to go above and beyond nature.
Often part of this theory is the notion that creatures naturally express eros but require
Theologian Martin C. D’Arcy articulates the theory that creatures naturally love
those near and dear but need supernatural help to love outsiders and enemies. “We can
advance a high theory of love by making full use of natural love,” says D’Arcy, “but the
ourselves; they will be as it were another self…. In Christian Agape the complete
revelation of love is given. Here the finite is lifted to a new degree of being, whose limit
is measured only by the necessity of its remaining a human person. This new life which
is thus set going is a pure gift and beyond the natural capacity of the finite human
person.”xiv
advocate presents several conceptual problems. It suggests, for instance, that important
aspects of creaturely love can be adequately understood without any reference to God.
Divine inspiration is only necessary when nature proves insufficient to empower love of
the-gaps problem, whereby science is believed to explain fully all but a few occurrences.
These unexplained events, says the God-of-the-gaps theory, require appeal to the
mysterious workings of deity. When science provides hypotheses to explain fully what
fully explained without reference to God, I suggest that an adequate explanation of all
creaturely love – including love for oneself, love for those near and dear, and love for
outsiders and enemies – must include a necessary role for divine action. A God
hypothesis is required to account for how limited creatures can express both limited and
unlimited love. This hypothesis must include a robust role for incessant divine action
rather than seeing God’s influence as an occasional add-on. Yet it must include a
necessary part of the kind of scientific research on love that many find valuable.
that only God expresses authentic love. This theory, divine unilateralism, contends that
creatures cannot love at all. Any expression of genuine love we might witness is entirely
Anders Nygren, perhaps the 20th century’s most influential love theologian and
advocate of agape, advocates divine unilateralism. Nygren contends that the only
authentic love is agape, and God is the only agent who expresses agape. “The Christian
has nothing of his own to give,” says Nygren. “The love which he shows his neighbor is
the love which God has infused in him.”xv He likens creatures to tubes that pass genuine
love received from above to others below. The tubes/creatures make no contribution to
the character or shape of this love.xvi “It is God’s own agape,” Nygren asserts, “which
seeks to make its way out into the world through the Christian as its channel. What we
have here is a purely theocentric love, in which all choice on man’s part is excluded.”xvii
There are many reasons to reject Nygren’s understanding of agape in general and
his divine unilateralism in particular.xviii For centuries, theologians have noted that it
value. Divine unilateralism should also be rejected for what it implies about science. It
denies that science tells us anything important about creaturely love. Science is
superfluous; all scientific love research ultimately amounts to nothing. And divine
unilateralism implies that we can skirt any responsibility to choose love, because all
include a necessary role for God and creatures. Creaturely love is not the work of God
alone. Creatures are not tubes, channels, or conduits through which God unilaterally acts
limited and unlimited love must include reference to divine and creaturely agency.
A Relational God
something true about existence in general and creaturely love in particular. Now we need
a God hypothesis that affirms the scientific evidence while making theological sense. It
must be a God hypothesis that avoids the supernatural/natural scheme, which proposes
that divine action is only sometimes necessary for love. And this hypothesis must reject
divine unilateralism, which states that God is the only loving agent and the scientific
to why creatures sometimes love those near and dear and sometimes love outsiders and
enemies. The God hypothesis would be crucial for conceptualizing how constrained
creatures might promote overall well-being. If a doctrine of God were provided that
and unlimited love, a way may be found to marry theology and science in the name of
love.
The attributes and activity one postulates of God, therefore, are crucial to the
explanation of unlimited love one might offer. I begin by contending that love is an
essential attribute of God.xix It is necessarily the case that God acts intentionally, in
sympathetic response to others (which includes past divine actions), to promote overall
well-being. Loving others is not an arbitrary divine decision but an aspect of God’s
not suggesting that God has no choice whatsoever with regard to love.xx That God will
love others is necessarily the case. But how God loves others is a free choice on God’s
part.xxi God may choose any number of options to promote overall well-being based
upon divine concerns to promote the future common good. God freely chooses the ways
of love.
In ongoing love relations, we can rest assured that God will always act
divine. The fact that God loves others is an aspect of God’s unchanging, eternal essence.
But the manner in which God chooses to promote overall well-being arises from how
exterior to God that entirely determines what these divine choices will be. How God
Presupposed in the claim that freely chooses how to love others is the notion that
God is a relational being. As relational, God is affected by those with whom God relates.
For some time, relational theologians have rejected the idea that God is an aloof and
God suffers and is passible, to use the classic language. This means that God is
influenced by the ups and downs, joys and sorrows, sins and loves of others. God is not
in all ways transcendent; God is a living God who enjoys give-and-receive relations
again that God’s nature as love is unchanging. God’s eternal nature remains constant,
which is why we can always rely upon God to love. God’s nature is love, and that nature
never alters. But the particular way God loves others is influenced by the condition of
the beloved. Science suggests that a creature’s own characteristics and its relations with
others influence the form and extent of a creature’s love. The doctrine of God that I
propose suggests that God’s own characteristics and God’s relations with others influence
God is always present to all creatures, and God’s omnipresence plays a crucial
role for understanding divine action in relation to creation. In fact, divine omnipresence
provides empirical grounds for hypotheses about divine action in relation to creaturely
love. An entirely transcendent God, who exists above all time and space, would not be
an agent whose influence we should consider in our empirical accounts of existence. The
creation.
With the exception of divine love, omnipresence may be the divine attribute that
theologians least emphasize. By omnipresence, I mean that God is present to all things.
Nothing exists that is not graced by divinity.xxiv Or as theologian John Wesley put it, “the
universal God dwelleth in universal space.”xxv We might say that God is omni-
all things are divine, however. Distinctions between creation and Creator remain.
For some time, many philosophers and theologians have called the omnipresent
God, “the Soul of the universe.” If one understands a soul to be present to and
influencing all parts of one’s body, the label is appropriate. Instead of referring to God as
the Soul of the universe, however, some today adopt the label “panentheism” to
God penetrates the entire universe, but the divine being is not identical to or exhausted by
the universe. God is distinct from others, having God’s own essence, constitution, and
label to identify God as intimately and everlastingly present to all in the cosmos.xxvii
God is not only present to all things, but God enters moment-by-moment into
acts in relation to others both as the Ideal Recipient and the Ideal Contributor. As the
omnipresent Ideal Recipient, God takes in the experiences of all others. God does so not
occasionally gets in the game. Rather God is present to all things, all the time, and God
experiences the experiences of others. Because God is the all-embracing one who
sympathizes fully with all others, God possesses the capacity to assess flawlessly what is
required to promote overall well-being at any particular moment in any particular place.
God’s love.
God not only loves incessantly and by virtue of divine omnipresence loves all
others, God also calls creatures – both human and nonhuman – to promote overall well-
being. God is the Ideal Contributor. This contributory call entails empowering and
inspiring creatures to love given the capacities of each creature.xxviii All feel God’s direct,
causal call.
The call to love that God gives each creature is, in one sense, no different from
the causal influence that other creatures exert. In a universe of cause and effect, divine
supernaturalism are not required. God’s influence upon creatures breaks no theoretical
principles pertaining to the metaphysical laws that apply to all existents. Whitehead’s
plea that God not be treated as an exception to the metaphysical principles is heeded.
If God exerts causal influence as an efficient cause and relationally assesses the
states of all others, God must possess both physical and mental aspects. To say that God
has a physical aspect that exerts causal influence need not conflict with the claim made
by most theistic religions that God is a spirit. It does conflict, however, with the
positivistic claim that the physical aspects of all beings must be perceptible by our five
senses. One may affirm that a spiritual entity exists (and perhaps there are more than
one), that this spiritual entity exerts efficient causation, and we perceive the influence of
this entity nonsensorily. God is a spirit whose invisible physicality affects others in a
way analogous to the physical influence – whether sensory or nonsensory -- that other
beings exert.
Perhaps the best way to envision the constitution of the divine Spirit as including
both physical and mental aspects is to compare the Spirit’s constitution to a creature’s
mind. We might speculate that the divine Spirit has an element of physicality analogous
to the physicality that creaturely minds possess. Just as a creature’s mind exerts causal
influence upon bodily members despite its physicality remaining undetectable to our five
senses, so God experts causal influence upon others despite possessing a physical
While in some ways God’s causal influence is similar to the causal influence
exerted by creatures, in other ways God’s causal call to love is different from the
influence that creatures exert. Yet even in these different ways, God is not an exception
First, God’s causal call is different in that God always influences creatures to act
in ways that optimize overall well-being. God’s essence is love, and this means that God
loves relentlessly. God’s power invariably urges all things toward the common good. By
contrast, creatures sometimes influence others to choose ill-being. All humans, at least,
have sinned and fall short of God’s standard of relentless love. Whereas creatures love
creatures, secondly, in that only God is a necessary cause in every creature’s love.
Without divine influence, no creature can love. By contrast, any particular creature is a
contingent cause for the love of others. No one creature’s influence is required for
another creature to promote overall-well being. While divine action is required for
creatures to live, and move, and have their being, creatures are, to use the words of
theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, “utterly dependent” upon God to be empowered
Third, God’s causal influence is different from creaturely influence in that God
takes into account the influence of others and persuades each creature to respond in a way
that promotes overall well-being. God presents the possible options for action to
creatures, most of those options having arisen from the past actions of creatures. Divine
causation inspires creatures to love given what is possible in the particular circumstances
each faces.xxxi Process theologians in the tradition of Whitehead have called this
presentation of options a creature’s “initial aim.” This aim includes God’s call to a
particular creature in a particular moment to love in a particular way. And God takes into
account the influence of all others when presenting this call. Divine love is all-pervasive,
The similarities and differences between the divine agent and creaturely agents
that I have briefly outlined provide the basis for overcoming the problems inherent in
God’s empowering and inspiring call is required for creaturely love, and yet God does
not interrupt the normal causal relations required for creatures to love. When creatures
love, they synergistically act with God by responding to the divine call to promote overall
well-being.
David Ray Griffin calls “variable divine influence.” God’s influence upon others, says
Griffin, is always formally the same but variable in content.xxxii God acts as a necessary
cause to empower each creature in each moment of that creature’s life. I claim similarly
that God calls each creature to act in ways that will promote overall well-being. In this,
content of God’s call depends upon the particularities of each creature in each moment.
Creatures are diverse, and they dwell in diverse environments. God’s specific influence
upon an electron, for instance, will be different in content from God’s influence upon a
worm. God’s specific call for a child will be different in content from God’s call for an
adult. God’s omniscient assessment of all conditions provides God with the resources to
various ways to God’s calls. When creatures respond well, God’s activity to promote
overall well-being is most effective. Because some creatures are highly complex and
possess a great degree of freedom, God presents a vast array of possibilities to them in
each moment. God empowers them to choose among these possibilities and inspires
them to choose that which promotes overall well-being. When creatures respond
appropriately to God’s calls to love, the common good increases. God acts, as John
Wesley put it, by “strongly and sweetly influencing all, and yet without destroying the
The variability of a call’s effectiveness is not based upon God’s decision to exert
either maximal or minimal influence upon others. God’s desire for the promotion of
overall well-being prompts maximum divine effort in each moment to enhance the
common good. God need not be coaxed to care by the efforts of creatures, for it is by
God’s steadfast, never-failing grace nature -- not by creaturely effort – that God promotes
Given these hypotheses, we can now provide the answer the central question we
asked early on. These hypotheses provide the basis for our explanation for how limited
assesses in each moment what should be done to promote the common good. And this
Being knows what each particular creature should do in any particular moment to
promote over well-being. Creatures can express unlimited love, because they have access
to the One with an unlimited perspective. To use the language of Pitirim Sorokin,
unlimited love requires maximal extensivity.xxxiv Creatures with narrow sympathies and
restricted extensivity are not prevented from contributing to the common good, because
their maximally extensive Creator envisions the good of the whole and communicates to
Most of the time, the best way for a particular creature to promote overall well-
being is to act in ways that simultaneously promote the creature’s own well-being and the
well-being of those near and dear. In an interrelated universe, the mutual benefit of the
loving actor and others often overlaps. Sometimes the promotion of overall well-being,
however, requires that the lover be self-sacrificial for the good of those near and dear.
Scientific studies showing that creatures act for the good of those genetically similar to
themselves or for the good of members of the same group verify this. Other times, love
involves acting for one’s own well-being at the expense of the well-being of some others,
because overall well-being is enhanced by this self-affirming action. Self-love that
influential also provides grounds to affirm that creatures sometimes act for the good of
outsiders and enemies. A maximally extensive God can inspire and empower confined
they respond appropriately to the call of the omnipresent One who knows what the
common good requires and assesses perfectly what each creature can contribute to that
good. When the omnipresent God is not thought to be outside or beyond the universal
laws of cause and effect, one can offer empirical grounds to hypothesize that God
influences creatures in ways that encourage the enhancement of overall well-being. And
when God is a necessary cause, it is plausible to speculate that creatures rely upon God’s
call when choosing to love outsiders and enemies, those near and dear, and themselves.
God’s influence is neither an occasional add-on required for unnatural creaturely love nor
a unilateral intervention that destroys the agency of the creatures that science
investigates.
To say that all creatures have access to a universal Agent who calls them to
promote the common good should not be taken to imply, however, that creatures know
with absolute certainty the specificity of these calls. Creaturely limitations remain. We
Our ultimate justification for choosing to act in one way to express love rather than in
another is the imprecise intuition that God calls us to act in such a way.
Tools and practices are available to help creatures better discern God’s call to
love. Over the millennia, religious people have discovered means by which they can
assess with greater accuracy – but not with absolute certainty – the call of God.
Religious people improve their skills at discernment when they engage in activities such
meditation on sacred scriptures, and following the ways of the exemplars. Maturing in
love involves honing these skills of discernment by engaging intentionally in these love-
enhancing practices.
Conclusion
King, Jr.’s definition of agape as “good will for all,” limited creatures must rely upon the
empowering and inspiring call of an omnipresent God of love to express agape. After
promote overall well-being. The loving call of an omnipresent God provides a crucial
Thomas Jay Oord, ed (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2003), “Love, Morals, and Relations in
Religious Perspective, Philip Clayton and Jeffrey Schloss, eds. (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Templeton Foundation, 2004), “The Love Racket: Defining Love and Agape for the
Turn to Love: The Love, Science, and Theology Symbiosis (manuscript in preparation).
iv
Defining love can be difficult because at least three linguistic traditions
influence our love vocabulary. I call these 1) the proper/improper tradition, 2) the
mutuality tradition, and 3) the hesed (or chesed) tradition. In the “proper/improper love”
linguistic tradition, the word “love” describes any purposive action whatsoever.
Philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas, who was greatly influenced by Aristotle’s
argues that “every agent, whatever it be, does every action from love of some kind”
(Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1981], Part
I-II, Q. 28, Art. 6). When someone from the proper/improper tradition speaks of love, a
qualifier of some sort is typically employed. The mutuality love tradition suggests that to
love is to engage in personal interaction. The reciprocity and mutuality inherent in such
reciprocal relation,” and he claims that love “must by its very nature be a relationship of
free mutual give and take” (Vincent Brummer, The Model of Love [Cambridge:
says the mutuality tradition, love is present. In the hesed tradition, the word “love” is
reserved for descriptions of ideal ethical actions. Such loving actions promote well-
being, because they are righteous. When I use the word “love,” I follow the practice of
King, Jr., James Washington, ed. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1986), 19.
vii
See, for instance, Stephen G. Post, Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compassion and Service
(Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 2003) and Sir John Templeton, Agape Love: A
confronted by that which generates ill-being. Or to use the language of Jesus, agape
few: Mary Ainsworth, Arthur Aron, Daniel Batson, Peter Benson, Ellen Berscheid,
Christopher Boehm, John Bowlby, Patricia Bruininks, David Buss, Sue Carter, Anne
Colby and William Damon, Antonio and Hanna Damasio, Charles Darwin, Ilse de
Koeyer, Frans de Waal, Alan Dugatkin, George Ellis, Robert Emmons, Robert D.
Enright, Julie Exline, Rebecca Flietstra, Alan Fogel, Barbara Fredrickson, Harry Harlow,
Ralph Hood, William Hurlbut, Thomas Insel, Vincent Jeffries, Byron Johnson, Jerome
Kagan, Shelley Dean Kilpatrick, Harold Koenig, Petr Kropotkin, John Alan Lee, Jeff
Levin, Thomas Lewis, Abraham Maslow, Michael McCullough, Donald Miller, Kristen
Renwick Monroe, Mario Mukilincer, Samuel Oliner, Doug Oman, Alan Omoto, Margaret
Poloma, Stephen Post, Stephanie Preston, Kevin Reimer, Peter Richerson, Stephen
Sandage, Jeffery Schloss, Martin Seligman, Philip Shaver, Meredith Small, Judith
Smetana, Tom W. Smith, Pitirim Sorokin, Ross Stein, Esther Sternberg, Robert
Sternberg, Alan Tjeltveit, Lynn Underwood, David Sloan Wilson, E. O. Wilson, Everett
Agape (Cleveland: Meridian, 1956), 363, 370. This quote does not represent D’Arcy’s
only view on the relation of nature and grace. D’Arcy presents a kaleidoscope of
groundless, or unmotivated, 2) indifferent to, but creative of, value, 3) directed toward
sinners, 4) the sole initiator of creaturely fellowship with God, 5) in opposition to all that
can be called self-love, 6) sacrificial giving to others, and 7) the only authentic Christian
love as taught by the Bible (Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, tr. Philip S. Watson [New
understanding of agape ought to be rejected, let me add others. His understanding ought
to be rejected because it opposes all that can be called self-love. We should reject it
because, if genuine love only entails sacrificial giving, Christians cannot act lovingly
when receiving gifts from others. And Nygren’s emphasis upon agape as the only
appropriate Christian love neglects legitimate Christian philia and Christian eros.
Those familiar with the agape debate are typically aware of these and similar
criticisms. They are typically less familiar with a final criticism of Nygren’s concept of
agape that influences love scholarship. That criticism arises in response to Nygren’s
believes, the Bible proposes a relatively unique and uniform understanding of agape.
argument, biblical authors use the word agape to convey a wide variety and sometimes
contradictory set of meanings. For instance, biblical writers sometimes use agape to
refer to ideal ethical action, and other times biblical authors use agape to refer to sinful
action (e.g., 2 Tim. 4:10; Rm. 12:9; 2 Cor. 8:8; Jn. 3:19; Lk. 11:43; Jn. 12:43; 2 Pt. 2:15;
1 Jn. 2:15; 2 Tm. 4:10). Sometimes biblical authors use agape to talk about
unconditional love and other times about conditioned, response-dependent love. We find
biblical authors using agape to talk about non-self-sacrificial love. Even the Apostle Paul
– whom Nygren believes most supports his own agape theories – employs agape to talk
about self-love (e.g., Eph. 5:28, 33). Because the context suggests it, biblical scholars
translate agape in ways that we typically think the word eros or philia would be
translated. For instance, agape is translated in ways that connote eros; it is rendered “to
long for,” “to prefer,” “to desire,” “to prize,” “to value,” and “to be fond of” (e.g., 2 Tm.
4:8,10; Jn. 3:19 & 12:43; Hb. 1:9; Rv. 12:11; and Lk. 7:5). Sometimes agape is used to
convey meanings traditionally assigned philia and, in many contexts, the two words seem
interchangeable (James Moffatt, Love in the New Testament [London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1929], 51-56). In sum, the Bible is far from uniform in its understanding of
agape. Neither the narrow claim that agape possesses a single meaning in the Bible nor
the broader claim that one meaning of agape predominates in Christian Scripture find
textual support. To be true to Christian Scripture, we should not talk about the biblical
understanding of agape.
xix
Instead of “essential,” some philosophers prefer “superessential” to refer to divine
attributes. The latter term implies that a particular attribute applies to God in all possible
with regard to love, see various essays in a book edited by John Polkinghorne, The Work
of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001). See especially
“God’s Power: A Process View,” by Ian Barbour, “Cosmos and Kenosis,” by Keith
has become theological commonplace” (“The Rise of a New Orthodoxy,” The Christian
Century 103/13 [1986], 385). The list of those who deny divine immutability and affirm
divine suffering, at least in some way, is long. Works on that list, in addition to works by
process theologians and philosophers, include the following: Marcus J. Borg, The God
(San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997); Barry L. Callen, God as Loving Grace: The
Biblically Revealed Nature and Work of God (Nappanee Ind.: Evangel, 1996); Wendy
Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York:
Crossroad, 1996); Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian
Life (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991); Jung Young Lee, God Suffers for Us: A
Systematic Inquiry into a Concept of Divine Passibility (The Hague: Marinus Nijhoff,
1974); Geddes MacGregor, He Who Lets Us Be: A Theology of Love (New York:
Protestant Theology (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1985); Jürgen Moltmann,
The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian
Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York: Harper and Row, 1974),
God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation (London, SCM, 1985), The Trinity
and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (San Francisco: Harper &
Philosophical Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1991); Clark H. Pinnock, et.
al., The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God
(Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1994); S. Paul Schilling, God and Human Anguish
Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1975); Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1977); Keith Ward, Rational Theology and the Creativity of God
derives from Abraham Heschel. Various process theologians employ the phrase as well.
Clark Pinnock titles one of his books promoting the idea that God is affected by others,
Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2001).
xxiv
For a Wesleyan reading of divine omnipresence, see Michael Lodahl, God of Nature
and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003),
accounts of the diversity of meanings the label carries is found in the collection of essays,
In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s
Presence in a Scientific World (Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, eds. [Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004]). In that book, see especially “Naming a Quiet Revolution: The
Pantheistic Turn in Modern Theology” (Michael W. Brierley) and “Pantheism Today: A
panentheisms that scholars have adopted (for these varieties, see In Whom We Live and
Move and Have our Being). By theocosmocentrism, I mean that God has always been
related to some universe or another, and God did not create the universe from absolutely
nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Some panentheists, by contrast, affirm creatio ex nihilo and
the notion that God existed alone prior to God’s creation of this universe.
xxviii
The Christian doctrine of prevenient grace – as understood in the Wesleyan tradition
– offers a similar concept of love as entailing divine call and creaturely response.
Prevenient grace might best be described as God acting in each moment to empower
creatures to respond freely and then wooing them to choose responses that increase
omnipresent, omni-relational God will act in ways that promote overall well-being. See
Tenn.: Abingdon, 1994) and Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, A Theology of Love: The
states that “the body is simply that much of the world with which the mind, or personal
society, has effective immediate interactions of mutual inheritance, and over which its
influence is dominant. Such is God’s relation to all of the world, and therefore all of it is
his body. This has none of the degrading effects that giving God a body is supposed to
have; indeed, it is only a way of saying that God’s social relations with all things are
uniquely adequate, that he really and fully loves all of them, and that they all, however
inadequately or unconsciously, love him.” Hartshorne continues, saying that it is not true,
“that the lesser organisms within a mind’s organism are absolutely controlled by that
mind, deprived of all decisions of their own, or that what the parts of the body decide for
themselves the dominant mind decides for itself. Hence creaturely freedom and God’s
non-responsibility for evil are compatible with the view that God is the personality of the
cosmic body, the totality of societies inferior to that personal-order society which is the
mind and life of God” (Charles Hartshorne, “Whitehead’s Idea of God” in The
Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed. 2nd ed. [New York:
ed., 1830]). The translation of schlechthinig as “utter” is my own, but this translation is
in the writing of some process theologians. See, for instance, John B. Cobb, Jr., A
Process Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1993), and Alfred North Whitehead, Process
and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and
Donald W. Sherburne (New York: Free Press, 1978; orig. ed., 1929).
xxxii
Griffin, Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism, 147.
xxxiii
John Wesley, Sermon 118, “On the Omnipresence of God,” § 2.1, Works 4:42.
xxxiv
Pitirim Sorokin, The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of