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What kind of God is worth trusting when life falls apart? We pull up a chair with Thomas Jay Oord and guest Chris Lilley for a spirited, vulnerable conversation about omnipotence, evil, and why love may be the only measure of divine power that doesn’t betray our moral core. The stakes are high: beliefs about God’s power shape how we face suffering, talk to our kids about hope, and decide whether prayer is protest, surrender, or both. If you haven't heard our first conversation with Tom about God's power, we recommend checking that out first here.
Tom lays out open and relational theism: God moves through time with us, gives and receives, and has a nature of uncontrolling love. From there he challenges three classic readings of omnipotence—doing anything, exerting all power, and unilaterally determining outcomes—arguing they either collapse logically or become morally intolerable in the face of real-world evil. Chris, a former Thomist and Reformed teacher now in the Episcopal ordination process, offers a thoughtful pushback: if omnipotence can be carefully qualified, should we abandon it, or teach it better? His turning point is painfully human: holding his newborn while teaching election and realizing he couldn’t preach a God who ordains every outcome and still call that good.
We wrestle with creation, “almighty” in the liturgy, liberation theology’s demand for a God who not only intends justice but accomplishes it, and a hard question about the afterlife: could you rest eternally with a God who could have stopped your suffering? Tom reframes power as maximal influence—everlasting, universal, persuasive—rather than control. Kyle names the unresolved middle: if God could fix it later, why not now? The conversation doesn’t hand out easy answers; it invites you to weigh goodness against power and decide which vision of God you can actually pray to.
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