The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence

Can we say God is all-controlling if evil is genuine and randomness is real? If God is capable of controlling any situation or person and is both willing and able to stop evil from occurring, how do we make sense of the cruel and unpredictable realities of life? Should we say that suffering is necessary to build character? Are random events of death and destruction really "acts of God"? Some say that God is the cause of everything, which commits them to the view that nothing is truly random and every act of evil is part of God's master plan. Others say that God is an impersonal force or a distant observer and so not truly involved in worldly events but this comes at the price of a God who is personally involved in our lives and to whom we can pray. Still others say that God is sovereign but we cannot know how, because God is a mystery. This leaves us without an answer to our questions. Thomas Jay Oord argues that we need a new understanding of providence, one that can account for a world of both awful evil and awe-inspiring goodness.The Uncontrolling Love of God provides a clear and powerful response to one of the perennial challenges to Christian faith."