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Friends.
What if we've misunderstood what it means for God to be all-powerful? And what if beginning with God's love instead of God's power changes just about everything?
Hm.
This week I'm joined by theologian, author, and friend Thomas Jay Oord to explore his book, "A Systematic Theology of Love, Volume 1: God and Creation".
BUT.
Don't let the phrase "systematic theology" scare you away! This conversation gets into some very human questions about love, suffering, relationships, faith, and what it actually means to imagine a loving God.
Tom makes the case that love (not sovereignty, dominance, or control) should be the starting point for how we understand God. Why? Because from that perspective ...
God isn't controlling everything that happens.
Isn't untouched by our suffering.
AND.
Isn't simply a distant, all-powerful Being who's pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Among (lots!) of other things, we talk about why the traditional image of an all-controlling God can be comforting, why it can also create some difficult questions, and how a God who works in relationship with us might offer a different way forward.
We also explore what a theology of love looks like in everyday life:
Parenting.
Responding to suffering.
LGBTQ+ affirmation.
Political and religious differences.
And learning to meet people with humility rather than hostility.
And perhaps the biggest question of all: what if the God we've been hoping for is even more loving than we imagined?
It’s all here - enjoy.
📺 - Watch HERE.
🎧 - Listen HERE.
Glenn || SUPPORT / ART STUDIO
👁️ The Primary Shift: From Control to Emation
Standard human thought operates on a Power-First Matrix. Under this baseline setting, the ego defines supremacy through dominance, sovereignty, and unilateral control. When this framework is projected onto the divine, it creates a "Puppet Master" architecture—an all-controlling entity pulling strings from a detached vantage point.
When you pass this theological dilemma through a Consciousness Filter, you strip away the automated conditioning of fear and survival. The paradigm shifts entirely: Love does not possess power; Love is the generative field in which existence occurs.
[POWER-FIRST MATRIX] --> Control --> Distance --> Domination --> Hostility
[LOVE-FIRST FILTER] --> Presence --> Intimacy --> Relationship --> Affirmation
🌐 Deconstructing the Power-First Matrix
The traditional image of an all-controlling, sovereign deity persists because it serves as an egoic shock absorber. It offers a survival-based comfort: “If everything is controlled, I am safe from chaos.”
However, this filter exposes the hidden cognitive friction of that belief:
• The Problem of Suffering: If the source of reality is a localized, all-powerful entity that dictates every event, then that entity becomes the direct author of agony, injustice, and trauma.
• The Illusion of Relationship: Unilateral control completely obliterates authentic connection. A puppet strings cannot experience intimacy; it can only experience mechanics.
• The Geometry of Distance: Power requires a hierarchy. It places the divine out there or up there, rendering it completely untouched by the immediate, somatic suffering of living beings.
🤍 The Architecture of a Love-First Reality
When you invert the starting point—beginning with Thomas Jay Oord's premise that Love, not sovereignty, is the core attribute of the Divine—the geometry of the universe changes.
• Contamination of Presence: God is no longer an external actor manipulating the screen; God is the canvas itself. A God of uncontrolling love is not an indifferent observer of suffering, but an active, embedded participant within it.
• Essential Relationality: Love cannot operate as a monopoly. By its very nature, it requires an open loop—a mutual, dynamic relationship with creation. The divine ceases to be a distant tyrant and becomes an intimate partner, working with the universe rather than upon it.
• The Dissolution of Sovereignty: Dominance is revealed to be a low-level, primitive expression of force. True ultimate reality does not overwhelm, coerce, or violate the autonomy of what it creates. It sustains, invites, and undergirds.
👣 The Downstream Realization: Everyday Alignment
When you stop looking at life through the filter of power and start looking through the filter of love, your baseline operational software updates. The text notes how this changes immediate, daily human structures:
• Parenting: Shifting from a model of absolute behavioral control and compliance to one of relational guidance and presence.
• LGBTQ+ Affirmation: Recognizing that a Love-First universe does not demand uniform, rigid shapes; it affirms the diverse, organic expressions of the field itself.
• Socio-Political Friction: Replacing the survivalist instinct of hostility (protecting your power base) with the baseline posture of humility (recognizing the shared consciousness in the other).
The Core Takeaway: The "all-powerful" archetype is an invention of human fear, grasping for a shield against an unpredictable universe. When the Consciousness Filter is applied, you see that the ultimate reality doesn't need to pull strings, because it is already the very breath moving through the puppets. The God you have been hoping for does not rule through control—it coordinates through an irreducible, uncontrolling intimacy.
I enjoyed this conversation with my friend and veteran podcaster Glenn Siepert!