Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement [Paperback]

Thomas Oord provides here an extensive review of the scientific research and theory germane to the topic of human love and a rationale for continued research on factors contributing to altruism. His theology places love at the center as necessary and essential to God's nature. God cannot not love. In contrast to those theologians who hold that God only expresses agape, Oord sees agape, philia and eros all contained in God's full-orbed love. Hence all three types of love are good and worthy of expression by creatures in God's image.

Oord's conclusions depend heavily on his definition of agape as an intentional response for good in the presence of ill-being. This means for Oord that divine agape must be expressed from eternity in relation to something outside the Trinity rather than between the persons of the Trinity as held in traditional theology. As Oord defines agape, the persons of the Trinity can only express philia within their relationship because there can be no ill-being within the divine unity. This definition allows Oord to characterize God's essence from eternity as necessarily creative and in eternal relationship with an external, albeit dependent, creation. Oord insists this relationship is panentheistic rather than pantheistic because creation, with limited freedom, is outside of and dependent upon God and no individual element is itself eternal. Although God is the most self-determining of beings, God does not entirely determine creation because total control is not compatible with total love. This is in contrast to views of kenosis which suggest that God voluntarily self-limits but nevertheless controlled the universe's initial conditions. In Oord's theology, God is the most powerful of beings, but where love and power conflict, love trumps omnipotence because God's essence is first and foremost love. Rather than creating ex nihilo, he therefore holds that God is eternally creating from the relative chaos of prior universes.

Oord also provides a succinct overview of relevant scientific topics. He delves into research on kinship and reciprocal altruism, as well as possible scenarios for group selection of social behaviors. The importance of attachment theory and early relationships for development of caring behavior is thoughtfully discussed. We become truly human in relationship with others, leading Oord to discussion of character formation and virtue ethics. One addition that might have been useful here is the recent research in rodents showing that good maternal care can actually override genetic disposition through epigenetic mechanisms. Oord might have also noted the contrast between individualistic Western societies and some other more communal societies in which individuals are socialized to a greater extent to work for the common good. Oord uses the concept of anthropic fine-tuning to argue that kenosis is reflected in the characteristics of the universe itself. God's non-coercive activity may be communicated through quantum indeterminacy simultaneously allowing free will and noninterventionist divine action. God woos, but does not coerce.

I found the chapter in which Oord lays out his theory of essential kenosis the most interesting. While agreeing partially with Open theology, Oord finds most versions inadequate to deal with the problem of evil. Oord views the acceptance of creatio ex nihilo as allowing divine coercion. While rejecting an eternal duality of good and evil, Oord accepts Griffin's process view that the loving nature of God by necessity eternally relates to a creation that has, on all levels from subatomic to human, a measure of freedom to develop its own potentialities. The eternal necessity of love demands an eternal creation free to accept or reject love in ongoing relationship.

As one raised all too familiar with intimations of Jonathan Edward's angry God, I found Oord's emphasis on One who cannot not love deeply touching at a personal level. Still, at the end of the book I was left wondering whether the rejection of creatio ex nihilo really provides an adequate answer for theodicy. Theoretical physics continues to struggle with both the existence and nature of time suggesting that part of the problem seen from human perspective may be that we, localized and finite, have difficulty thinking of God as omnipresent in both time and space and yet able to interact with our local particularities.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate Dr. Oord's commitment to the topic of love. I think it's a critically important topic that is all-too-often ignored as either too mysterious to pin down or so sacred that any attempt to study and define it might threaten to cheapen it. 'Defining Love' is worth the read. Having said that, I have to criticize it for being heavily skewed to serve a theological agenda, starting with the fact that the issues he stresses in his definition of love - particularly that of intentionality - are formulated in such a way as to unjustifiably minimize or even possibly exclude other animals from the kind of authentic experience of love he wants to address. Even more glaring was the grossly incomplete treatment of the scientific facet of love.

For some reason Dr. Oord spends a great deal of time attempting to lay out a biological association with love based mostly on the evolution of altruism; as though that's somehow equivalent or adequate. He makes an admirable attempt, but there are other important facets to love than altruism. Surprisingly, Dr. Oord gives only sparse attention to the topic of empathy; something I would think deserves at least as much attention as altruism. Also, to my recollection (and a parsing of the index) there is no mention of neuroscience, neuroanatomy (e.g. amygdala) and neuro-imaging (e.g. fMRI), neurotransmitters, biochemistry, or hormones (e.g. oxytocin). I recognize that Dr. Oord is not a scientist, but he is clearly a scholar, so how is it that a so-called 'scientific engagement' of the topic of love could omit such an obviously important topic as the brain? The research certainly exists!

Possibilities for Dr. Oord's omission of neuroscience include (a) it just didn't occur to him, or maybe (b) he skipped it for brevity - however I find those virtually impossible to accept. No, I suspect that the omission of neuroscience of love was a rather calculated move on Dr. Oord's part based on his target audience - Theists - who prefer to conceptualize love as some theologically top-down, ethereal force which permeates the universe; one that preferably has little-to-no basis in the organic/biological realm. Make no mistake: Neuroscience poses a threat to Dr. Oord's thesis and goals. If he makes a convincing case to his readership that love is a neurological/biochemical phenomenon, which science is elucidating more and more as time goes on, he may rob his target audience of their sentimental, theistic concept of love, and he likely hamstrings his ultimate goal which is to eventually (herein or elsewhere) equivocate God with love. After all, how can God BE love if love is firmly rooted in our biochemistry? In addition, I think his nod to the evolution of altruism was an attempt, disingenuous or not, to (1) include biology in as non-threatening a way as [he saw] possible to a potentially Fundamentalist/science-fearing portion of his readership, and (2) placate the more science-minded portion of his readership. It gives the appearance that he has engaged the topic scientifically (in terms of biology), but in reality he has done it so incompletely as to forfeit a great deal of his credibility.

Thomas Oord is a dangerous thinking, professor and leader in the Christian realm today. This book is a PRIME example of how dangrous he is. First, he is not a Scientist, he is a theologian. A theologian is suppose to give you ideas and theories, not as facts. Thomas purposely writes in an "absolute" form. Be warned.

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