Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 68:4 (Dec 2025)
Article: “A Counsel Of Despair”: Thomas Oord’s "Uncontrolling Love" And The Existential Problem Of Evil
Author: Laura-Lee Alford

JETS 68:4 (December 2025) p. 615

“A Counsel Of Despair”: Thomas Oord’s Uncontrolling Love And The Existential Problem Of Evil

Laura-Lee Alford

Laura-Lee Alford is a PhD student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2825 Lexington Rd., Louisville, KY 40280. She may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: Thomas Jay Oord claims to solve the problem of evil by proving God’s blamelessness on the basis of God’s inability to stop or prevent evil. However, when taken to its conclusion and evaluated by biblical criteria, Oord’s framework of “uncontrolling love” fails to provide the satisfaction of rest and hope for sufferers. To advance this argument, I first demonstrate that Oord’s view of God and his relation to the world removes confidence that a person’s suffering has meaning and can be redeemed. Second, I define the term “cognitive rest” as a way to conceptualize the interpretive satisfaction that sufferers seek. Third, I present a summary of biblical criteria for cognitive rest in an answer to the existential problem of evil. I conclude by highlighting how a Calvinist approach beginning with Scripture’s revelation of God’s attributes can provide rest, hope, and comfort, because its view of God generates confidence in present meaning and future redemption of a person’s suffering.

Key words: Thomas Jay Oord, problem of evil, providence, pastoral counseling, theological method

Perhaps no event has generated more modern discussion of evil than the Holocaust. Tormented at Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel laments, “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever”; “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”1 As other Jews later observed Rosh Hashanah in the concentration camp, the apparent irony fueled anger in Wiesel’s mind: “What does your greatness mean, Lord of the Universe, in the face of all this weakness, this decomposition, and this decay?”2 Though raised in extreme form by the horrors of the Holocaust, questions of how to understand God in view of evil are common in all kinds of suffering.

The problem of evil presents itself to all of us in one way or another, demanding a response. Essentially, this problem involves three premises: (1) God is good, (2) God is all-powerful, and (3) evil exists.3 The problem arises less from

JETS 68:4 (December 2025) p. 616

these premises per se than from their underlying presuppositions: we assume that God’s goodness and pow...