 These experiential criticisms express underlying theological critiques. The dominant theological criticism of panentheism is that God is unable to guarantee the defeat of evil. Clayton and Bracken respond by maintaining that the world does influence God but God’s will, expressed through the decisions that God makes, protects God’s ability to save (Clayton 2005). Moltmann describes God’s essence as directing God’s activity in order to maintain the reliability of God as love acting on behalf of creation. Moltmann does not find it necessary to protect divine freedom by giving it priority over divine love but rather understands freedom as acting according to the divine nature of love (Moltmann 1981, 98, 99). J. Cooper challenges this response by criticizing panentheism for holding a concept of God that can save through the general processes of nature but not in any distinctive way. Kevin Vanhoozer’s concern about divine freedom is based on a similar concern (1998, 250). But, Griffin’s discussion of divine variable action does allow for specific and distinctive manifestations of divine love (2004, 45). Alexander Jensen also criticizes the ability of the panentheist concept to save by distinguishing between salvation by God and salvation through agents of their own salvation (2014, 12–13). For him, a process panentheist’s God can only draw and persuade rather than save (Jensen 2014, 128). Kenneth Pak concludes that an open future makes any ultimate victory over evil impossible (Pak 2014, 223–224). In response, B. Cooper lists five ways in which a process theology supports God’s power over other realities: (1) ontological priority in providing definition, (2) universality to all actuality, (3) as the ground of novelty, (4) as the ground and preserver of all value, and (5) the unconditioned character of God’s integrity as seeking to increase value in the world and love towards the world (1974, 102). Palmyre Oomen finds three similar elements in Whitehead’s thought that relate to God’s governing and sustaining the world: (1) God originates all occasions by presenting the initial aim which provides some direction against evil, (2) God preserves all that can be preserved, and (3) God as everlasting means that no occasion can overcome God forever (2015, 287–288). An additional criticism is that since God and the world are interdependent in the classic panentheism of Hegel and Whitehead, God is not free to choose to create and to save. The necessity of the world for God loses grace as the source of creation and redemption. God’s provision of salvation then becomes necessary rather than free. While Roger Olson questions whether or not a classic panentheist can hold to creation from nothing (Olson 2012, in Other Internet Resources), Clayton affirms creation from nothing as consistent with panentheism (2008). Ultimately the panentheist response is that God’s nature as love directs God’s actions bringing salvation. God’s nature as love is the crucial aspect of divine action rather than a causal efficacy. The emphasis of classical theism on divine will misses that the divine will is directed by divine love (Oord 2015; Molnar, 1990, 679).