the GOD i DON’T UNDERSTAND:
reflections on TOUGH QUESTIONS of faith
Christopher J.H. Wright
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008)
Hardcover, 221 pages, $19.99 USD
I picked up this book for free at a conference in Providence, Rhode Island. It was free with the proviso that a book review be forthcoming in a journal or posted on a blog or website. Since Nadia and I have our own blog I thought I would post it here and I hope you may be blessed by this different kind of entry. (I realize this review is rather lengthy, but to give due diligence to a book that covers a number of themes I felt this necessary)
Now, the question might be asked: having received this book for free and now having read it a few times, would you have bought it at full price? The answer is yes; while at the same time--as you will read below--this book needs to be read with a measure of discernment. Christopher Wright carefully works through a number of questions of faith with an approach that is marked by humility and sensitivity to the Scriptural text. He has no pretense that he can answer the questions of suffering and evil or explain God’s judgments or the final judgment with sufficient clarity and great erudition. Rather, he remarks: “...it seems the older I get the less I think I really understand God. Which is not to say that I don’t love and trust him. On the contrary, as life goes on, my love and trust grow deeper, but my struggle with what God does or allow grows deeper too” (p.16). And yet Wright does not fail to try to tackle the difficult questions for the sake of God’s people. He writes: “I want to explore questions that the Bible itself wrestles with, but I want to build up God’s people, not betray their faith” in the process. It is this faith that “seeks understanding, builds on understanding but does not finally depend on understanding” that he is seeking to strengthen (p.22). The fact of the matter is, God’s ways are so often beyond our understanding and yet never beyond our humble adoration as Wright periodically states throughout the book.
As one skims the table of contents one might think that it is a rather eclectic presentation of various, somewhat unrelated, themes of Scripture. However, Wright does tacitly draw a redemptive line through the book. The book begins, as it were, at the fall with questions of the cause of evil and suffering and ends at the new creation, and powerfully sandwiched between these themes is the cross serving as the hinge for which all these other questions can swing.
Wright begins the book by addressing the thorny issues surrounding evil and suffering. His argument is premised on this important truth that “any solution to the problem of evil that makes evil less evil than the Bible says it actually is, is no solution at all for the Christian” (p.58).
The truth of the matter is that we have to face evil square on and in the end realize that “evil does not make sense….evil can have no sense, since sense itself is a good thing” (p.42). Still, as Wright points out Scripture demands that we see its destruction on Golgatha. Wright wrestles with God's sovereignty and the depth of evilness in this world by drawing from Henri Blocher’s book, “Evil and the Cross.” Blocher defends that ‘the utter evilness of evil’, ‘the utter sovereignty of God’ and ‘the utter goodness of God’ all converge on the cross (p.63).
Wright also addresses the Canaanite problem. It is a problem for many because it seems at first blush that God engaged Joshua to commit an act of genocide against the Canaanites. Is this the case? To be sure, atheists like Richard Dawkins are foaming at the mouth when they talk about the so-called God of the Old Testament. Wright points out that Dawkins has no shortage of dark, sordid and debasing words to try to describe ‘God.’ To list a few, Dawkins views the ‘God’ of the Old Testament as “…an unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser…a capriciously malevolent bully"(p.73). We wince at this deplorable depiction of Yahweh. Yet the question remains: how do we confront the deaths of so many Canaanites, and what about Achan and Korah and Uzzah et al? Here Wright correctly takes his starting point from the angle of God’s justice while at the same time calls the reader to rightly align his view of God with the view that God Himself presents of Himself in Scripture—one that is full of compassion, slow to anger and bent on sacrificial-love for His people. The point is well made that although some of the acts of God are beyond understanding, the act of conquering the Canaanites, “was an act of God that took place within an overarching narrative through which the only hope for the world’s salvation was constituted” (p.107). Wright again correctly forces us to the cross, where God, in the person of Jesus Christ “bore on himself the judgment of God on human wickedness (p. 107).”
The next number of chapters in the book focuses the reader on the cross, or better, the mystery of the cross. Here Wright tries to grapple with the ‘how’ and ‘what’ and ‘when’ of the cross. He gives due attention to those three interrogatives trying to capture in so many words the power, beauty and glory of the cross. This may be the strongest section of the book. Indeed, for these chapters alone I would purchase this book. Wright also spends considerable time on penal substitution, “that is that God in Christ bore the penalty of sin and death in our place, so that we can be pardoned by God and be declared righteous” (128). There is no shortage of ink spilled or keys struck over the description of the nature of substitution. There are many, even so-called Christians, who balk at the cross because of its violence. Some go as far as to call it a deplorable act of child abuse. Others argue that God was controlled by the law—that is, that the law became a tyrant which controlled God leaving him with few options to atone for us save the horrific death of his Son on the cross. Wright carefully and accurately debunks all the theories against substitutionary atonement and effectively argues that one cannot separate God’s anger from his love “for they are intrinsically connected to one another” (p.131). “Would you want to be loved by a God who was not angry with evil?”(p.131). The only answer to deal with the offence of evil was death: “God made him ho had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). For the conclusion of the matter is this: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).
Wright concludes the book with a thorough study of the various ‘end-times’ views. He entitles one of these chapters: “Cranks and Controversies.” Wright wades into the problem with careful exegesis of various texts and exposes all the ‘fear mongering’ that fill so many books on end-times prophecies. His approach is very balanced and one that I find myself agreeing with repeatedly. Although the end of the world leaves us with more questions than answers, we know God’s justice, His Name and His Glory will be vindicated and worshipped. Wright, quoting John Stott's summary on this matter, writes: “our eternal destiny is settled in life, sealed in death, and stated on the day of judgment”(p.191). God is sovereign over that destiny. And past that great ending is the new beginning reaching to eternity that Wright fills another chapter writing about.
The book is an enjoyable and challenging read. Yet, as stated above, it needs to be read with discerning eyes. One of the issues in dealing with evil in this world is our response to it.
Can we be angry with God because of the moral evil (eg. Holocaust) or the natural evil (Tsunamis) that we experience or see around us?
Wright applies this dichotomy in dealing with evil, but he is not completely clear as to whether we can or should even be ‘angry’ with God with regards to either or both of these two. At one point, he answers the question: "Is it sinful to be angry with God?" with this answer: "Again I turn to my Bible and find that the answer simply has to be No" (p.50). However, at the conclusion of the chapter on evil we find this summary: “the Bible allows us to lament, protest and be angry at the offensiveness of evil” (Italics mine, p.55). It seems, though I may be reading more into it, that Wright is not sure whether he sanctions this anger against God or the offensiveness of evil? But the question is, however, does God? Sure, God has accommodated the protests of His children in his mercy (Job), and even understands our protests, but just as a child can get angry with his parent and we accommodate that anger in love, we don’t ever condone it as good behaviour. I don't find in either the Old, but especially not in the New Testament, a case for viewing 'being angry with God' as good behaviour.
Another concern is whether natural evil in this world is in fact evil? Wright is not clear on this point either. It is one thing to call natural phenomena (like earthquakes) evil, which he does, but it is another thing to say that these phenomena existed even before the fall into sin. Such a conclusion makes the word evil a misnomer. Coupled with this, Wright has a rather loose view of Genesis chapter 1 arguing that catstrophic events happened long before the emergence of human life. quoting Tom Wright he states: "A tectonic plate's got to do what a tectonic plate's got to do" (p.47) This is an unscriptural extrapolation. I find it unfortunate that Wright looses much of the clarity and precision when he deals with the matter of natural evil especially pre-fall.
Being aware of these issues, one can still find a lot of Scripturally based counsel in the pages of this book. It does not shy away from the difficult questions and one is blessed by the due diligence Wright pays to the issues of faith. In the end, it is a book that can serve to strengthen our faith and testify to the great work of God in dealing with a broken, suffering, world in the clutches of evil.
