Book Review- Difficult Doctrine of Love. D.A Carson

It’s been a while since i have posted, and truth be told the left overs in my fridge (see previous post) are still walking around.  But i have been thinking much of love lately (for more reasons that one) and i have noticed a number of blogs and have been in conversations with people who are discussing the love of God.  So i went back to a small (yet jam packed) book on the Doctrine of God’s love.  So i’ll be posting a review of the book every Monday for a month on each chapter.  I hope it’s helpful to you, it’s been great for me.  I realise what i have to say is pretty short, in fact i left out some elements to the argument.  The idea behind that is for you to come back at me with thoughts and particularly with implications and applications to evangelism.  So enjoy!

Difficult Doctrine of Love

D.A Carson

Chapter One

On Distorting the Love of God

Carson begins his first chapter by making the point that the doctrine of God is made difficult to understand, not necessarily because it is beyond comprehension or explanation as if locked away in the great mystery of emotion.  But people have managed to distort the concept of God and therefore distort what his love is.

He gives five brief reasons for his idea.

Firstly, he sees that the Doctrine of love is made difficult because of the plurality of opinions of whom or what God is; therefore defining the love of God becomes even more difficult.Secondly, Carson sees the disbelief and questioning of other characteristics of God that are essential to Christianity and a biblical understanding of God’s Love.  Thus, God’s wrath, his sovereignty, providence and personhood are all questioned in some way and diminished.  Not only is the beginning of creating a God in our own image, but this naturally affects how we understand his love.  In a sense God becomes more human.Thirdly, the effect of an ever shifting Post-modern epistemology within the Western culture at least, has made it difficult to critically evaluate false doctrines.  Thus Carson asserts that in a Post modern context people believe that the only heresy left is that there is such a thing as heresy.  I guess this is a small example of how Post modernity may not stand up to its own scrutiny.   So, since a Post modern context enforces the idea that all religious views are equal and winning someone to your own is seen as arrogant and evil, the love of God falls prey to a kind of syncretistic sentimentalizing that falls far short of a biblical view of God’s love.  Fourthly, Carson frustratingly breezes past an essential comment.  He basically asserts that because people tend to concentrate on a single aspect of the nature of God over an above other aspects of his nature and character, they inevitably alienate other aspects by pitting them against each other in a way that is unnatural and unbiblical.  So, in other words, God’s love and God’s wrath are created as equal opposites since our brains (for lack of a better explanation) cannot fuse together the justice of God, the evil of this world and his gracious love.  The reason I think is that humans are very rarely able to balance ideas about God and the Bible in a sort of 3 dimensional manners.  We see things in linear, boxed categories that often come to exclude each other.  We then import that into our systematics creating a version of God that has gone schizophrenic.Fifthly, Christians can often make the mistake of over looking the distinctions of how the bible presents that love of God.

           

Different ways in which the Bible presents the Love of God.

At this point Carson looks at a number of passages that contain the theme of God’s love expressed in various ways.  I will not expound on these at length, but they each serve to illustrate his fourth and fifth point.  Because we tend to emphasize one proposition over and above other propositions, we naturally alienate the various propositions that Biblically fit together.  And so he surveys a number of ways in which the bible presents God’s love.  I guess the question might be, have you concentrated on one aspect of this doctrine?  I’ll list some of the passages he quotes, do some homework and check them out.

1)      There is a peculiar love between the Father and Son, and Son and Father.  John 5:20 and 14:31 display a unique and paradigmatic intra-Trinitarian love.

2)      God’s providential love over all he has made.  God’s love for his creation is expressed in declaring it good (pre-fall Genesis 1-2) but even now as he provides for it.

3)      God’s salvific love toward his Creation.  John 3:16, the kosmos reveals that God is interested in restoration not only of a particular part of creation but of all.  Paul’s understanding of God’s restoration plan in Col 1:15-23 is telling.  Notice the order in which he presents God’s restoration, Universe, church individual.  (More of that in a later post)

4)      God’s particular effective, selecting love toward his elect.  This is a distinct theme from the others, God’s choosing of
Israel was not arbitrary nor compulsive.   There was nothing the caused God to love them, they brought nothing that could earn his love, rather He loved them out of his desire to glorify Himself in their redemption (Deut 7: 7-8 cf. 4: 37).  So when
Israel is contrasted in the Bible with the nations or universe, it has nothing to do with their ethnicity, but rather God has chosen to love them.  In a similar way, God has love the Church, the Bride (Ephesians 5:25).

5)      Sometimes God’s love is said to be directed toward his own people in a conditional way- conditional on their obedience.  This is in a nutshell the basis of the relationship that God cut with
Israel.  Jude exhorts his readers to “keep yourself in God’s love” v21.  Relating to God is based on a covenantal relationship of obedience to him.  Our obedience is a reflection of our love for him, without his grace in our lives to obey (ie love him) his wrath would only be known.

            The rest of the chapter Carson helpfully strings these five assertions together.  He makes that point that leaving one on its own becomes a restrictive grid that alienates the others.  The point being, keep the full counsel of God in its multi faceted presentation of God in balance as we seek to explain the Creator’s love to others.  He also makes the point that the bible does not compartmentalize these ideas of God’s love.  They are nor separated loves of God. 

            He draws his conclusions upon two evangelical clichés:

1)      God’s love is unconditional: Yes and no.  God’s love is unmerited but disobedience will not go unpunished. 
Israel learnt this the hard way.

2)      God loves everybody equally: God lovingly provides for all creation, but his election of some shows a marked distinction between his creation and his people.

~ by Anthony on April 16, 2007.