D.A. Carson
“We must not view these ways of talking about the love of God as independent, compartmentalised, loves of God… Nor can we allow any one of these ways of talking about the love of God to be diminished by the others, even as we cannot, on scriptural evidence, allow any one of them to domesticate all the others.”
Attracted by the winning combination of an intriguing title, Carson’s name and its length, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d found. Like many of the philosophy papers I’d read, I expected Carson to engage in some theological acrobatics to show me why I ought to think that the love of God is a difficult doctrine so that he could spring into action as the problem-soother. To my surprise, I discovered, entirely unlooked for, that the book dealt with a number of questions I’d been processing for a while:
Does God love the elect more than the non-believer?
Does he hate the unrepentant?
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God explores the following five descriptions of God’s love:
The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father.
God’s providential love over all that he has made.
God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world.
God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect.
God’s love towards his own people in a provisional or conditional way.
Clear, steady, matter-of-fact and right, one after another I found my questions swiftly answered. En route Carson dances through a number of familiar controversies, like the Calvinist/Arminian debate, and, characteristically, disappoints both sides. Equally characteristically, he makes fresh observations; relating to the aforementioned debate he helpfully points out that everybody limits atonement in some way.
However, it’s arguably when he extends his pastorally rich applications into slightly less familiar discussions, like that surrounding the so-called “therapeutic” (so-called) gospel that Carson is most helpful. May the following whet the reader’s appetite:
“If the love of God is exclusively portrayed as an inviting, yearning, sinner-seeking, rather lovesick passion, we may strengthen the hands of the Arminians…and those more interested in God’s inner emotional life than in his justice and glory, but the cost will be massive.”
Because The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God crosses paths with central gospel issues, I can’t recommend it more highly; there will be something here to change every reader’s thinking. And yet for the Christian attending an Alpha-offering church, it has the potential to be absolutely paradigm-shifting.
7.5/10