Evil and the Justice of God
by N. T. Wright
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Book Summary Information
Author: N. T. WrightEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-05
ISBN: 0830833986
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: IVP Books
Book Reviews of Evil and the Justice of God
Book Review: In Heaven (Everything is Fine)
Summary: 2 Stars
When I reviewed Alister McGrath's Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, Amazonians recommended the works of N.T. Wright, a British Christian theologian, for answers to the skeptical questions I raised about McGrath's book and theism generally.
In "Evil and the Justice of God" Wright offers a critique of contemporary approaches to evil, and suggests that Christianity's approach is better.
Alas, Wright's book casts great doubts on his capacity to solve any problem, let alone such grand complicated issues as Good, Evil and the existence of God. Wright's book is incoherent, obfuscatory, intellectually empty and morally bankrupt.
The main question about Evil and God is why bad things happen to good people? If God is just, how come the world isn't? I believe that theologians have wrestled with this question for centuries. Wright offers a unique, two phase approach to this problem: 1. refuse to answer it. 2. blame those who even ask.
Wright candidly admits that "I have ruled out... any immediate prospect of finding an answer to the question of where evil came from in the first place and what it's doing in God's good world." (p. 136). OK, so he chickens out from answering the tough questions. But then, he has the Chutzpah of attacking those who do: "much of the agonizing over evil as a problem in philosophy or theology is exposed as displacement activity, as moaning over spilt milk instead of mopping it" (p. 150).
For Wright, the solution to the problem of evil is God as, literally, the ultimate dues ex machine. "The Ultimate answer to the problem of evil is in God's creation of a new world, new heavens and new Earth, with redeemed, renewed human beings ruling over it and bringing to it God's wise, healing order". Makes you wonder why God couldn't get it right the first time.
But, Wright is concedes that he's open to the attack that, if everything is gonna be just fine in the new world, we shouldn't worry too much about this one. Deus Ex Machine comes to the rescue again: We should care about the here-and-now because God wants us to. If only God addressed the world's problems as effectively as he does the theologian's.
Add to Wright's confusions in general his confusion about a specific thing - namely, what do we call evil. When Wright talks about Evil, he's not being metaphorical. He really believes in Satan, supernatural powers, all that "exorcist" stuff. "The Gospels tell the story of the deeper, darker forces which operate at a superpersonal level, forces for which the language of the demonic, despite all its problems, is still the least inadequate" (p. 81).
But should we really look at evil as a "non-human being"? (p. 108). Personally, I cannot think about the concentration camps, Mao's Giant Leap Forward or the 9/11 attacks without the word "evil". And yet, "evil" is mostly not a very useful term for thinking about things. What does it mean to say, for example, that the Iraq war is evil? Is George W. Bush evil? I find that the terminology is unhelpful in either case. I don't think the questions of whether some things are evil or not lead to any real insight as to what to do about them.
As if to illustrate my point, Wright offers a reading of the Old Testament as a narrative of God's continues engagement with, and judgment of, evil. When the people misbehave, he sends the Flood. When Pharaoh refuses to "let my people go", he sends the plague. When the Midyanites sin, he sends the Israelites to wipe `em out.
This is a very forced reading. How can the murder of countless innocent first born be called "the Justice of God"? How can Genocide correspond to any concept of good that we would find palatable? What did the animals do to warrant their execution along with humankind in the flood?
Now, we shouldn't expect the bible to embody the morality we hold today. It was written thousands of years ago in a completely different cultural context. But pretending that it does speak to questions of Evil and Justice in a way that's recognizable to us is just that - pretending.
After this unconvincing spin on the Old Testament, Wright tries to discern the qualities of Heaven from a close reading of the book of Revelations. I will spare you the details - suffice to say that it would consist of a very beautiful, but physical place. "An incorruptible, unkillable physical world" (p. 116).
Wright also offers some advice as to how to improve the world we live in today. He's not much of a political philosopher. He chastises the "Modern" view on the superiority of Democracy to other Governments. "Are we really so sure that Western style government is the only or even the best type?" And yet, immediately after that., he says "I still agree with Churchill that democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all those other forms of government that are tried from time to time." Well, that ought to settle it, then, right? Apparently not "I find myself increasingly wonder[ing] ... [is it] right to expect Afghanistan or Iraq to adopt a version of [democracy?]" (pp. 35-36). Now I'm all confused. What form of government does Wright suggest would be better for Afghanistan or Iraq? A clerical theology? Another Saddam-esque dictatorship?
Although he's not too high on democracy, Wright does like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (p.125). This is not the place to discuss the merits of these bodies, but I would like to know what biblical authority Wright Marshalls to support either. When the Israelites wanted to enter Israel, they did not call an assembly of the Nations and argued their case peacefully. No International Court judged Moses, Saul or David. It's nice that Wright has faith in the International Community, but this faith does not come from my bible.
Summary of Evil and the Justice of God
Merit Award, 2007 Christianity Today Theology/Ethics Book With every earthquake and war, understanding the nature of evil and our response to it becomes more urgent. Evil is no longer the concern just of ministers and theologians but also of politicians and the media. We hear of child abuse, ethnic cleansing, AIDS, torture and terrorism, and rightfully we are shocked. But, N. T. Wright says, we should not be surprised. For too long we have naively believed in the modern idea of human progress. In contrast, postmodern thinkers have rightly argued that evil is real, powerful and important, but they give no real clue as to what we should do about it. In fact, evil is more serious than either our culture or our theology has supposed. How then might Jesus' death be the culmination of the Old Testament solution to evil but on a wider and deeper scale than most imagine? Can we possibly envision a world in which we are delivered from evil? How might we work toward such a future through prayer and justice in the present? These are the powerful and pressing themes that N. T. Wright addresses in this book that is at once timely and timeless.Theology Books
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