How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil [Paperback]

As Carson indicates at the start of this book, the book is not an attempt to provide a full orbed theodicy that will cover all aspects of suffering or the problem of evil. This is not a book that is devoted to exploring the philosophical origins of evil and how such origins reflect on the existence or nature of God. Carson does devote about two chapters to this, but it is not the thrust of the book, as Carson properly points out at the start. This is a book written to Christians mainly as 'preventive medicine' as Carson describes it.

It appears that what Carson is trying to achieve here is to provide the reader with a rather comprehensive analysis of what Scripture says about suffering, and equally important, what Scripture does not say. I thought that a big strength of the book was Carson's insistence on not going beyond the Biblical text to find more palatable or easy answers to such vexing questions that might make people feel better, but are not especially faithful to Scripture. Carson's mission appears to be to lay out for the reader what the Bible says and acknowledging the tensions that the Bible gives us on many aspects of the issue of suffering without using these tensions as an excuse to throw up his hands and declare incoherency. It is here that Carson's supreme expertise in Biblical exegesis becomes evident, and it is a source of comfort to the reader.

I was very impressed with Carson's willingness to repeatedly tackle tough questions and not shying away from difficult Scripture passages. As he says numerous times, the book is not necessarily offering full orbed answers to every tough question, but it is offering very sound and compelling thoughts where Scripture is clear, and acknowledging a certain amount of mystery over what is not clear, and clearly defining both.

Overall, I felt that the book was extremely balanced and thoroughly grounded in Scripture. This is a book that in my view, properly refrains from the extremes of offering overly simplistic answers that pretend to comprehensively deal with this topic, as well as the extreme of overly appealing to divine mystery as a way of dodging the tough questions. This is the best book I've read on the problem of evil that is something other than a philosophical defense. This is an exegetical defense, and a very good one.

Lastly, it needs to be pointed out who ought to read this book. I don't think an unbeliever will get much out of this, as Carson states. It is a book written by a Christian, for Christians who are not looking to use the issue of suffering to debate the existence of God. Likewise, I don't think it's the first book that Christians who are in the grips of suffering should pick up and read either. As Carson states, this is not a book that's really meant to comfort someone who is in the grips of suffering, but rather a book that is meant to provide a Christian foundation for suffering BEFORE the suffering comes so that Christians will have a better basis for coming to grips with it. Although I do think that those who are in the grips of suffering would profit from this book, I think the main audience for this book are Christians who are looking for a Biblical foundation for suffering. I also think that pastors and lay leaders would also greatly profit from this book since I thought there were a number of outstanding insights geared towards those Christians who are called to minister to those who are enduring suffering. It should also be pointed out that because the book was written 10 years ago, some of the discourse on AIDS is outdated and should be taken cautiously.

An outstanding book for what it deals with.

Some readers might struggle with its depth. This book is not for the casual reader. But it will repay the serious student many times over. I highly recommend it, especially for pastors and for Christian students in philosophy.

The main focus of the book points to themes throughout scripture. The heart of the book has a chapter on each of the following topics - sin, the various kinds of suffering and evil, God's suffering people, hell and holy war, sickness and death, the final restoration we're moving toward, suffering in the book of Job, and God's own suffering. The final chapters look in depth at the mystery involved in our responsibility in a world in which God is absolutely sovereign (in which Carson defends, biblically, compatibilism about God's sovereignty and our responsibility for what we do), the comfort we can derive from God's sovereign care, and some pastoral reflections about how to live our lives in response to the biblical portrait he's examined. He concludes with a 10-page appendix on AIDS.

This is by far the most balanced book I've read on the topic. Most philosophers focus on the problem of evil in intellectual debates and end up saying little of relevance. Most non-philosophers look at how we should respond to suffering in our lives but often in terms of inner psychological matters, as if our own inner problems are the real focus. Alternatively, the popular books could be more or less lists of practical things to do, not always helpful in times of difficulty.

Carson gives full treatment to both kinds of problems but is less concerned with debating intellectual arguments, analyzing psychological issues, or listing off which ten things we need to change in our behavior. His focus is on God has revealed himself and acted in history, treating the biblical text as fundamental.

This is a balanced Christian focus, and other sorts of things can come out of that. In the end he does give practical suggestions, many requiring a change or development in understanding God and his carrying out his purposes in history. He says plenty to apply to the philosopher's problems of evil. He also deals in depth with hell, sin, human responsibility, and God's own suffering, crucial points in a full Christian response to that sort of problem, far more significant a package than either the standard "free will defense" that fits little with scripture or the Leibnizian "best of all possible worlds" response that doesn't fill in any details of what's so good about it.

Carson's treatment of hell, sin, human responsibility, and God's suffering is the place for philosophers to look. Hell isn't the place of torture for a capricious being to get his jollies from people's suffering, nor does it simply keep people from heaven. God's justice is satisfied one way or another (by Christ or by hell), and that's significant. Evil isn't permanent. It gets dealt with by a loving, caring God who won't stand for continuing evil. God's plan of salvation allows evil to continue temporarily so that greater numbers of people might enter salvation by turning to God for help out of sin's ensnarement. A holy God couldn't allow evil in his presence, yet a good God couldn't stand by and do nothing, so he entered history as Jesus Christ to deal with the problem, suffering himself in a greater way than any others would ever suffer, not because of the suffering on the cross, great though that is, but because of his total separation from his Father, something no mere human being has even done yet, since the final judgment is still to come.

Hell is necessary for those who won't admit their rebellion against God and the necessity of his action to solve the problem, since such people are resistant to God to the end. There's no place for them in the restored community of perfection. But it's not so much a place of torment directed against them as the torment within them due to increasing rebellion against God and good. It's what rejecting God points toward, and every human being (besides Jesus) deserves it, but God saves and restores those who follow him. This is the Christian gospel and not new to those who absorb biblical teaching, but its relevance for the problem of evil is often passed over.

If God has suffered more than anyone else, that says something. If hell is the logical result of human rebellion against God (what human attitudes against God would logically lead to) and simultaneously preserves God's people from evil, that's significant. God's plan has huge ramifications if there's a goal to history. Human responsibility for sin explains evil in ways that don't interfere with God's sovereign plan for history, contrary to the standard philosophical approach to these matters. This approach is refreshing after reading lots of "free will defense" responses that make free will primary and necessary, something undermined somewhat by Carson's approach, since God's plan is the key element in all this.

Carson also does more for the human person asking these questions than does abstract statements such as the traditional "best of all possible worlds" response by G.W. Leibniz. Leibniz may be right in some significant sense if God's overarching plan took into account the other ways things could have gone. However, it's terribly misleading, as demonstrated by Voltaire's drastic misunderstanding of Leibniz in his parody Dr. Pangloss (in Candide). What Leibniz intended, and any way Leibniz would be right, has to involve these other aspects emphasized by Carson, and it has to start from where he starts - these key themes in scripture.