Book Review: The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

Some of you might be such careful readers of my blog that you have realized that lately I have been in a new phase of writing on the subject of the love of God. The are two simple reasons for this: (1) I will be teaching on the subject in about a month and I usually blog on the topics for which I am studying. (2) In this study I have found a very useful resource in D.A. Carson's book The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. I'm not very experienced in reviewing books but I want to commend this one to you so I'll give it a shot.

The first thing that drew me to this book is that it was written by Carson, one of the most clear-minded evangelicals of our time. The man is smart, reverent, and pastoral in his writing.

The second thing that appealed to me was its size, the book is only 93 pages long (84 if you don't include notes and index) so it was meant to be a concise work.

More important is the level of content you receive. Carson is all about balance. He doesn't want anyone to fall into a ditch on the left or on the right. For example, he is a Calvinist and that shows up in his third chapter "God's Love and God's Sovereignty." But he critiques the majority of Calvinists' interpretation of John 3:16. He also devotes a small amount of time to defending a conditional love of God which some more passionate Calvinists might be reluctant to agree with. That is why I love Carson, his passion is for biblical truth and not vague systems.

There are some annoying things you will find in Carson's writings that show up a little bit in this work. One of his biggest flaws is that he travels down many rabbit trails. That is why I was surprised to find that he had written such a short book but he still managed to go down one or two rabbit trails, he just made them shorter this time. The second thing that I don't like very much about Carson is his use of the English language. This is more of a cultural difference than anything. Carson is a Canadian, has spent much time in Europe (you would think he is British by listening to him speak!) and is crazy smart when it comes to language. So if you're like me you will find yourself grabbing your dictionary a time or two.

Overall this book has been very helpful for me. If you're like me and have little or no education when it comes to Greek and Hebrew you will have one or two times when you have to struggle through his points but those are few and far between. I was able to get by having already been taught a thousand times on the three different Greek words for "love." The hour or two you spend reading this book is well worth the better understanding you will gain, especially when it comes to verses like 1 John 4:8,16 (God is love) and John 3:16. It is also inexpensive which is a huge plus.

Here is Tim Challies' review on the book.