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 PrintableVersion The sovereignty of God debateCostly argumentTHE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD DEBATE In the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty, Bruce asks God ‘How do you make so many love you without affecting free will?’ We may disagree with the movie’s answer, but this profound question prompts a host of others. How are we to understand God sovereignty with respect to creation? Does creation affect God? Does God suffer or change because of his creatures? This collection of essays, originally presented to the Forum of Evangelical Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theology Seminary, addresses these questions. Despite approaching the problem from different theological perspectives, contributors Bedford, Sanders and Lodahl arrive at a similar conclusion: since God is a personal God of love, he cannot remain static, remote, detached or unfeeling toward his creation. Classical notions of God being immutable (unchanging) or impassible (incapable of suffering) are regarded as simply incompatible with a loving God. On the contrary, they suggest that God both gives and receives through dynamic inter-personal relationships with free moral agents acting within the bounds of time. However, the unbiblical assumption that God experiences relationship in the same way that humans do remains unchallenged. The remaining contributors defend the orthodox Christian view of God as sovereign, all-knowing, loving, relational, and infinitely alive. Kalantzis argues that those seeking an answer to the problem of suffering look to the incarnation. God the Son took on a second nature, suffered and died, according to his human nature, to alleviate the cause of our suffering. Long uses Aquinas to show how Scripture not only testifies to God’s intimate presence with creation, but also his independence from creation. If the uncreated Creator were entrenched in time and history, he would merely be another player competing for control with no guarantee that he could help. Drawing on Calvin, Bacote explains that, when Scripture speaks of God grieving, being surprised, or changing his mind, such language is metaphorical. This language must be taken metaphorically because of the Bible’s numerous passages describing God as utterly sovereign and transcendent. These well-argued essays would have greatly benefited, however, from much more detailed discussion of biblical texts to properly justify their conclusions. Employing a healthy model for theological debate, contributors are offered an opportunity to respond to one another. The book, however, may prove inaccessible to those without some theological knowledge and fails to deliver enough pastoral reflection to be really useful to the busy minister. Theological students would be provided with a helpful introduction and summary of open theism, process theology and the perspective of Moltmann, but at £25.00, I would ask my librarian. Lee Campbell,
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