The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

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The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

by D.A. Carson

4.26 · rating details · 145 ratings · 33 reviews

At first thought, understanding the doctrine of the love of God seems simple compared to trying to fathom other doctrines like that of the Trinity or predestination. Especially since the overwhelming majority of those who believe in God view Him as a loving being.

That is precisely what makes this doctrine so difficult. The only aspect of God's character the world still bel

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Paperback, 93 pages

Published December 10th 1999 by Crossway Books

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Dec 29, 2011

Bruno rated it

Shelves: theology

We tend to oversimplify and to sentimentalize the love of God. The Bible describes God's love in five different facets. We need to keep them all in mind and not focus on one to the exclusion of the others.

1. Within the trinity the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father.

"For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing..." (John 5:20)

"...but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I...more

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Jul 11, 2011

Callum Iles rated it

Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian theologian currently serving as the Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. He is a remarkable man with the understanding and confidence to tackle the most complex theological issues of our time such as evangelizing to post-moderns and the Emergent Church. The content of The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God is no exception.
The manuscript came from a series of lectures made to the Dallas Theological Seminary in 19...moreDonald Arthur Carson is a Canadian theologian currently serving as the Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. He is a remarkable man with the understanding and confidence to tackle the most complex theological issues of our time such as evangelizing to post-moderns and the Emergent Church. The content of The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God is no exception.
The manuscript came from a series of lectures made to the Dallas Theological Seminary in 1998 and was put together a few years later. The revelation contained within this book is life-changing.
Carson begins with a commentary on how these days, when we speak of the love of God we speak of him in our comfortable image. We say that God feels the emotions that we feel, and through this we purge God of anything uncomfortable. It is a true but confronting word. Carson goes on to say people are no longer surprised that God loves them, and the systematic journey we are taken on brings us to a new revelation on what the love of God really looks like.
By picking and choosing the aspects of God we like, we are treading on dangerous ground, and Carson eloquently and sensitively walks the reader through a way back to true understanding. We learn that God ‘is’ and us humans are always only ‘becoming.’ We learn that God doesn’t experience emotions like we do, he is certain characteristics and he is unchangeable in them.
For example, we have all heard God is love, what that means though, is that God doesn’t just love us when we are good, but no matter what we do God loves us, because he cannot do anything else. For another example, God hates sin, meaning God never changes in his hatred for sin.
The 100-page study ends with a studious elegance as we see how God’s love and God’s wrath sit side by side the entire New and Old Testament, only to come to a crescendo in the cross of Jesus. Carson finishes with the powerful words, ‘Do you wish to see God’s love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God’s wrath? Look at the cross.’ And it is there we meet with Jesus once more, our mediator and only hope.
I thoroughly recommend The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God to anyone who wants to understand God more, so that you can love God more.
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Dec 01, 2010

Natalie Wickham rated it

Shelves: theology

At the recommendation of a friend, I borrowed and read through this short book. The fact that the four chapters are based on lectures given by the author makes it a bit awkward at times. For example, in several instances he cites lack of space or time as a hindrance to further developing an issue he has raised. With such a short book, the reader wonders why he couldn’t have added another page or two to develop his thoughts more fully. That criticism aside, Mr. Carson does lay out some helpful pe...more

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Oct 24, 2011

David Sarkies rated it

Shelves: christian

I am going to sound very heretical by saying this but I have yet to be impressed by a Don Carson book. Granted, Carson is probably a great theologian, and many people say that they have been greatly encouraged by his books, and when he speaks he probably does have a substantial drawing power (when he came to Melbourne, each of his talks were sold out). To be precise, I found his daily devotionals quite helpful but on the other books that I have read of his (and this probably makes it number fou...more I am going to sound very heretical by saying this but I have yet to be impressed by a Don Carson book. Granted, Carson is probably a great theologian, and many people say that they have been greatly encouraged by his books, and when he speaks he probably does have a substantial drawing power (when he came to Melbourne, each of his talks were sold out). To be precise, I found his daily devotionals quite helpful but on the other books that I have read of his (and this probably makes it number four, including his two daily devotional books) I have found quite dry and, to be honest, boring.
Now this book, as can be seen from the title, is about the Love of God and through this rather short book he struggles with what the bible actually means by God's love. Is it a question of God loving everything on one level, and the elect on another (it is clear from this book that Carson is a Calvinist), or is there a constant love of God. He also explores the nature of whether God hates just sin, or the sinners that commit the sin. I will agree that this is a difficult doctrine, but then again when has anything about Christianity been simple. Granted, the basic concept of Christ dying for our sins so that through the Grace of God and our faith in him, we are granted eternal life, but even then that is not that simple. What is Grace, and how do we have faith?
Though despite all of these difficult doctrines, Christianity is embraced by people from all walks, many of them having the simple faith of the child that Christ praises. Christianity is not a faith for the intellectuals, and we even see this in the biblical account where scoffers laugh at Paul when he speaks on the Rock of Ares (the Aeropagus, or Mars Hill being the Roman translation). We are also told that to Jews the message is blasphemous while to the Greeks it is foolish, however it was embraced by slave and freeman alike, both the wealthy and the poor, as well as the intelligent and the more dimwitted. Christianity in all its forms has always been a faith that is open to all.
But what about the love of God? Isn't God love, and doesn't God love us all. Well yes and no. Yes he does, he created us and like all creators he loves that which he created. However, I say no because the deeper form of love, that of a love between two individuals (and I am not talking about sexual love, but rather about a familial bond between two friends) is reserved for those who love him. Carson says that it is those he choses, but then we get into another difficult doctrine, and that is of predestination. Now that is a difficult doctrine and will be left for another day. Instead, I will simply say God loves those who love him, though we must remember that God's love is not reciporacal, meaning that it does not respond to a love to him, but rather it is unconditional, that is that it is freely offered to those who want it, and it is through that that our relationship with God is formed.
However the other thing we must keep in mind is in fact a title of an old 80's song 'I want to know what love is'. Well, Foreigner, if you want to know what love really is then you need to look at God because God is Love. Now, that is a pretty vague statement because how can an object (God) be a concept (Love). I don't think it means that though because what John is saying is that if we want to know what love is (just as Foreigner asks) then we must look at God and what he did on the cross. As it says in the Bible 'greater love hath no man than he give up his life for another'. That is what Christ did on the cross, taking the full punishment that was due to us upon himself so that we might re-enter that relationship with God. (less)

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Oct 09, 2011

Patrick Mulcahy rated it

There were some things I really liked about this book, in particular how he talked about five aspects of God's love, and the danger of absolutizing any one of them. In some ways I felt like he had things just a bit too well figured out though - as though he had God and God's love and wrath figured out so that it fit his theological viewpoint. I do think what Carson does well in this book is to show that God's love and wrath aren't necessarily incompatible. What I took away from reading this was ...more

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Sep 29, 2008

Paul rated it

Shelves: bible-study-exegetical, bible-study-topical, attributes-of-god

This book is classic Carson. This is a brief book and is not meant to be a detailed exposition of this doctrine but rather offer doctrinal sketchings.

The book is short, 97 pages. Made up of four chapters: (1) On Distorting the Love of God; (2) God is Love; (3) God's Love and God's Sovereignty; and (4) God's Love and God's Wrath.

Summary:

Chapter 1

Carson uses three sections to explain why the doctrine of God's love, of all doctrines (!), is a difficul...more

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Oct 10, 2011

Jeffrey Niles rated it

Shelves: theology

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The doctrine of the love of God is not an easy doctrine. Compared to other dialogs in theology, one may be tempted to relegate this teaching as material which is mastered in the early days of Sunday School. Certainly, God loves and is love; toddlers and adults alike can taste this truth with ease. However, D. A. Carson has masterfully displayed that the doctrine of God’s love is indeed difficult, and as such, is worthy of careful attention. “Christian faithfulness entails our responsibility to g...moreThe doctrine of the love of God is not an easy doctrine. Compared to other dialogs in theology, one may be tempted to relegate this teaching as material which is mastered in the early days of Sunday School. Certainly, God loves and is love; toddlers and adults alike can taste this truth with ease. However, D. A. Carson has masterfully displayed that the doctrine of God’s love is indeed difficult, and as such, is worthy of careful attention. “Christian faithfulness entails our responsibility to grow in our grasp of what it means that God is love.” The doctrine remains central to the message of Christianity and therefore, especially in light of its complexity, should be the focus of disciplined study. Carson sets forth in this book to outline how Christians should proceed toward an understanding of this great doctrine.

Carson’s work is short, but contains much depth and carries great weight in its ability to challenge the scholar and layman alike. An edited form of four sessions which he presented during the 1998 W. H. Griffith Thomas lectures, his book covers ninety-three pages, and in it Carson addresses the topic of God’s love in four concise, but well argued chapters.

In the first, he addresses the question as to why the doctrine is difficult and how it has been distorted. Carson poses three cultural and two theological reasons for its complexity: (1) a missing Christian framework, (2) modern sentimentalism, (3) postmodern pluralism, (4) the complexity of God himself, (5) and various distinctions (Intra-Trinitarian love, God’s love for what he has made, salvific love for the world, God’s selecting and effective love, and provisional love which is conditioned upon obedience) that are made within Scripture regarding God’s love. Carson concludes the first chapter with some preliminary observations regarding the absolutizing and compartmentalizing of God’s love; he also addresses the convention of certain clichés.

Carson then progresses to a discussion on how one must proceed to an understanding of divine love. He warns in his second lecture/chapter against flawed word studies and illegitimate totality transfer. Much of this section is a review of another book by Carson.

Chapter three deals with the complexities of a God who is love, but is also sovereign. He addresses the transcendence of God, the concept of election within God’s sovereignty, and divine immutability, yet points out the thirty-five passages that portray God as relenting or repenting. Unpacked, an infinite God has established a relationship with finite beings. “But what does it mean to have a personal relationship with the transcendent, sovereign God? We cannot easily imagine this, whether by extrapolation of our finite experience or by strategic negations.” Carson maintains that rightly constrained impassibility needs to seen. God’s love cannot be separated from his knowledge; his will cannot be divorced from his love. There is a distinction between falling in love and God setting his affections on man. Theologians must recognize that God’s love does not function exactly like man’s and must remember that he exercises his love in conjunction with his other perfections; his love always emanates from his own character.

In his final chapter, Carson deals with the difficulty of the coinciding doctrine of God’s wrath. He addresses misconceptions about God’s wrath and then concentrates on the implications of the love of God in regard to the intent of the atonement, in regard to God’s love for the world, and in regard to God’s love for his people.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God is not an exhaustive study of the theology of divine love, nor of its implications for the church in a postmodern society. However, in this brief work, Carson has masterfully called believers to further and careful study of this great doctrine and has successfully charted the way for that endeavor by warning believers of the mistakes which have been made in the past and by drawing specific distinctions in how God’s love is to be viewed biblically.

One of the greatest contributions Carson has made in this particular work is his clear portrayal of the distinctions made in Scripture between God’s love toward different persons, whether that be the Father’s love for the Son (John 3:35; 5:20), his salvific love for the whole world (John 3:16), or his selective, effective love toward the elect (Mal 1:2-3; Eph 5:25). Much confusion has been flooded through churches over the centuries because men have muddied those distinctives or compartmentalized the various aspects of God’s love. “Because we tend to emphasize one proposition over and above other propositions, we naturally alienate the various propositions that Biblically fit together.” Carson notes the distinctives which Scripture makes regarding God’s love while at the same time warning his reader of compartmentalizing independent “loves” of God.

The fruit of Carson’s study and clear definitions have implications not only for theology proper, but carry weight into other fields as well, such as Soteriology. Two illustrations should suffice. Postmodern society has failed to note the distinctives addressed above and with that have attacked the concept of divine wrath. Carson notes that God’s wrath is not one of his perfections, but rather is a willed response against his holiness. In contrast, God’s love “wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved.” The implications this bears upon universalism and other views of salvation are vast.

D. A. Carson also deals specifically with the issue of limited atonement and the debate over whether God truly loves the world. Drawing from the foundational issue of the distinctives within God’s love, Carson affirms the declaration of Scripture that God directs his love toward the lost. Summarizing Carson’s section on the atonement, Dr. Scott Horrell writes, “Especially helpful is his suggestion that the debate between ‘limited’ and ‘unlimited’ atonement may be better conceived as ‘general’ and ‘definite’ atonement. God’s offer of salvation is genuinely extended to all, but the elect are those sinners to whom is granted the grace to believe.” With the understanding that God’s love is directed toward various individuals in different ways, the discussion of the atonement may be able to take new shape.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God is a brief work and in no way attempts to bring resolution to various theological discussions, such as the extent of the atonement. However, Carson has issued an appropriate challenge to pursue a correct and deeper understanding of God’s love in its various aspects. In addition, he has provided an appropriate framework for this pursuit. His book is not a difficult read, but is definitely recommended for its great insight, careful thought, and for its implications upon multiple areas of theology and life.
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Feb 08, 2012

Mark Clements rated it

Carson gives a solid, but short, treatment on the love of God. Definitely not your "God loves you" kind of essays. He shoots down the hackneyed "agape love is God's love" stereotype and really makes the reader think.

This short (84 pages of text) book is well worth the time. I was very encouraged and challenged to dwell in the love of God.

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Aug 03, 2011

Colin Kennedy rated it

Shelves: theology

A superbly crafted piece of work on at topic which so often we simply glance over; yet without an understanding of "love"; and by that I don't mean the shallow, one dimensional love that might come to mind; but that of God, it really is difficult to get a real grasp of the gospel. Excellent book and would heartily recommend it!

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Oct 03, 2009

Sean rated it

Essential for "Calvinists" and "Arminians" to read. Carson discusses the various ways in which God's love is spoken of in Scripture. This treatment just may leave each (Calvinist or Arminian) camp asking, "What is missing in our understanding of God?" or, at least, "What do we tend to over-emphasize, or under-emphasize?"

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May 05, 2011

Leslie Christopher rated it

This is one I will read and read again. I will have to, in order to actually get this "into my bloodstream."

Great book for those of the Reformed persuasion, especially if you (like me) tend to lean a little toward the legalistic side of things. This book set me straight!

Highly recommend.

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Dec 24, 2009

Ben rated it

A wonderfully challenging, but very short book on the Love of God. The author rightly starts out the book by pointing out that most people would find the title a bit strange... in just what way is the Love of God a difficult doctrine.

It does not take D. A. Carson very long to present a convincing case of just how post-moderinsm has affected both believers and unbelievers alike in their understanding of what love is, especially as it pertains to God.

It is very likely ...more

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Jan 21, 2011

Dan rated it

How can something so simple (the love of God) be so difficult to grasp sometimes? Why does the Bible say God loves and hates sinners? Carson does a wonderful job answering these questions and many more in this short but helpful book.

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Nov 20, 2008

Craig rated it

Great book on explaining the different aspects of God's love. Some folks only think of His unconditional love, but Carson ably explains more and from the Scriptures. This helps avoid misunderstandings of Scripture.

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Feb 13, 2011

Aaron Anderson rated it

A magnificent book, covers an amazing amount of subject matter while still remaining short and readable. Carson does the exegetical work on a topic that is much talked about, but often misunderstood.

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Jan 12, 2011

Cbarrett rated it

So helpful, especially the careful way in demonstrating the different ways in which Scripture speaks of the love of God. Meditating on the intra-Trinitarian love is like standing on holy ground.

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Jul 29, 2011

Butch rated it

Short discussion of the different ways the Bible talks about God's love. Not too academic but certainly thought-provoking.

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Nov 26, 2011

High Pointe Baptist Church added it

Shelves: theological-foundations

Addresses difficult questions of why God would save one and not another, and why he'd save anyone at all.

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Dec 25, 2011

Ruthette rated it

Carson offers a warning regarding what happens when believers hold aspects of God's love out of balance. My only critique is that there aren't nearly enough footnotes.

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Aug 11, 2011

Joe Taylor rated it

Shelves: theology

An excellent book! Very highly recommended!

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Aug 06, 2010

Donald rated it

Carson explains the many facets of God's love.

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Sep 16, 2009

Eric rated it

Good but a little difficult read. Very thought provoking on the love of God.

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Oct 17, 2007

Jacky rated it

Shelves: christian

It is very common for us to mis-define the 'love' of God as something more saturated, something more down-to-earth. What we fail to realise is that the love on earth is infinitesimally in a micro scale of what God's love truly is. Carson ponders on the various types of love, which even Christians get wrong by limiting it to 'unconditional' love (which is the mainstream interpretation of 'agape' love, which Carson states is not a completely accurate interpretation).

Read this to unde...more

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Sep 22, 2011

Sean Higgins rated it

Good and short. Who would have thought that the "love of God" was so complex? Apparently the apostle Paul did (Ephesians 3:14-21). And Carson helps.

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Oct 25, 2008

David rated it

The difficult doctrine of the love of god is an excellent book. The main downfall that I find is its brevity. It tackles the question of the extent of the atonment in an impressive manner. I would suggest this book for those who are trying to apprehend definite atonement. Another bonus is that the best part of the book is actually online at the following address:

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/ar...

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Dec 01, 2011

Skipper Boatwright rated it

Carson's cheap characterization of post-modernism as cultural or personal relativism was disappointing. This happens in the first chapter. With the first chapter aside, Carson does what he does best: Biblical theology. Once Carson leaves behind his attempt at critiquing culture and focuses on producing a Biblical theology of God's love, this book becomes a classic.

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Jun 21, 2010

Alexis Neal rated it

Shelves: 100-books, religion

Meaty and well-written. Carson identifies many aspects of God's love that tend to be hard for people (i.e., me) to understand. This book was very helpful. I particularly benefited from the reminder that God's love is such that he delights in us; His is not merely a love of duty and obligation. Definitely worth reading.

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May 16, 2011

Chad Barnes rated it

This is THE go-to book for sound biblical exposition of God's love, addressing the difficult passages on the love of God (i.e. Psalm 5:5, 1 John 4:8, etc.) in a beautiful, reasonable, God-honoring way. I could not recommend it more highly. It's probably best for readers high school and up.

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May 22, 2008

Andre rated it

Shelves: theology-proper

I really enjoy reading Carson and am envious of his job as research professor :+) This book is an easy read but still manages to plumb the depths of our understanding of the love of God as revealed in the Scriptures and various theological systems.

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Aug 26, 2007

Wade rated it

Shelves: christian-living

A very solid, and VERY theological book on God's love. It is good, but it is also quite difficult to read. If you haven't read much theology before I would steer clear of this book.

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About D.A. Carson

Don (D. A.) Carson (b. 1946) - Reformed evangelical at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His theology is similar to that of Wayne Grudem except on charismatic issues, where his view may be described as "open but cautious." Carson's tendency is to strive for balance and amicability in disputes but is uncompromising on the essentials of the faith. He is a complementarian but supports ge...more

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