Customer Reviews

Where Is the God of Justice?: Biblical Perspectives on Suffering

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The author offers a definite answer for several important concepts and misconceptions that people often ask about God, i.e. "Does God suffer?". As a reference book, this will be helpful to me when I am compiling data for research in my theological studies.

This would not, however, be a book I would ever pull off the shelf to help myself or anyone else, answer the questions, "Where is God showing up when my life is circling the drain of despair? Where is God in this secular and sinful mess of society that is so anti-Christ?"

In my very humble opinion, I feel the author did not answer the main objective as intimated in the title; "Where is the God of Justice". He provides many examples of biblical texts and borrowed materials from other authors and has left us to decipher their meaning. This is more like an outline of many different concepts. I am an avid reader but I am also very focused and need to see purpose in every minute that I spend doing anything. Therefore I appreciate an author who can continually redirect me back to the main point. I kept asking Dr. Mc Williams, who I'm sure is a brilliant man, "Yes, but what's the point?"

"Where is the God of Justice?" comes in the very last few pages of the last chapter and it is actually a culmination of the works of C.S. Lewis and Douglas John Hall. My paraphrase is, "People have expectations of a God who they do not fully understand, and most of whom don't even make an attempt to get to know and so are surprised and feel betrayed by Him when bad things happen." However, (author now)"... The best Christian theodicy needs to be based on the story of Jesus, including his death and resurrection." Where is the God of Justice? He is Immanuel, right here, in us and with us every step of the way. For anyone who does not fully understand this most amazing miraculous truth, the question for them will sadly remain unanswered.

And perhaps the most important answer to this question lies in the book of Revelation, which the author never even broached and that is the "Last Act" of this whole human drama. That's where true justice will be found ultimately. That's where the promises of justice will finally be fulfilled. But its still-though not too far now- in the future. (Have you watched the news lately?) If people do not look at the whole picture and the future that will surely come to pass, understanding that our earthly life is just a tiny segment on God's Kingdom timeline, then attempting to answer any of these questions, in my mind is a waste of precious time.

Only through the life a follower of Christ, who truly understands this truth and who allows the love of the Father to flow through them will the other people of this dying and broken world ever come to rightly answer this ageless question for themselves.