Evil and the Justice of God

by N.T. Wright

Merit Award, 2007 Christianity Today Theology/Ethics Book With every earthquake and war, understanding the nature of evil and our response to it becomes more urgent. Evil is no longer the concern just of ministers and theologians but also of politicians and the media. We hear of child abuse, ethnic cleansing, AIDS, torture and terrorism, and rightfully we are shocked. But, N. T. Wright says, we should not be surprised. For too long we have naively believed in the modern idea of human progress. In contrast, postmodern thinkers have rightly argued that evil is real, powerful and important, but they give no real clue as to what we should do about it. In fact, evil is more serious than either our culture or our theology has supposed. How then might Jesus' death be the culmination of the Old Testament solution to evil but on a wider and deeper scale than most imagine? Can we possibly envision a world in which we are delivered from evil? How might we work toward such a future through prayer and justice in the present? These are the powerful and pressing themes that N. T. Wright addresses in this book that is at once timely and timeless.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christianity, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Faith

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England (2003-2010) and one of the world's leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. He has been featured on ABC News, Dateline NBC, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air, and he has taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford universities. Wright is the award-winning author of Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Last Word, The Challenge of Jesus, The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the much heralded series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

He also publishes under Tom Wright.

Reviews

[Melora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps this is a subject on which writing a satisfying book is just intrinsically difficult. Maybe impossible. At any rate, Wright, whose work I generally really like, does Not solve the Problem of Evil here. Just in case you thought he might have.

Looking at the “problem of evil,” from a Christian perspective, there seem to be two main questions: first, the one addressed by theodicy – the question of why a loving God would have created a world containing evil, and, second, why, despite Jesus's defeat of evil and death, seen in the crucifixtion and resurrection, do we continue to see evil, suffering, and death in the world? Wright does not even try to answer the first question – he says something to the effect (I couldn't find the passage again) that that is a philosophical question which is likely to serve only as a distraction from the more important issue of what we are supposed to Do about evil. He says

”The Old Testament talks quite a lot about what God can do, is doing, and will do about evil. It may be possible that we can work back from there to some account of what the Bible thinks evil is, and why it's there, but that's seldom if ever the primary focus. Insofar as the Old Testament offers a theodicy (an explanation of the justice of God in the face of counterevidence), it's couched not in the terms of later philosophy but in the narrative of God and the world, and particularly the story of God and Israel” (p. 45)

In the Conclusion he says

”We are not told – or not in any way that satisfies our puzzled questioning-- how and why there is radical evil within God's wonderful, beautiful, and essentially good creation. One day I think we shall find out, but I believe we are incapable of understanding it at the moment, in the same way that a baby in the womb would lack the categories to think about the outside world.”

I can't argue with that, but, honestly, I find that philosophical problem, foolishly distracting though it may be, fascinating, and I would have liked Wright to give it a bit of an effort, anyway.

The second problem, unfortunately, never gets really thoroughly answered either. Well, it Does get answered, but in a round-about, vague sort of way. Wright points out that history disproves the idea of human “improvement,” but at the same time he argues (and, again, I don't disagree) that God is working to restore justice to the world through humankind, specifically through the family of Abraham. Of course, he reminds us that His followers, too, are deeply flawed – Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, etc. As he notes, quoting Solzhenitsyn, “the line between good and evil is never simply between “us” and “them.” The line between good and evil runs through each one of us.” Still, says Wright, that is the plan.

”If you want to understand God's justice in an unjust world, says the prophet (Isaiah), this is where you must look. God's justice is not simply a blind dispensing of rewards for the virtuous and punishments for the wicked, though plenty of those are to be found on the way. God's justice is a saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place. And he remains implacably determined to complete this project through his image-bearing human creatures and, more specifically, through the family of Abraham.” (p.64)

Key to Wright's thinking is his focus on the “already here/still to come” eschatology.

”Evil is the force of anti-creation, anti-life, the force which opposes and seeks to deface and destroy God's good world of space, time, and matter, and above all God's image-bearing human creatures. That is why death, as Paul saw so graphically in 1 Corinthians 15:26, is the final great enemy. But if in any sense this evil has been defeated – if it is true, as the Gospel writers have been trying to tell us, that evil at all levels and of all sorts has done its worst and that Jesus throughout his public career and supremely on the cross had dealt with it... why then, of course, death itself had no more power” (p. 89).

Jesus's followers, living in a world where God's new creation has been inaugurated through the Resurrection and death has been defeated on one level, but where, on a rather more obvious level, evil still appears to be quite vigorous, have the task of sharing the love and forgiveness they have received with the rest of the world. “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love. The cross is not just an example to be followed; it is an achievement to be worked out, put into practice. But it is an example nonetheless, because it is the exemplar – the template, the model – for what God now wants to do by his Spirit in the world, through his people” (p 98). So, that's the program until Judgement Day.

If Wright has titled this something like “How Christians Should Live in a World Filled with Suffering and Injustice,” I'd probably have given it four stars. Of course, it wouldn't have sold many copies, but, more to the point, he's written that book before. A couple times. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church and After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, for starters. Anyway, this book is too short for a reader new to his work to get a sense of Wright's new creation theology, and, for those who are familiar with his work, is is merely repetitious.

[Adam Shields · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short review: Wright's response to the problem of evil feels a bit like a summary of his other books with an excellent chapter on forgiveness. I probably have read too many books by Wright in a short period of time, but this felt like a lot of re-treading of the same ground. In some ways I wish the chapter on forgiveness was not as good as it is, because then I could dismiss the book. But chapter 5 is probably worth the price of the book. Heavily borrowing on Miroslav Volf, I now have some more books to read to find out what Wright is basing this chapter on.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/evil-wright/

[Brenton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smart, tight study. This is my second time reading this book. It was more satisfying this time as I am reading it alongside a more technical, philosophical, and theological book on evil and justice, Mark S.M. Scott, Pathways in Theodicy: An Introduction to the Problem of Evil (2015). Scott makes up the things that Wright leaves out in this lecture series turned book, and Wright gives the personal twist to Scott's turn from ontology (where does evil come from if God is good and powerful?) to theological response. Evil and the Justice of God is probably read best after having some of Wright's other work in hand, particular something on Justification, something on Jesus, and something on Paul, as well as The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion (2016) and Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (2007). Of those other books, Wright has fuller theological versions as well as shorter, personally accessible ones.

[Willemina Barber-Wixtrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book which I expected to be on Hell was actually about the victory of Christ, the nature of evil, and the Christian call to forgiveness.

A welcome surprise!

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

NT Wright, British biblical theologian and bishop of Durham, had intended to write a book about the atonement. As he examined the issue within Christian theology, he found that every theory of atonement was trying to explain the problem of evil. The result of his discovery, coupled with the perceived deluge of natural disasters and violence in the world, compelled him to write this book. His purpose in Evil and the Justice of God is to provide a a biblical answer to the problem of evil in light of Western culture's lack of nuance or utter dismissal of this problem.

The reader can expect the colloquial Wright, a mix of evangelical biblical exegesis with the characteristic narrative emphases coupled with the homiletic trappings his casual readers have come to expect. For those who have waded through his Christian Origins and the Question of God series, much of this book contains distilled vials of that magisterium, while displaying all of the telltale stylistic signs of the movement he has helped vivify (a continued an inexplicable ignorance of Johannine literature, a tendency to unify themes across the biblical text at the expense of recognizing its complexity, etc.).

This book could have, at its best, functioned as a primer on the problem of evil as the issue stands for the Christian church in light of the biblical witness. Is there a need for such a book? Absolutely! Has Wright delivered it here? No. This book approaches a necessary subject taken up by a tremendous biblical scholar but is delivered in a haphazard, almost piecemeal manner. Wright's frequent allusions to several important and profound works on the problem of evil show his recognition of how immense this subject is and perhaps how prudent it was to treat it in the terse format it appears here. On Wright's allusive recommendation: on the political and corporate aspects of evil, see Engaging the Powers, by Walter Wink; on forgiveness, see Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav Volf; on the answers to the problem of evil in modern thought, see Evil in Modern Thought, by Sue Neiman. I would add The Crucified God, by Jurgen Moltmann.

[Eusebiu Florescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite comprehensive for its length, and very balanced in terms of theory and practicability. His response—adopting a forgiving posture in the face of everyday evil—was entirely surprising and welcome.

In this book, evil is spoken of in relational terms: the evil within myself and in relation to others, mostly portraying either me or someone else as the perpetrator or the victim.

What I would have liked to see is a response to evil from a third-person point of view—when I’m not directly involved or affected by particular deeds.

[Chrystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual Wright takes a topic that one thinks, surely there is nothing new to say, and makes one look at it in a totally different way. Bravo.

[Genni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wright proposes that approaching the problem of evil philosophically does no good. He suggests that we ask, "What is/has God done about evil?" instead. His answer is "the cross" is what God has done about evil. Instead of viewing the cross through the narrow lens of personal forgiveness, we should view it in the bigger picture as the ultimate answer to evil. Wright could not get away from the relationship between the cross and personal forgiveness though, spending a good chunk of time on it.

Honestly, I found the message of the book confusing. The cross is the answer to the physical realities of evil, but he doesn't understand progressive optimists. Yet we are to have hope for this world, and not just for the next. How, exactly, are we to do that of things are just going to get worse?

Three stars for pointing the question away from the philosophical intricacies of the question and towards responsibility for actions regarding evil.

[Willie Krischke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm relieved to read the reviews and find I'm not the only one who felt disappointed by this book.

I learned some things, but it really seems like over and over, Wright says, "I haven't the space to really adress that," until, in the end, you wonder what it is he's really addressing, if anything at all.

It ultimately feels like a Gospel presentation in a different kind of wrapping. Which is fine, I guess, but I was already pretty familiar with the way Wright presents the Gospel.

It may not be possible to be satisfied on this topic. He raises that has a possibility. OK. Still, I wasn't satisfied with this book.

[Josh Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Wright's hidden gem. Talk about conveying complex themes through the vernacular! What is so refreshingly potent about this book, is that from the get go, Wright acknowledges that evil is not something that we can simply answer for with reason and philosophy, it is far to real for that.

Wright looks at evil for what it is, positioning it in the Bible and then in our world today. If you are unfamiliar with the atonement theory of Christus Victor, begin here. I also loved how it's all culminates in the practice if forgiveness. This is the best survey of evil through a biblical lense I have read.

[Jake Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on the relationship between evil in the world and God’s justice I’ve read. Wright first shows how the Western church in the twenty-first century is going about the problem in the wrong way. After providing a needed course correction, he proceeds to systematically show that Jesus’s death on the cross, where evil exhausted itself, and his resurrection, where Jesus launched the new creation project, is God’s fundamental answer to the problem of evil. The final two chapters on the practical outworkings of bringing this redemption to bear on the world were superb. Highly recommend.

[Mir Bal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The person who opens this book hoping for an answer to the classic Theodicy problem will be disappointed. That is, how can God be omnipotent and good at the same time when there is evil in the world. N. T Wright, the chief theologian of the Anglican Church, does touch on this theme, sideways several times (more on that later) but the title of the book should be read much more literally. Evil exists, and God is just, these are the book's premises, starting points, and what follows is a brilliant narrative exegesis that tries to answer the question of how God, and by extension also man, should handle and confront this evil. Where it comes from, this evil, we cannot say as much about as theologians, Wright argues, because it is not a question of occupying the Bible which is the primary source of all theology.

Wright's approach can best be described as narrative. For him, the question of evil is first and foremost the question of human evil (although he touches on the question of fall of nature) and how God in his covenant with first Abraham, then with Israel through Moses and finally through Christ insists that even if human beings are evil, there is a plan, the plan is that God's people have been given the responsibility. The responsibility to pre-incarnate man's eschatological destiny already here. This happens through God's grace, a grace that we receive and then have to put to work. For Wright, as for most other politically conservative thinkers who has not ben reduced to a psychopathic indifference to human suffering here, this must begin in a deeply personal struggle with one's own sin. The fight against one's own vices must go hand in hand with the cultivation of one's own virtues. But this cannot be done alone. But primarily in a community. And even if this is a small-scale product, it must not stop there. A virtue that does not lead to an active struggle against the evils of this host (the examples he gives are, for example, climate change, the debt trap for poor individuals and countries, the struggle for peace and disarmament) is not a real virtue, and if you read between the lines also a betrayal of the covenant that God made with his church.

Wright is at his best when laying out the biblical texts, creating a narrative through careful exegetical readings that never sacrifices exegetical and historical knowledge for a narrative and an elegant intelligibility.

Unfortunately, he tries to do more in this book…

The problems with the book, and in this case it is a lack of character in the author that is evident, are two. The first, which has to do with his political views, is a desire to be balanced. To be neither right nor left. But at a time when the future and dreams of a world beyond the hand of Mammon, which takes the form of the stranglehold of free enterprise on our lives, the will not to take sides becomes willful negligence. In criticising the 'right' and 'left', Weight de facto equates the sadistic lies and torture of children by Tony Blair and George Bush with protesters who, in their despair, say that perhaps it is no wonder that people are resisting such a heartless occupying force, and by any means possible (the book was written during NATO's total decimation of Iraq's social, civil and political infrastructure). He also tends to take the best arguments from the right, and take the dubious stereotypes from the left. The right claims Wright understands that some people are evil, and need to be locked up, but forgets about forgiveness and that many innocent and minor criminals are left with little choice but to continue committing crimes. The left, on the other hand, believes, according to Wright, that all such things can be wished away because they are only the fault of society and absolve individuals of responsibility for their own mistakes. This is blatantly lying, and building up straw men.

The second mistake is philosophical. Since Wright is of age, he probably did not read the postmodernists at university. Nevertheless, he has been one of the few right-wing Christians to recognise that the argument against the liberal hegemony in philosophy needed to be challenged and that what postmodernism did was to acknowledge sin. That human beings are fallen under the structures of sin and self-interest. That when we scratch the surface of airy ideals, we often see naked self-interest. That's all well and good. But his characterisation of modernism and postmodernism is confused and plainly factually wrong. No, modernism was not just Victorian liberal sadism. And postmodernism is not left-wing (rather, most are disillusioned Marxists turned right-wingers). And to characterise Freud and Marx as postmodernists as he does, these archetypes of high modernism, is just laughable to anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the history of ideas.

When Wright devotes himself to theology he is fine, actually, more than fine, almost brilliant, but please don't talk about anything else. You are too intelligent to fall for your own prejudice and confirm them with outright lies.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

After NT Wright completed his seminal work on the resurrection of Jesus: The Resurrection of the Son of God he planned on writing a follow-up on the crucifixion of Christ (what would eventually be The Day the Revolution Began). As he prepared to write that book, tragedy struck as 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and flew them into civilian targets on the Eastern seaboard of the US. Wright realized he needed to write a book on the problem of evil before he dealt with the cross. This thin (less than 170 page) volume is Wright’s contribution on the subject of evil and God.

Wright’s book is neither primarily a pastoral nor a philosophical reflection on the problem of evil. It deals with the problem primarily from a cultural and biblical perspective. Wright speaks with such ease, you feel as though you’re sitting with a cup of tea in hand in his living room. This both warmly draws the reader in, but can at times give one the sense that the material is ad hoc and is not as well thought out as one would hope.

The encroachment of evil in the contemporary world has been a significant problem, and yet, Wright notes, it “seems to have taken many people, not least politicians and the media, by surprise.” This is because our cultural philosophy has no answer for evil. Wright identifies that cultural philosophy in one word: progress. What is new, no, what is next holds the highest value (look no further than our cultural worship of youth).

And yet, we should have learned that progress provided no real answers for our hardest questions. How, in light of Auschwitz, could we still be anchored by a philosophical mooring as weak as progress? Our answer has been to project evil outward: to the other, to society, to politics. But a culture of blame is no real solution.

Enter postmodernity, where cynicism reigns: “nothing will get better and there’s nothing you can do about it.” But that is no solution. Worse still, “postmodernity allows for no redemption. There is no way out, no chance of repentance and restoration, no way back to the solid ground of truth from the quicksands of deconstruction.”

Modernism did away with Satan and evil, but the burden of proof lies on the modernist to defend their tenuous construal of reality.

What does the God of the Bible do about evil? Wright takes us on a biblical tour to answer that question. The story of evil, according to the Bible, is not a story of evil “out there” but rather evil that runs through our own hearts. For reasons we are not given full access to, the Creator God allows evil to remain in this world. God’s justice is not justice that comes for the evil out there, but to deal with the evil in us.

The book of Job, the book most often looked to regarding the problem of evil is a book that gives us surprisingly few answers. We are merely assured that evil exists, God is sovereign, and that his ways are beyond our comprehension.

But the biblical answer doesn’t end by merely pointing us to God’s sovereignty. In the book of Isaiah, we are told that God will deal with the problem of Israel’s unfaithfulness and sin by a servant who will take Israel’s fate on himself. Daniel tells us of a “Son of Man” who will also rescue.
In short, the Old Testament tells us first that the problem of evil begins in our hearts, second that God is sovereign and there is no tidy philosophical answer for it, and third, that God will resolve the problem of evil through his own intervention.

The New Testament shares the story of a God who does not just stand back from evil, but who intervenes. And yet his intervention isn’t as we might expect. Jesus heals those broken by evil, he seeks out sinners, he confronts those who believe they are righteous.

He doesn’t destroy death through force, he destroys evil by taking on himself the weight of sin and being destroyed by it. The cross, the place where it appeared as though evil had won, is actually the place where evil was destroyed: “The cross becomes the sign that pagan empire, symbolized in the might and power of sheer brutal force, has been decisively challenged by a different power, the power of love, the power that shall win the day."

The cross is typically understood in one of three ways: either Christ is the humble and righteous example, showing us how to live, the atoning sacrifice, a substitute for our sin, or the conquering victor, defeating Satan and evil. Wright himself often pushes toward the third understanding. However, in this volume, Wright affirms all three as important ways to understand Christ’s work on the cross.

The thread between all three of these is this: evil is not out there, it is in us. Wright says, ‘the problem of evil’ is not simply or purely a ‘cosmic’ thing; it is also a problem about me.” The cross defeats evil, not because it defeats something out there, but because it defeats the grip of evil and death in our own hearts.

What do we do with this? What ought we do in light of a Savior who has given himself up to evil on the cross that evil might be defeated in our own hearts? Wright calls us to prayer, to holiness, and to political engagement (Wright actually breaks this final one into three parts: political engagement, transformation of penal codes, and international engagement).

A life of prayer is a life crying out to God to bring his righteousness and to overturn evil. A life of holiness is a life of living out the forgiveness of God. Just as God’s justice is not vengeance, but rather swallows up offense, so we too are called to costly forgiveness. Unfortunately in the midst of this excellent chapter, Wright muddies the waters with a call to begin by “forgiving ourselves.” I’m not quite sure why Wright allowed this non-biblical conception of forgiving oneself to needle its way into his otherwise excellent chapter. Hopefully readers will be able to re-read this call in more biblical terms: to accept the forgiveness Christ has offered us and allow that to form our identity and heart.

The final three calls to political engagement are worth greater exploration than Wright gives them, but they certainly merit consideration.

Throughout, NT Wright reminds us that, “'the problem of evil' is not something we will 'solve' in the present world, and that our primary task is not so much to give answers to impossible philosophical questions as to bring signs of God's new world to birth on the basis of Jesus' death and in the power of his Spirit, even in the midst of 'the present evil age.'" Evil and the Justice of God is a worthy starting point for engaging the questions our culture has about evil through the lens of a biblical story of redemption.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
While I really liked Wright's Surprised by Hope and Surprised by Scripture, this one left me feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps Wright was tackling too big a subject in too short a book. There were a number of places where he noted that he'd written in depth on a certain topic elsewhere, and just covered the bare essentials. His writing here also seemed circuitous and difficult to follow in places.

That said, there were still a lot of interesting and thought-provoking points, particularly in light of the current political climate. As Christians, it is unhelpful--even dangerous--to see the world as an "us" vs. "them" dichotomy. He references Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who said "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts."

We must confront evil in the world, but not without confronting it in ourselves. And as we trust in Jesus Christ, who has won the victory over evil, we must do what we can to make this world a place where evil cannot flourish and look forward to the day when "Evil will have nothing to say at the last, because the victory of the cross will be fully implemented."

[Dustin Mailman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this per recommendation from my ordination committee. I generally appreciate anything written by NT Wright, but this is definitely one of the weaker books he’s put out. The translation from spoken word to text, perhaps, is what kept this book from resonating. The “all will be made well” pleasantry is certainly faithful to Wright’s approach to eschatology and theodicy; however, the lack of consideration for experience, and more specifically the lived experience of marginalized communities, leaves me to wonder what kind of “suffering” he may be referencing. How does one “forgive” when they are ensnared by systems of oppression. In short, this felt like this book was an easy answer to a question that was crafted in the clouds. This would be a great introductory piece on theodicy, but something along the lines of “Power in the Blood?” by Joann Marie Terrell wrestles with theodicy in a manner that translates to the lived reality of religious communities in a way that this text simply doesn’t.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not really entirely sure how to rate this book, but I did enjoy listening to it. I am by no means an expert on Atonement Theology, but there were a few aspects of Wright's ideas that did not quite seem right to me (using the word ambiguous a number of times and the wording of "Jesus realized" or a variation of that idea). Perhaps I was not listening carefully enough at the time. I thought the first chapter was great since it probably steps on just about everyone's toes to some extent as he analyzed and picked apart popular philosophies. Wright's appeal to eliminate an "us versus them" mentality in an effort to more thoroughly examine ourselves and the evil within is especially useful, and his call to a "mature" response to evil is practical. Wright admits that his approach to the topic of evil is by no means exhaustive, but I found that there were a fair few nuggets of wisdom along the way. A quick and enjoyable read (or listen in this case).

[Lance Cahill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag. Wright pulls together the stories of the Old Testament and the Gospels in a compelling narrative that ultimately feels slippery as to its central point concluded at the end. Wright views God as ultimately watching creation unfold and evil originating from man’s disobedience and intervening at certain choice points (the flood, Babel, etc.) to provide direction when needed. This culminates in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ as the victory over evil, represented by the victory over death and enslavement to sin. This restorative process, according to Wright, is instructive to current day conditions from international relations to the penal system.

Given the loose structure of the book, I think this book will be one quickly forgotten even if each individual chapter was interesting at some level.

[Jonathan Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very useful look at what the bible does say about the problem of evil and how the gospel answers it - something I often miss when I try and condense it down to individual penal substitutionary atonement. I will definitely be returning to this again, especially his exposition of the OT question of evil.

[Walker Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

***1/2

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of good points but no point.

[Michael Barros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among my favorite NT Wright books so far, really great, really inspiring, answered a lot of questions.

[Jake Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was going to be a three star read, super good but some parts were a rehash of any other wright book, but the last two chapters on forgiveness were incredibly moving. Read this if you want a Christian response to evil that may leave you wanting more, but still giving you more than enough.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the plus side of good. This isn’t really a book on theodicy so much as it is a book on how God can and has used evil in the world as a means of justice.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading through the comments here, I agree that the title of the book can be misleading. It is an excellent introduction to Tom’s central thesis of new creation, though, and chapter five (the book's conclusion) is very well written. Tom is wearing his pastoral hat here and leading us to the Kingdom element of forgiveness.

[Paul, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evil and the Justice of God is classic N. T. Wright. He revisits typical talking points, but that's okay. Repetition is the mother of learning and all that.

What is most helpful about Wright's book is that he refuses to answer the question as posed, "Why does evil exist?" "Where does it come from?" Those are questions that the Bible does not answer. Instead, we must look at the problem of evil in terms of what God is doing about evil. That makes this book a much longer, clearer footnote to a chapter in Myers' excellent book, Walking with the Poor. :D

I think this book is an excellent complement to Carson's book on suffering, How Long, O Lord? which I reviewed here. http://joshmeares.blogspot.com/2011/0...
They come to many of the same answers while attacking the problem from
different angles. Lots to learn here. Recommended.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

Some objected: what was Solzhenitsyn doing fraternizing with these people who had been part of the evil system? No, he responded, the line between good and evil is never simply between "us" and "them". The line between good and evil runs through each one of us. There's such a thing as wickedness, and we must distinguish between small and low-grade versions of it and large and terrible versions of it. (p.38)

What our Western philosophical tradition inclines us to expect-and indeed ask for-is an answer to the question, What can God say about evil? What we want is an explanation. We want to know what evil really is, why it is there in the first place (or at least in the second place), why it's been allowed to continue, and how long this will go on. These questions are in the Bible, but frustratingly they don't receive very full answer, and certainly not the sort of answers that later philosophical traditions would consider adequate. ... The Old Testament isn't written in order to simply "tell us about God' in the abstract. It isn't designed primarily to provide information, to satisfy the inquiring mind. It's written to tell the story of what God has done, is doing and will do about evil. (This is true of most of the individual books as well as the canonically shaped Old Testament). (p.44-45)

There are clear signs from the New Testament onward that Christian theologians have often, perhaps even usually, gazed in awe, horror and gratitude on the crucifixion of Jesus and have deduced from that something profound about the nature of evil. "If righteousness could come by the law," wrote Paul, "the Messiah's death would not have bee necessary" (Galatians 2:21) (p.76)

[Lee Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wright tackles the age-old problem of evil (why does God allow evil to happen?), but with a little bit of a twist. Wright does not discuss natural evil, and there is little attempt to explain or justify personal evil. No wishy-washy explanations, such as the typical argument that God allows evil because it creates circumstances in which virtue can flourish. Rather, Wright focuses on what God is doing about evil. Remember: the prophets repeatedly promised a coming age when the world would be rid of evil. Can we even imagine such a world?

First, if you’re tempted to pronounce judgment on God for all the evils in the world, you’re too late; God has already served his sentence on the cross. But the gospels tell us more; they insist that Jesus overcame evil on the cross. That is some strange theology, no matter how you approach it. How does succumbing to evil prove victorious over it, and why doesn’t it feel like evil has been conquered?

The key to the whole topic is understanding the role of forgiveness. Both the forgiveness of God and our own forgiveness of others. The justice of God is not vengeance; it is granting us a measure of the forgiveness Jesus showed, so that the evil of others cannot hold us hostage. A perfect age is coming, but we cannot embrace it until we have outgrown our bitterness over what others have done to us, conquering evil in the same manner as Jesus.

Dang, that’s deep. I really was hoping we could just hunt evil down and kill it. Good book, by the way, though not as scholarly as I’ve come to expect from Wright.

[Todd Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is typical N.T. Wright - easy and delightful to read, thought-provoking, helpful, challenging, and a bit frustrating.
Wright's work on forgiveness, his paradigm of seeking to approach theodicy from the vantage point of eschatology, and his interaction with the metanarrative of Scripture are all reasons why this book should be read.
My biggest frustration was Wright's lack of interaction with and utilization of penal substitution. Wright explicitly commits to Christus Victor as the primary means of understanding the atonement. Though I would disagree with the priority, I would join Wright in claiming that Christus Victor has great power to answer questions related to the problem of evil. However, as good as his material on forgiveness is, Wright never really answers the question of how the atonement allows God to forgive and then, in turn, Christians to forgive. I think the answer lies in substitution and propitiation. God is able to forgive us because of the work of Christ, and we are able to forgive others because Christ has paid the penalty for the sins of others. Committing to Christus Victor is fine; committing to Christus Victor to the exclusion of other models that have great explanatory power is silly and disappointing.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eloquent but Unfocused

AT A GLANCE:
Endless rumination and consideration, but no answers.

CONTENT:
It is laid out in the preface that Wright will not attempt to solve the problem of evil, but rather frame it in a Christian context. Had I known this beforehand I likely would not have purchased, but such is the danger of trusting the publisher's summary in the digital age where we miss reading introductions from the store shelf.
N.T. Wright is known for his nuanced but bold defenses of particular theories (most famously the "new perspective on Paul") and I expected more from him here. Late in the feature he seems to begin a working theory linking forgiveness with evil, though this doesn't go anywhere. The language is beautiful and could be mined for quotes, but this is not enough to hold the book together.

NARRATOR:
Simon Vance is in top form here. I could listen to him read a scientific paper or the ingredients list on a cereal box, it will always sound amazing.

OVERALL:
Unlike the other works I've read by the author, it feels as though he was commissioned to write on the problem of evil and reluctantly obliged. Recommended for those starting to look into this topic who want a renowned scholar's insights.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

from Lamin Sanneh's blurb on the back cover: "The book is an immensely useful introduction to one of the great issues of human existence." I'm in agreement.

I appreciate Wright's take on the issue of evil and justice. If I was expecting, or was interested in, a theodicy on the "problem of evil," I would likely be disappointed, but I received the concise, Biblical, thoughtful treatment that I've come to expect from Wright's work. It's deceptively clearly written as usual, with numerous quote-worthy sections. This takes its two primary subjects of evil and justice very seriously, and lands most helpfully in its reflections on forgiveness (with heavy h/t to Volf and Tutu).

His attempt to bring together atonement and political theology into a biblical theology of Jesus is a noble effort, and I think he's made strides toward that end here. I will cling to the general argument, and the few but helpful nuggets of practical application.

[Amin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Both brilliant and frustrating. Wright offers one of the better accounts of the putative problem of evil by noting first its problematic formulation and then offering a rare response that is mindful of creation theology, the Old Testament story of Israel, and the atoning work of Jesus Christ. As such, Wright makes good on his promise to address evil in a theological/narrative way, rather than as a purely philosophical puzzle. In the course of doing so, he stakes himself to the Christus Victor model of atonement as primary, likely much to the chagrin of any Reformed types who might be reading. Still a very decent discussion, marred only by repetitive, banal political observations.