Wright
One of the most troubling questions that
philosophers and theists alike have wrestled with is the problem of evil. This
problem has developed in a variety of iterations. As a result, theists, and
specifically Christian theists, have a rich tradition of trying to answer the
question in the form of theodicies and defenses from philosophical and
theological perspectives. N.T. Wright’s book, Evil and the Justice of God, is a
unique take on the problem of evil without necessarily trying to offer
justification for God allowing evil to exist.
Wright is a former bishop of Durham and New
Testament scholar, serving as Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford
University. He has authored over 80 academic and popular-level books, including
Surprised by Hope (HarperOne,
2009), Paul and the Faithfulness of God
(Fortress Press, 2013), and Paul: A Biography
(HarperOne, 2018), along with many academic journal articles. He is a
sought-after speaker and is one of the world’s foremost authorities in biblical
scholarship. He brings his expertise to bear in Evil and the Justice of God,
showing that, while the problem of evil is just as troubling as ever, there is
a final response to it.
The major thesis of Wright’s book is that God
alone has the definitive answer to evil (17). He stated elsewhere, “But the
point—and this is really the central point of this book, the ultimate answer to
this aspect of the problem of evil—is not only that in the new world God
himself will be beyond the reach of moral blackmail of unresolved evil, but
that we shall be as well” (143). How God accomplished this is through His Son,
Jesus. Certain past attempts made by philosophers and theologians seemed to have
tried to explain evil away, make assertions about God based upon cohesion to a
system, but not the Scriptures, or build theologies of escapism (77). Wright
offers another way to think about the problem at hand, though he admittedly
does not have the market cornered (17-18). The purpose of Wright’s book is to
demonstrate that evil, while a painful reality to bear with in the present,
does not have the final, eternal say. God does.
Evil and
the Justice of God is a biblical treatment of the problem of evil
and its eventual resolution. As a biblical scholar, Wright employed an easy
course to follow to support his argument (18). Chapter one sought to locate the
problem of evil as modern culture understands it. Wright argued that the
classical frame of the problem of evil was shattered by the Enlightenment (20).
Evil would become no longer something to be feared, but rather something to
conquer. Hope in the promise of progress, espoused by the likes of Hegel and
Marx, would eventually melt away all suffering and struggle. The other
perspective on the two-headed hydra of the problem of evil would be
postmodernity (30). It is characterized by the following ideas: Things are
always changing, always in flux. People and their claims are always flawed. And
people are nothing more than bundles of perceptions. Postmodernism offers
neither escape, nor can it hold anyone to account since skepticism is the law
of the land (32). Postmodernism then is essentially a nihilism. Both progress
and nihilism leave their adherents unsatisfied. Wright then offered a better
way to deal with the problem of evil. It is only better, though, if it is
functional and true. The following must be granted: Progress cannot solve the
problem of evil, there are unseen evil realities, and people—including
Wright—do evil acts (39).
The rest of Wright’s book spells out his
argument through the next four chapters. He followed his critique of the modern
understanding with how the biblical witness understands the problem in chapter
two. He started with the beginning of God’s good creation. Wright showed that,
while sin entered the world in the garden, God was working to get creation back
to the point of shalom ever since the moment creation broke. He worked in the
midst of and through evil actions. Chapter three builds off of the biblical
witness and signals Jesus as God’s ultimate answer to evil. Personal, demonic,
and political evils find their nexus point in Jesus’ cross. Yet, in the same
act, Jesus depowers all earthly and spiritual evils. Wright then presented
action points for Christians to employ in light of Jesus’ victory over evil. He
argued largely from the perspective that salvation, while personal for
individual sinners, is also cosmic in nature. If salvation is cosmic and
personal, then there are ways for Christians to participate in the here and
now. Finally, Wright extended God’s ultimate answer to evil to forgiveness, and
how Christus Victor enables forgiveness today.
Wright’s work is important in several ways.
First, this is a book on the problem of evil that is not authored by a
professional philosopher. Indeed, Wright was humble about dipping his toes into
a field filled with an enormous amount of literature. It was refreshing to read
someone reason from the Scriptures without making acrobatic leaps without the
Scriptures as a tether.
Next, there is something to be said about how
he humanized the problem of evil; he made the problem of evil real. Not only
did he state how much of a problem the problem of evil was, but he also
demonstrated it by showing how it bears on the deepest parts of existence.
Postmodernism and the Enlightenment have zero response to spiritual,
sub-existing evil forces; they either ignore or reject their existence. By
humanizing the problem, Wright also shows how tender God is to His creation
and, namely, His image-bearers. Even more, by highlighting the cross, Wright
showed that there were real consequences to evil, with the murder of God’s Son
being one such example.
I also appreciate how Wright did not shy away
from the apparent mystery of God and evil simultaneously existing. The biblical
data does not connect all of the dots for its readers, especially in how it
deals with the question of why evil exists. Wright is a biblical scholar,
though not a philosopher. Even more, he is a Christian biblical scholar who
wants to think thoroughly biblically about the problem of evil (40). Thus, he
acknowledged that his book would not serve as a theodicy in any sense of the word
(44-45). He provided no answer as to why there was a snake in the garden, why
Job was tempted, nor did he provide an answer as to why God used wicked,
imperfect people to fulfill His purposes throughout the rest of the biblical
narrative. Modern readers want a quick, easy answer to the problem of evil, but
Wright would have none of that. He leaned comfortably into this mystery,
stating that love is no apologetic for the problem of evil. It is, instead, a
tension to bear (40-41). All Wright conveyed was the information recorded in
the Scriptures.
He also did well in showing how God’s ultimate
answer to the problem of evil lay in His Son (98). Again, Wright was not
interested in answering why, only how. He focused on the cross and
resurrection, showing how the tragic necessity would result in the death knell
to creation’s greatest enemy, Death. The resurrection is God’s key act in
finally eliminating evil from the world (92). This coincides with his privation
theory. There is more about this in a moment.
One final strength to note lies in how Wright
described evil, generally speaking. Though he did not make all of his
assumptions known, there is a hint of Augustinian privation that seeped onto
the pages of his book. In this view, evil is not an actual substance; it is the
absence of substance. That
is not to say that an evil thing is not real. Good and evil have a certain
quality or nature. Jonathan Edwards, an heir to the Augustinian tradition, also
subscribed to a privation theory of evil. Evil
is the gradual dampening and greying of God’s good world. It seems that Wright
follows suit with this tradition.
Wright defined evil according to what he
thought the Bible described. It is a “defacing of the world, a way of getting
the world upside down and inside out” (52). It is an anti-creation force (90).
Even more, Wright used a couple of different analogies to describe this
privation model. He looked to modern astronomy and pointed to a black hole
(113). Wright’s inclusion of the pothole analogy is helpful, too (114). It is
not as if the hole in the road is not nothing. The nothing is something.
Something was supposed to be there, but now there is not. This is helpful in
understanding that what is most real is found in relationship with God.
With that said, there are several great
concerns that come from the implications of his privation model. First, how he
seemingly downplays personal, spiritual evil beings, with Satan specifically in
mind. He does not indicate that Satan is not a personal being; he indicated
that Job’s enemy was Satan, with a capital “S” (69). He stated that demonic
forces, including Satan, are “sub-personal” forces in creation. What is a
personal being other than something real, who has the ability to communicate
and has a will to act? I appreciate the fact that Wright wants to clarify the
nature of personal evil, but there has to be a better way of doing so than
through the loose language of “sub-existence.”
How does his definition of evil apply to
people? Does it remain consistent with people? Does his pothole analogy have
anything to say about the ontological makeup of a person? Surely not. Sinners
exist, both in the physical and the spiritual sense. And there is clearly not a
big, visible hole in space-time where a person should be. The biblical witness
is clear that people are sinners, though. What are the implications if this is
true? If evil is a “defacing of the world,” as he described, a sense of
becoming uncreated, and that definition can be applied to humanity, what then
is the result of those at the final judgment? Surely this is not a rejection of
eternal conscious torment in Hell, is it?
Second, though Wright did well in carefully
showing how much of the practical side of the Christian life is influenced by
Christus Victor, there is still work to be done with regards to how forgiveness
is dealt with in light of an inaugurated eschatology. Wright took careful steps
in explaining how penal atonement and Christus Victor interact in tandem with
each other, ensuring that forgiveness is achieved between God and people.
However, there remains a challenge for those who have sinned against another person
to practice repentance and ask for forgiveness. Wright made a brief, off-handed
statement regarding making amends when someone wrongs another (163). There was
no interaction with passages that dealt with restitution. Those Old Testament
passages, like Leviticus 6:2-5, about returning stolen property—along with
adding a bit more—might be under the Old Covenant. Connecting how Jesus’ death
and resurrection offer a better way would serve readers well.
Wright’s work is an important study concerning
how God deals with the problem of evil. Evil is not an essential element of the
world, but a violation of the created order. His book is not without some
concerns. Overall, it is a helpful book to deal with the problem of evil from a
biblical and pastoral perspective. It serves as a great reminder that Jesus is
God’s response to evil of all types.
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