Skip to content ↓

Book Review – The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

Book Reviews Collection cover image

Until I read this book I never would have considered that God’s love was a difficult doctrine. The Trinity is a difficult doctrine to understand – impossible even. The eternal nature of God – that is another difficult or impossible one. But the love of God? I wouldn’t have believed it. But having read this book I believe it now.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson is just a short book (96 pages) that is drawn from four lectures Carson delivered in 1998. There was a small amount of editing performed, but the conversational nature of the speech carries through the text. It makes for an easy read, despite some deep theology.

Carson begins by outlining five reasons why this is a difficult doctrine. First, he suggests that while most people believe that God is a loving Being, this belief is set within a foundation other than Scripture. Second, many complementary truths about God are disbelieved by many within our culture (and our churches). Third, postmodernism reinforces a sentimental, syncretistic and pluralistic view of God. Fourth, the church has fallen into believing a sentimentalized version of God’s love that is not consistent with God as presented in Scripture. And fifth, the church portrays this as a simple doctrine and overlooks certain important distinctions that prove this to be a difficult doctrine.

From this foundation, Carson builds the book around four themes: the distortion of the love of God; the fact that God is love; God’s love and God’s sovereignty; and God’s love and God’s wrath. As we would expect from Carson, he goes straight to the source – to God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture – to correct false assumptions and provide a deep discussion of what God’s love entails. He defends the compatibility of seemingly-opposite characteristics of God (that God can be perfectly loving and yet perfectly just in His wrath) and examines how God’s love interacts with His sovereignty in human affairs.

The only caveat I would provide with this book is that it does assume some knowledge of Christian theology since it was initially targeted at seminary students. For example, Carson discusses distinctions between Calvinism and Arminianism without first defining his terms. A basic knowledge of Greek would not hurt either, though it certainly is not necessary.

It is rare to find so much depth in such a short book. At the same time it is also nice to be able to learn so much without having to wade through hundreds of pages of text – this book could as easily have been hundreds or thousands of pages long. Carson does a wonderful job of highlighting the most important issues while confining himself to a limited word count. I highly recommend this book.


  • Eloquence

    Arrogance & Eloquence

    When Jesus’s disciples asked for instruction on prayer, he warned them of a common temptation—the temptation to think that prayer depends upon saying just the right words or a certain number of words. “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do,” he said, “for they think that they will be…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (March 8)

    A La Carte: The maturation of New Calvinism / The class divide over screen time / New from the Gettys / Getting organized for the glory of God / Keep calm and read Scripture / and more.

  • Disrupted Journey

    Disrupted Journey

    I am convinced it is appropriate to acknowledge those who bear with chronic pain and illness and that it is especially fitting to give special honor to do those who do so with a deep sense of submission to God’s mysterious purposes in their suffering. But if that’s true, I believe it is also appropriate…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 7)

    A La Carte: Anora and Andrew Tate / The other side of the pew / The myth of the easy answer / Are Christians happier? / Shared meals / Gentle and holy / Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 6)

    A La Carte: Mystic at heart / The complexities of Bible translation / Pastors are not political pundits / The workism trap / Virtues gone mad / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

  • My Son Would Be 25 Years Old Today

    Nick Would Be 25 Years Old Today

    I don’t why we place more emphasis on some birthdays than others. Why is 16 more significant than 17? Why are multiples of 5 more significant than multiples of 4 or 6? I don’t who decides these things or on what basis, but I suppose 25 is significant because it marks a quarter of a…