360 - Why, God?

Why, God?

By Burton Z. Cooper

Atlanta, John Knox Press, 1988. 126 Pp. $9.95.

Informed by the author's experience of the death of two of his children, this book is a sensitive study of the problem of evil. Cooper suggests that fresh insight into this ancient problem is best sought by exploring "the outer edges of the tradition" where the image of God as all-controlling monarch is challenged. There are biblical and theological warrants, Cooper contends, for understanding God as vulnerable, not simply in the sense that God freely restricts the uses of divine power and chooses to suffer with and for us, but in the stronger sense that God's power is finite. In a now familiar move, Cooper draws upon Whitehead in explaining the senses in which God is boundless yet limited. One might wish for greater precision in Cooper's account of the limits of God's power. Nonetheless, he perceptively guides the reader into this difficult territory, and he recognizes that reflection on Christ's suffering must lie at the center of any distinctively Christian approach to the problem of evil.

Thomas F. Tracy, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine