Debbi Dillon

Very occasionally a book will earn the distinction of being put on my "must be read again very soon" list. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by David Bentley Hart was just such a book. It’s been a while since I've read a book I was ready to immediately begin reading again, and I don't think it’s ever happened with a non-fiction book.

Hart is a professor of Philosophy and Theology, having taught at Duke Divinity, St. Thomas, and Loyola, and is currently a visiting professor at Providence College. He is an Orthodox theologian, but this book was written with a much broader audience in mind. He writes this book as an Orthodox Christian in the same way C.S. Lewis wrote as an Anglican. Hart asks us to consider what the historical church teaches us about the nature of God and His love for us and involvement in our lives, especially in light of human suffering.

Where was God? was originally written as an editorial response to some of the accusations against God in the hours and days after the 2004 tsunami in Thailand that took well over 100,000 lives. Generally, these were the theodicy arguments often put forth by atheists (theodicy refers to the attempts to explain how an all-loving and omnipotent God can allow suffering to occur in the world), but the author also takes aim at certain Christians who claimed God did this to punish a godless nation or to demonstrate His power.

Because Hart felt that an editorial just didn't provide enough space to do this topic justice, he developed it further as an opinion piece for the March 2005 issue of First Things, under the title Theodicy and the Tsunami.  From the discussions and conversations that followed, he realized that this also was not enough room to cover the topic thoroughly. His one hundred page book is the result.

In Where Was God?, Hart eloquently argues that God is not the "phantom god" that the atheists put forth, nor is he a God Who is ready to 'whoop us upside our heads' as soon as we disobey, and nor does He have anything to prove except that He is love.  Often Hart was frustrated by the picture of God that no one would want to follow as presented by both atheists and some Christians.  As he writes:

    "Christian metaphysical tradition, in both the Orthodox East and the Catholic West, asserts that God is not only good but goodness itself, not only true or beautiful but infinite truth and beauty: that all the transcendental perfections are one in Him who is the source and end of all things, the infinite wellspring of all being. Thus everything that comes from God must be good and true and beautiful.

    "For, after all, it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purpose of God.

    "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" I Jn. 1:5

Hart’s message is that the Historical church has always taught that God is love and that His best and finest for his creation was never death, destruction, or suffering. Hart focuses only on that topic and doesn’t discuss how God uses suffering and sorrow for our ultimate good.  Perhaps, however, that would be a good companion book.   Instead Hart fixes his eyes on the chasm that has grown up in our modern world between the modern perception of God and what the historical Church taught us.  

His first aim is at the atheists who are oh-so-good at shoving a God in our face that bares no resemblance to the God of Christianity:

“….that reminds us always to ask, when confronting something like Martin Kettle’s diatribe or JL Mackie’s famous but surreally inappropriate argument, precisely what God it is we are talking about?  Has any living faith ever enjoined anyone to believe in the God in whom Kettle and Makie are so desperate for us to not believe?” (pg. 23)

Hart also responds to some misguided Christian responses to the tsunami.  In particular, he responds to Calvinism’s teachings of God’s perfect will and sovereignty.  Hart explains that the belief and doctrine that God shows His sovereignty through pain and suffering was never a teaching in the early church.  Such a thing, he contends, “Would be an incapacity in God: and to require evil to bring about his good ends would make him less than the God he is.”

This was not always an easy read.  A knowledge of Voltaire’s Poems and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karmazov is helpful but not essential.  (I had never read Poems and did just fine.)  I believe the primary audience is students of philosophy and theology. I had to read several sentences more than once before I could wrap my mind around the ideas they expressed. His choice of erudite words often left me scratching my head and thinking, "Isn't there a more approachable word he could have used?" (This difference is what I think separates him from Lewis). In Hart's book I felt like I was reading for an upper level philosophy class.  One can come away wondering if Hart was trying to impress rather than teach.  I offer this as a forewarning, but I certainly don't want to scare anyone away from reading it. I myself almost didn't read it because many of the reviews went on and on about how difficult this book is, but even though it’s hard, it’s not so hard that one can’t get through it.

While not exactly appropriate for my book club as we don’t usually seek out theological books, I would love to read this book again with a group of Christians representing a variety of theological beliefs. I think they would provide excellent and lively discussion as I doubt everyone will agree with Hart and his Orthodox arguments for the true nature of God.

Debbi Dillon and her husband live in Maryland where they have been busy homeschooling and raising their 6 kids, ages 7-21 yrs old.  She attends St. Mark Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD.