New York Times writes about religion... unsatisfyingly... again...

Stanley Fish is a smart, smart dude. At some point in my academic life, I read his book "Is there a text in this class?" and it swallowed me up and spit me out, Jonah-like, not without changing forever the way I read and understand texts. This guy is one Big Fish, and I'm a fan.

But Sunday's book review of two new books about God made me so sad: a flat and lifeless treatment of otherwise fascinating theological subjects.

Fish reviews New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman's book “God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer," and philosophy professor Antony Flew’s “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.” I have not read either book, so I won't comment on them. But Fish's main point seems to be: "hm, wow, two new books on religion... people sure are loving these religious books, eh?" Fish's ground-breaking conclusion reads:

[The books'] chief value is that together they testify to the continuing vitality and significance of their shared subject. Both are serious inquiries into matters that have been discussed and debated by sincere and learned persons for many centuries. The project is an old one, but these authors pursue it with an energy and goodwill that invite further conversation with sympathetic and unsympathetic readers alike.

He's essentially telling you that there's nothing new here... just old arguments repackaged.

Where could Fish have taken us? Perhaps he could at least have hinted that despite Ehrman's conclusions, lots of Christians take suffering deadly seriously and are BOTH doing academic work on the subject and are addressing human needs with their sweat and tears.

Ehrman's theodicy-cum-atheism (as described by Fish) is justifiable, but a response might suggest that the prevalence of suffering does not prove the malevolence, impotence, or absence of God. Why, for example, must we see suffering as intrinsically bad? Is suffering not essential to existence? Every human being suffers. Life without suffering is a life without death. A life without death is not life. Which of us has the right to claim or expect such a life? And which of us, then, has a right to impugn God for the persistence of death or suffering?

Further, not all suffering is the same. Suffering via natural disaster is morally no worse than suffering from heart disease. Struggles with these forms of suffering are struggles with mortality--serious, but hardly the stuff that makes atheists... in fact, wrestling with mortality often will soften a person into the possibility of faith in God. But suffering inflicted by human agency is a different animal--it does shake the soul to the core. To say the word "Holocaust" is to immerse oneself in unfathomable evil. THIS is the kind of suffering that forces God into a corner. And yet, can we do without this kind of suffering? Would we want to? Suffering caused by human hands is the tragic corollary of human freedom. Without the possibility of people choosing to inflict harm upon one another, there would be no value in ethical conduct--and no role for love in the world. Love is stripped of its meaning unless it can be freely chosen. And love can only be freely chosen if evil is a very real and alluring alternative.

For Christians, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection represent God's loving response to suffering. Jesus dignifies and redeems suffering by enduring it on the cross; his faithfulness enables those who follow him to live a life of love--to suffer for the world, instead of suffering from it. God is not eclipsed by suffering... in Christ, death and suffering are not yet eradicated, but they lose their grip and lose their sting.

That Fish wastes ink reviewing Flew's book (which Fish roundly critiques for paying next to no attention to the question of suffering) only underscores the fact that this book review contributes little to intelligent conversation about God and much to the sales of books by authors with little new or interesting to say on the matter.

Stanley, I thought I knew ya'.