time dimension. First, any position must begin with compatibilism: “God’s unconditioned sovereignty and the responsibility of human beings are mutually compatible.” We must continuously place ourselves under the scriptural witness, which attests both a transcendent sovereignty and his personhood. This book could as easily have been hundreds or thousands of pages long. Precious Remedies … His perfections do not become subsumed and lost in the love of God, nor does His love get subsumed and lost in His many … In some sense, you could say that the ongoing battle between Reformed and Arminian camps centers around which of these attributes of God trumps the other. Carson begins by outlining five reasons why this is a difficult doctrine. In this treatment of many of the Bible's passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. The only aspect of God's character the world still believes in is His love. Author : D. A. Carson File Size : 76.33 MB Format : PDF, ePub, Docs Download : 827 Read : 198 . In The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God Carson tackles what is perhaps the most difficult issue for Reformed thinkers to grapple with: if the God of the Bible is sovereign, can he really be loving? The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God | Carson, D. A. Until I read this book I would not have considered God’s love as a particularly difficult doctrine. The world is not the recipient of God’s love because it is so worthy. Part of the solution of bridging the gulf between transcendence and personhood is understanding that God does not “’fall in love’ with the elect” but rather “sets his affection on us.” Finally, Carson tackles how to reconcile God’s love with his wrath. Look at the cross.’ And it is there we meet with Jesus once more, our mediator and only hope.I thoroughly recommend The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God to anyone who wants to understand God more, so that you can love God more. Category: Religion. In this treatment of many of the Bible's passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. It’s a book that pushes the lay Christian because it can read unevenly (at times very understandable to any Christian, at other times it is very academic) and the thread of the argument is hard to follow at times, particularly in the second chapter. The Trinity is a difficult doctrine to understand, impossible even. Especially since the overwhelming majority of those who believe in God view Him as a loving being. Author: Todd Miles. Why is this so difficult? Carson suggests that encapsulating all other loves is the intra-Trinitarian love of God. But this book convinced me otherwise. Carson does a wonderful job of highlighting the most important issues while confining himself to a limited word count. In this treatment of many of the Bible's passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. Especially since the overwhelming majority of those who believe in God view Him as a loving being.That is precisely what makes this doctrine so difficult. He also explores the nature of whether God hates just sin, or the sinners that commit the sin as well. We are also told that to the Jews the message is blasphemous while to the Greeks it is foolish, however it was embraced by slave and freeman alike, both the wealthy and the poor, as well as the intelligent and the simple. Before making his case for what the love of God looks like, Carson grapples with the distortion of the love of God. That said, it is a book any thoughtful Christian would benefit from. The eternal nature of God—that is another difficult or impossible one. Carson. There is a real need for preachers to make the necessary qualifications here so that the gospel can be understood.What I didn't like: I was not satisfied with Carson's attempt to harmonize impassibility with the language of God's emotions in Scripture. It is rare to find so much depth in such a short book. For example, we have all heard God is love, what that means though, is that God doesn’t just love us when we are good, but no matter what we do God loves us, because he cannot do anything else. To throw in the towel of transcendence leaves us with “the modern therapeutic God [who] may be superficially attractive because he appeals to our emotions,” but is, in the end, no God at all. Though despite all of these difficult doctrines, Christianity is embraced by people from all walks, many of them having the simple faith of the child that Christ praises. Look at the cross. Receiving love, so has he loved.”Next, Carson tackles the difficult relationship between the love of God and God’s sovereignty. The Difficult Doctrine of . Because pop culture has so distorted and secularized God's love, many Christians have lost a biblical understanding of it and, in turn, lost a vital means to knowing who God is.The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God seeks to restore what we have lost. No Donation. In this treatment of many of the Bible's passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. We say that God feels the emotions that we feel, and through this we purge God of anything uncomfortable. Especially since the overwhelming majority of those who believe in God view Him as a loving being.That is precisely what makes this doctrine so difficult. Yet it does so without losing its personal emphasis: for in understanding more of the comprehensive nature of God's love as declared in His Word, you will come to understand God and His unending love for you more completely. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God Carson D A ~ The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God seeks to restore what we have lost In this treatment of many of the Bibles passages regarding divine love noted evangelical scholar D A Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as God hates the sin but loves the sinner but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God … In The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God Carson tackles what is perhaps the most difficult issue for Reformed thinkers to grapple with: if the God of the Bible is sovereign, can he really be loving? Within the circle of that love is God’s “particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect." Yet it does so without losing its personal emphasis: for in understanding more of the comprehensive nature of God’s love as declared in His Word, you will come to understand God and His unending love for you more completely. PDF by Westminster Divines. Carson finishes with the powerful words, ‘Do you wish to see God’s love? D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, p. 17 -Application: -God loves not because the object is loveable. He believes it has difficcult abstracted from other attributes of God, causing the love of God to be sanitized. It is a surprisingly difficult task that Carson has an elegant solution for. In doing away with trivialities and cliches, this work gets to the heart of this all-important doctrine of the love of God from an unflinching evangelical perspective. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God seeks to restore what we have lost. Later in the book Carson reminds us that to absolutize any of these forms of love is to create “a false system that squeezes out other important things the Bible says, thus finally distorting your vision of God.”Next, Carson tackles the weight that has been given in different camps of the Greek word agape in describing the love of God. Instead, I will simply say God loves those who love him, though we must remember that God's love is not reciprocal, meaning that it does not only respond to somebody who loves him, but rather it is unconditional, namely that it is freely offered to those who want it, and it is through that that our relationship with God is formed.However the other thing we must keep in mind is in fact a title of an old 80's song 'I Want to Know What Love Is'. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God PDF Book has good rating based on 1962 votes and 132 reviews, some of the reviews are displayed in the box below, read carefully for reference. Buy The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God Rejacket - New Larger Format by Carson, Don A (ISBN: 9781844744275) from Amazon's Book Store. The content of The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God is no exception.The manuscript came from a series of lectures made to the Dallas Theological Seminary in 1998 and was put together a few years later. I just added it, in fact, to my discipleship group curriculum as it is the most thoughtful wrestling through of what is at the crux of one of the most important theological issues a Christian has to come to grips with. There is nothing that God has made that he does not love. D. A. Carson — 2002 in Religion . In this treatment of many of the Bible’s passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. In Carson’s words, “The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.” Carson spends the first two chapters parceling out the love of God. As it says in the Bible 'greater love hath no man than he give up his life for another'. Two Dollars ($2.00) In this treatment of many of the Bible's passages regarding divine love, noted evangelical scholar D. A. Carson not only critiques sentimental ideas such as "God hates the sin but loves the sinner," but provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and why He loves as He does. DA Carson is one of the clearest and deepest thinkers in the Reformed evangelical world. We learn that God ‘is’ and us humans are always only ‘becoming.’ We learn that God doesn’t experience emotions like we do, he is certain characteristics and he is unchangeable in them. The revelation contained within this book is life-changing. Carson (PDF)”. A noted evangelical scholar presents a serious treatment of the doctrine of the love of God in an honest, biblically sound handling of questions it raises, misconstrued sentimentalities, and difficult passages. What is grace, and how do we have faith? The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Now, that is a pretty vague statement because how can an object (God) be a concept (Love). For instance, how does one reconcile God’s love of the world with his love of the elect? Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God | Carson, D | ISBN: 9780851119755 | Kostenloser Versand für alle Bücher mit Versand und Verkauf duch Amazon. Find other related book of "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" in the bottom area. My overall impression is that this was good food for thought, but I am left with more questions than answers. Carson goes on to say people are no longer surprised that God loves them, and the systematic journey we are taken on brings us to a new revelation on what the love of God really looks like.By picking and choosing the aspects of God we like, we are treading on dangerous ground, and Carson eloquently and sensitively walks the reader through a way back to true understanding. In Hosea, the Most High rhapsodizes, “How can I give you up, Ephraim… my heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.” Carson asserts that when it comes to the impassability of God, “If this is taken to mean that God is emotionless, it is profoundly unbiblical and should be repudiated.”So, how do election and God’s love fit together? The Difficult Doctrine of the Love is a great read and it’s available for free as a pdf … 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. 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