Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
I ordered this book after seeing an excellent and very accurate review in Modern Reformation, as I'd been looking for a more substantial and orthodox work than Problem of Pain. Horton obliterates the notion that the Theology of Glory all too often promoted by many churches can ever provide a legitimate answer to suffering. He powerfully and humbly goes into a long discussion of why we go through suffering, and how only clinging to the Cross can provide us answers and hope.
Perhaps one of his strongest chapters was how we've distorted the idea of God's miraculous outworkings to include some of the grandest examples of His Providence and normal means He uses.
For instance, he takes issue with the idea that the ordinary birth of a child is a "miracle", saying rather that it is merely one of the most beautiful aspects of God's providence in the world, and that terming it otherwise implicitly denies His usage of even the most minuscule of means. Similarly, he describes how someone being cured of cancer by means of chemotherapy no less glorifies God than someone being spontaneously and miraculously cured, since the knowledge of chemotherapy belongs to His Natural Revelation and He is glorified by its proper usage.
I heartily recommend this Scripture-heavy, Cross-centered work on suffering.
Perhaps one of his strongest chapters was how we've distorted the idea of God's miraculous outworkings to include some of the grandest examples of His Providence and normal means He uses.
For instance, he takes issue with the idea that the ordinary birth of a child is a "miracle", saying rather that it is merely one of the most beautiful aspects of God's providence in the world, and that terming it otherwise implicitly denies His usage of even the most minuscule of means. Similarly, he describes how someone being cured of cancer by means of chemotherapy no less glorifies God than someone being spontaneously and miraculously cured, since the knowledge of chemotherapy belongs to His Natural Revelation and He is glorified by its proper usage.
I heartily recommend this Scripture-heavy, Cross-centered work on suffering.
