Religion and Theology

In the first chapter of the book, Boyd provides an interesting discussion of Genesis chapters 2 and beings three in which he offered an interesting answer regarding the controversy in the Garden of Eden involving the very first human. According to Boyd, while God prepared the Garden of Eden for the human beings, it however involves both provision and prohibition represented by the two trees in the middle with the tree of life representing provisions and the tree that gives knowledge of good and evil representing prohibition.

From this, Boyd pointed out that corruption of the human race started to dominate. It started with the serpent lies to deceive the humans into taking what were supposed to be belonging to God only by making it appear that God was lying regarding the tree that gives off knowledge of what is good and evil.  From this story the author suggested that it is the beginning of every faulty picture of God. Indeed, Adam and Eves heart were filled with desire to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree with the thought that they can also be like God. This faulty picture of God according to Boyd has led to an ungodly evaluation that in turn brought rebellious action (p. 25). Proceeding from this, the author proclaims the perfect image of God would be his Son Jesus as he perfectly express Gods thought character and will. That Christ Himself must be the unending source of Gods image and if anyone would stay away from Him, the image of God residing within is in jeopardy.

Faulty Understanding of God is the foundation of our faulty understanding of life
The succeeding chapter of Boyds book reflects the statement above. Boyd pointed out that there are two common misunderstanding about God expressed in two unbiblical views suffering and evil. The first view according to the author was the assumption that everything that happens in this world is Gods will, and the second is that God allows everything to happen for a purpose. Though this view was very popular and even held by well known theologians in the past, the author argues that while it is right that God is all powerful, was erroneous as God cannot be source of all evils, sufferings, and extreme poverty by simply by permitting such things to befall among the human beings. In the same way, the author expressed disagreement on the popular assumption that God allows everything to happen because he has a good purpose arguing that God would not send any instrument on any anyone to carry out his will of afflicting anyone of evil or misfortune.  The author emphasized that everyone regardless of religion is morally responsible of his or her action and not God. In effect what the author is saying is that God is not the author of everything that happens although he allows such things to happen.

Turning to the teachings of the New Testament, the author stated that evils, sufferings, and misfortune, the cross reveals that God stands against all such unloving deeds, not behind them. This line of argument was carried by the author in the next chapter arguing that the difficulty of the world views about sufferings and evil presupposes a picture of God and his relationship to the world that is at odds with the picture revealed in Jesus (p. 61).

The author cited that the New Testament teaching about human relationship with God is that it is based on freedom. Human beings according to Boyd are free to choose either to refuse or to carry out Gods commands. Thus, God is calling everyone to follow him. The entire argument therefore employed by the author was that out of Gods kindness, he did not create man without self-will. That out of the exercise of such free will, humans chose to deliberately ignore the will of God.

The following chapter of the book opens with a statement that the mystery of evil is about the unfathomable complexity and war-torn nature of cosmos (p. 107). This suggests that the author clearly communicate that we can never fully understand why evil is actualized in the way that it is. What is important for us to see is that this mystery does not come from Gods character, will or purpose. In other words, we can afford to be confident in the character and will of God in even in this ambiguous world if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ who is the perfect image of Gods will and love.

In the succeeding chapters, Boyd emphasized of what we could learn from Gods dealing with his creations. First is that God can suspend the laws of nature when ever they might work against us, and second, God does not override human freedom, rather he respects it, and allows it. However, we are ultimately responsible for the effect these choices have on ourselves and others. God is intelligent and he has assigned reasons to the decisions people make despite their free will to choose, and these reasons variable which the agent chooses and not God.

For anyone in the working as care givers whether as a medical doctor, nurses, or physical therapist, Boyds discussion of causes of evils, sufferings, and pain could be a good source of counseling especially for people who are in depressed mode because of something that happened with them. Often, people blamed God or others for their misfortune absolving themselves from the consequences of their own action. In effect, what Boyd was talking in his book was that our predicaments are a result of our own doing. God is powerful and he would not allow the evil to inflict sufferings on anyone, however, God does not control our action. When Adam and Eve chose to ignore Gods command not to eat the fruit of the forbidden fruit, he entirely hold them responsible of their own action because they already have the knowledge of what is good and evil. Today, all of us have the knowledge of God and evil. All that God can do for us is to plea that we listen to him, that we recognize his words, and that we believe in his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

In this case, the care givers can give advice that life is meaningful, and that most of the time we create the meaning of our lives. The most important is, as we create meaning for our own lives, we must learn to consult God about what is his will in our lives.