God and the Mystery of Human Suffering: A Theological Conversation across the Ages by Robin Ryan, CP (review)

Life has never been devoid of suffering, as Robin Ryan attests, but today theologians are being challenged to speak coherently of faith in a God who can bring life even out of the chaos of nuclear warfare, the devastation of Earth systems, and the aspiration for technocratic dominion over life and death. By using a model of diachronic conversation held between people of faith who are called to "narrative and praxis," Ryan answers this challenge by inviting his readers to become more than just passive listeners to historical theological conversations and actively engage with the living legacy bequeathed to those who are still struggling to respond to suffering in our world (236).

Ryan's methodology involves examining many theological encounters with suffering that are informed by personal experience and correlated with Hebrew and Christian sacred texts (5), and that portray suffering not as a problem to solve but as a mystery to engage. The voices Ryan amplifies are never scandalized by suffering and offer much to theologians today: Augustine envisions an intimacy between the risen Christ and all wounded members of his body (115); Aquinas broadens the range of metaphors that relate to Christ's saving work (137); Bonhoeffer proclaims Christ as the one who takes us "by the shoulders" and turns us toward the brokenness of life (186); Gutierrez awakens us to the two forms of discourse: the language of prophecy and the mystical contemplation needed by those who suffer (261); and Moltmann affirms the hope that, even though we do not know what awaits us after death, we know who does (209). Ryan's text begins with five established descriptions of suffering within Scripture, which orient his subsequent explorations and lead him to argue for a sixth authentic category within sacred texts: suffering as a reflection of an awesome and vulnerable God (50). Ryan presents Elizabeth Johnson's description of mature love as the best analogy to describe divine suffering, because it is able to portray a suffering God who does not alienate sufferers from hope in God's transformative power (310).

This text contributes much to academic discourse concerning the nature, power, and presence of God in suffering, original sin and soteriology, theodicy, and the relationship between divine suffering and love. This text will be accessible to both undergraduates beginning their engagement of suffering in the Christian tradition and to those more deeply embedded in the conversation. Ryan offers readers access to the language, methodology, and praxis that has nourished those struggling to name and adequately address suffering within their own historical moment. This is invaluable for any level of scholarship and can be applied beyond the scope of the authors Ryan explores. A problematic area is Ryan's inattention to the new cosmology that grounds Johnson's work. Ryan embraces Johnson's love analogy but rejects her cosmocentric framework and critique of anthropomorphism that grounds this analogy (308). He fails to adequately address the dynamic tension between the fecundity and cruciformity of the universe story, which characterizes all of created reality as well as humanity's journey from birth through death to resurrection in Christ. Our awakening to how the wounds of the Earth are intertwined with the woundedness of humanity will affect theological descriptions of suffering and our response to it. It is precisely the critique of anthropocentrism by Johnson and others that is "rearranging the landscape of human imaginations" and allowing humanity to rediscover truths that have been obscured in the Judeo-Christian tradition—not vice versa, as Ryan suggests (see Johnson, "An Earthy Christology" in America, April 13, 2009). Repositioning humanity within the universe does not reduce suffering to a "geological event" or a "physical byproduct" or undermine the healing power of Christ. Nor does it mean enunciating to a loved one that the hiv virus causing suffering is just "doing what viruses do" (307-308). Ryan's overly simplistic...