The Shack                                                                     By William P. Young (248 pages)                             Subject: Apologetics

This book is essentially a theological apologetic on the problem of evil in the world.  For that purpose, Young does a fine job in reassuring his readers that God is never the author of evil, but rather has allowed evil in the world as part of granting free will to his creation.  In addition, Young does a good job of showing how God often uses evil for His own divine and good purposes.

 In an effort to show God’s immanent and loving presence in the world, Young’s descriptions of the Tri-une God in three persons is engaging and quite interesting.  For sure, Young expresses the love of God in relationship to humans very poignantly and with thoughtful insight.  Indeed, Young clearly reminds us of the importance of Christ’s substitutionary atonement and subsequent personal relationship with those who take faith in Him.

 Those two concepts, the sovereign goodness of God and the relational love of God are two strong expressions in this book.  However, the book then leads its readers into more theologically tenuous territory.  Of particular note are the following concerns:

 The visible appearance of God -  In the book, God the Father is portrayed as a visible person… in most cases a woman, and at the end a man.  Scripture teaches us that God the Father is and always will be invisible (John 6:46, 1 Timothy 6:16).  Jesus Christ, in human form, both in his earthly ministry and in Heaven, is the divine person within the Triune Godhead that we will see visibly.  Even as a writing of fiction, this theological truth could have been retained.

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The Shack

The Trinity -  In much of the book, the Trinitarian concepts are represented well.  A good example is on page 101… "We are not three gods, and we are not talking about one God with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker.  I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one."   However, on one part of Trinitarian theology, the author “equalizes” the roles of the three persons too far.  In the Biblical view of the Trinity, there is a hierarchy of duty between each of the divine persons, which in no way diminishes the essential status of the others: *The Father sent the Son, the Son did not send the Father (John 6:44, 8:18),  *Jesus came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but to do the will of the Father (John 6:38),  *The Father is the head of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3),  *The Spirit exalts the work of Christ (John 16:14).  By extension of the “over equalization” of roles within the Trinity, the author has ‘Papa’ and ‘Sarayu’ existent with nail wounds in their hands.  There is no Biblical support for this sharing of roles.

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