God of All Comfort

A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World

Scott Harrower

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781683592310
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

How does God respond to trauma in a world full of horrors? Beyond their physical and emotional toll, the horrors of this world raise difficult theological and existential questions. Where is God in the darkest moments of the human experience? Is there any hope for recovery from the trauma generated by these horrors? There are no easy answers to these questions.
In God of All Comfort, Scott Harrower addresses these questions head on. Using the Gospel of Matthew as a backdrop, he argues for a Trinitarian approach to horrors, showing how God--in his triune nature--reveals himself to those who have experienced trauma. He explores the many ways God relates restoratively with humanity, showing how God's light shines through the darkness of trauma.

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INTRODUCTION

My heart sank when I noticed that USA Today’s lead article was “Your Definitive Guide to 2017: A Year of Hope and Horror.”1 Horrors never go away; they are always with us—destroying life and maiming human beings. I also wonder what kind of hope we can meaningfully talk about in this horrible context. The book you are reading is about horrors—what they are, what kinds of horrors there may be, and why is it that they are so deadly. Once we know what horrors are, we can do something about them, or at least ask God for help to do something about our lives when horrors invade. We care about this problem because horrors affect us all in irreversible ways, sometimes setting our lives on courses we never hoped for and even dreaded.

Horrors raise theological, existential, and pastoral questions. How is God involved in a world pockmarked by horrors? Is it possible to live meaningfully in such a random and death-directed world? Is there any hope for recovery from horrors and the traumas they generate in us? Simplistic answers to the questions raised by horrors do more harm than good, yet engaging with these questions and the nature of horrors is something that maturing Christians must face, lest our questions become roadblocks to faith. The central aim of the book is to explore how God the Trinity engages with horrors and trauma, and what people can hope for in light of this.

We all bring our own experiences and questions to bear on the reality of horrors. For this reason, reading this book will be quite an intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally involving project. You may have to take it up and then put it down for a week or two. The difficulty and personal nature of the subject matter need not put you off. Indeed, we need books such as this, as imperfect as it is.

WHY IS THIS PARTICULAR BOOK NEEDED AT THIS TIME?

A number of Christian and secular authors have explored horrors and trauma. However, a common denominator among these works is a lack of direct and deep engagement with the particular nature of God: God as Trinity. Though there are invaluable insights and great strengths to these works, it is hard to overlook and overcome their generalized and minimalist approach to God’s nature as a Trinitarian God and the significance this has both for understanding horrors and for possible recovery from the trauma responses that horrors generate. Moreover, our Western cultural context exaggerates the shortcomings of the recent scholarship in horror and trauma studies. Our skeptical context and hyperawareness of what is perverted about the world only serve to cement the skepticisms we may have about God, the possibility of a meaningful human life, and hope for a better future for people. This context accents the need to engage with horror and trauma from a strong doctrine of God and of humanity, made in his image.

I hope to rectify this problem by taking a specifically Trinitarian approach to horrors and more specifically by examining how God discloses himself to people in the Gospel of Matthew. I will be attentive to how God makes himself known to people for the sake of their own recovery from horrors and for the sake of motivating them to help others in the wake of horrors and trauma.

This is a multidimensional and cross-disciplinary project. It contributes to a variety of fields that must be touched on if we are going to provide a rich exploration and description of what the life of God the Trinity means for how horrors affect human lives.

First, this project makes a metaphysical contribution by explaining and harnessing horror as a theological concept. In defining horrors theologically, I aim to clarify the problems—theological, existential, and anthropological—that horrors create for human persons. By providing the metaphysical premises for a model of what horrors are, I get to the root problem that recent conversations in trauma studies have left unspoken. My hope is that a clearer theological definition of horrors will give the discussion on trauma a sharper focus.

Second, it offers a second constructive Trinitarian proposal for how the uniqueness of God’s triadic life allows for his help in both direct and indirect manners in times of horrors and their aftermath.

Third, it explores the pastoral dimension of God the Trinity as caring, present, and active in the context of horrors and trauma, even if this is not immediately perceived.

Of far less importance but of interest to those who are more academically inclined is that this work engages a number of newer philosophical issues and methods, including new questions concerning consciousness and perspectives from both an analytical- and continental-philosophical position.2 Finally, it makes a literary contribution because it points out the ways in which a horror-attuned or “paranoid” interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel may resonate with contemporary trauma survivors. This yields interesting and unique results and is itself a contribution to literary studies.

HOW I HAVE STRUCTURED THE BOOK

In part 1 we look at the Edenic backdrop against which horrors should be understood. I provide a definition of horrors and the trauma responses that these may generate. Horrors are transgressive events and perceptions, large and small. These traumatize and degenerate the relational, creative, and moral aspects of human persons who are God’s images. The lived experience of horrors cultivates theological, existential, and moral problems that shape how people perceive reality and other personal beings, each of which must be addressed if we are to grapple fully with horrors and trauma.

In part 2 I argue that the best way to deal with the questions generated by horrors is by working through stories of God’s involvement in the world as it is. The story I have chosen is Matthew’s Gospel. However, I note that our cultural context means that survivors of horrors and trauma will tend to read religious texts through a paranoid lens that anticipates the loss and grief they have already experienced. I therefore undertake a “horror” reading of Matthew in order to empathetically demonstrate how the violence, death, suffering, and loss in this Gospel may resonate with trauma survivors. I then ask what God the Trinity may do about this situation. I draw some keys from Matthew’s Gospel and then offer an alternative, “reparative” interpretation of this Gospel. This approach to Matthew’s Gospel explores the ways by which God the Trinity relates reparatively with people who have been traumatized by horrors in order to heal the relational, moral, and creative aspects of his own images.

In part 3 I follow the structure for recovery provided by Judith Lewis Herman and investigate how God enables and supports the three stages for recovery from horrors and trauma. These are recovering safety, recovering the self’s story, and recovering community. Within this structure, I explore how the Triune God provides safety, a coherent story in which to speak about trauma, and possibilities for reconnection to the community. We examine God’s indirect and direct actions of care; his visible and invisible actions; his past, present, and future presence among us; and his care for the people he loves. We will see that recovery from trauma may be possible given the cumulative manner of God’s works. This Trinitarian perspective on trauma recovery is shown to be essential for realistically responding to horror-driven skepticisms about God, meaningful living, and a hopeful future.

Part 1

HORRORS and SKEPTICISMS

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THE BACKSTORY OF HORRORS

Shalom and Blessedness

In human existence, horrors abound. Amanda Wortham writes about the contemporary pervasiveness of overwhelming evil, which she sums up as horror:

Moving through this summer has felt like wandering in a mirrored maze of bad news, with each new turn giving us barely enough time to get our bearings before we have to confront another senseless horror. It’s hard to know how to navigate such a brutal onslaught of tragedy; every time we attempt to move forward, our surroundings tell us that we haven’t made any real progress at all. Instead, what we see insists that grief, terror, violence, and rage are destined to become a part of our cultural fabric.1

We all face and struggle with evil in its various forms. For this reason, we need language and concepts in order to describe the gravest problems we face.

In light of the multiple terror attacks in Paris in November 2015, French President François Hollande used horror as a summative category for the many evils that people perpetrated on one another and their societies.2 His use of “horror” was echoed by many others.3 More recently, my own hometown has experienced evils summed up as “horrors,” the “Horror on Bourke Street” in 2017 providing one such example.4

The language of horrors is increasingly employed in the media around large-scale public tragedies, but what does this language mean? The term is often used quite fluidly. Is the language of horrors helpful? To which truths does this language refer? When is the language of horrors most appropriate and effective? Is it a metaphor, or are there reasons to believe that there are such things as horrors?

The current use of this language can serve Christians well because it stimulates us to clarify what horrors refer to. Such insight may help us come to grips with horrors, the questions they raise, and how to live with God and one another in light of them.

We can understand best what horrors are by contrasting them with the ideal state for human persons: the Edenic ideal. The Christian concepts of shalom, the God of shalom, and human beings as made in God’s image establish a number of standards for life that are eviscerated by horrors.5 When we examine these, the warrant for the truths about horrors emerges. This also aligns methodologically with trauma studies, which will become central to this book because trauma studies engages with the larger narrative of Scripture in order to deal with trauma and its theological dimensions.6

SHALOM: GOD’S UNIVERSE DESIGNED FOR PERSONAL FLOURISHING

The concept of shalom (shalom) is the background against which horrors become clear.7 The word “shalom” (meaning “wholeness” and “peace”) has been used by theologians to capture the ideas in Genesis 1–2 concerning the ideal environment and ways of relating between God and human persons.8 When God blessed creation in its Edenic and wholesome state, he was conferring his approval of that state and his intention to perpetuate it: “God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation” (Gen 2:3 CSB).9 God was satisfied with the sufficiency of creation; it is enough and itself has all it needs for life, which is a state of shalom—to satisfactorily have everything one needs.10 Not only was the garden of Eden “teeming with life,”11 but God’s blessing reflects his intention for its ongoing flourishing for all involved.12 The term “shalom” includes a perspectival sense related to the word “good”—so shalom includes the recognition that when this state of affairs is the case, then this is good.13 Consequently, we can say that a blessed life from God, described as shalom, is the great “Good” to which God’s creation is directed. Cornelius Plantinga writes:

The webbing together of God, humans and all creation in justice, fulfilment and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed.… Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.14

These are the conditions, or the ideal environment, that enable personal flourishing and breadth of life in common with each other. Shalom includes the best possible patterns of reciprocal relating between agents.15 Every motivation and behavior in this dynamic and wholesome world builds up the soundness of each individual as well as the groups in the ecosystem.16

The ways that “shalom” is used in the Old Testament flesh out the various senses of the term and its theological use as a foundational Christian concept. The first has to do with holistic personal well-being. For example, in Genesis 29:6, when Jacob inquires as to the welfare or well-being of Laban, he asks after Laban’s shalom. When Joseph’s brothers come to see him in Egypt, he asks whether they are well—do they have/experience shalom (Gen 43:27). Joseph is also sent by Jacob to inquire about the shalom of his brothers in Genesis 37:14, probably in the sense of “things going well with them.” In these cases, shalom “designates well-being, prosperity, or bodily health.” Importantly, there is a theological driving force behind the idea of shalom; it is understood to be the outcome of a wise life that is carried out according to God’s designs for it: “In the Wisdom lit...