Does God Like Being God? And Other Tricky Questions about God by John Honner, New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2019/2022
Did Jesus Have a Girlfriend? And Other Tricky Questions about Jesus by John Honner, New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2019/2022
There is a mystical strand in the rabbinic tradition that says, ‘Do not answer questions for God.’ In other words, do not build theories around God as though you knew God’s thoughts.
In Does God Like Being God? And Other Tricky Questions about God, John Honner doesn’t presume to answer for God, but rather attempts to explore the perennial questions. Honner begins with ‘foundations of theology’ and then proceeds to ask ‘questions about God.’ His first book is like a mini-Summa, modelled on Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. The quaestio disputata (disputed questions) is the model of Aquinas’ normal way of asking and teaching theological questions. What sort of questions does Honner raise?
‘If God made the world, who made God?’ Or, leaving behind pure speculation, ‘Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?’ Then there is the ‘classic’ God (theodicy) question: ‘If God is Almighty, why is there so much suffering?’ ‘These are deep mysteries, but they are not meaningless mysteries,’ Honner rightly says.
This is the beauty of questions. They remind us that we do not know, even as they lure us into their openness. Questions are rarely ever closed or settled. Honner’s books are built around questions. This is worthy to note because I am familiar with Rabbinic and Talmudic discussion which is always built around questions.
‘If God is almighty, why is there so much suffering?’ It is this question, Honner suggests, that leads ‘many people to give up on God.’ Maybe rightly so, because it is the one question that has haunted and eluded speculative thinkers throughout the ages. Yet right from the outset, Honner avoids speculative quandaries and goes straight to the heart of the question: ‘When we are experiencing great suffering, particularly of our loved ones, our first response should be to care rather than to philosophize, to feel rather than to think, and to comfort rather than to explain.’
‘Where is God?’ Honner asks. And then, ‘Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?’ The question shifts from speculation to existential concern. I feel hurt, and I am calling out. I imagine the first question troubles the rationally minded, whilst the second question troubles the troubled one. ‘If the universe is a random event and