The bearing of process thought on the problem of theodicy

Seven necessary conditions for a Process theodicy are set forth in this dissertation. This is a rejoinder to the rationally inadequate traditional attempts to answer the problem of theodicy which make an all too familiar reaffirmation - God, though he is good, really is the ultimate source of evil.

The first chapter examines two traditional explanations for natural evil. Both the Augustinian and the Irenaean views do not regard natural evil as actual but as illusory; furthermore, God is said to be the ultimate source of natural evil. In contrast, Process thought does not regard natural evil as an illusion; and since natural evil forms an inseparable feature of the permanent past, this calls for a further explanation of the emergence of evil in the world.

Chapters two through five ground this dissertation in a free will defense. In chapters two and three a Process view of the universe is offered. Since there are a plurality of free entities within the universe, and since the exercise of an entity's freedom cannot be executed independent of consequences that bear on the future history of the entity and the feelings of other free entities, evil and tragedy may enter the universe. The fourth chapter is devoted to systemic approaches and maintains that this actual, contingent universe that carries the risk of evil and tragedy is systemically superior because of its greater coherence and greater potentiality for good. The risk of having evil and tragedy actualized within the world does not fail to touch God, who must suffer no less profoundly than man, as seen in the fifth chapter.

Even if we follow Charles Hartshorne, who declares evil to be a pseudoproblem, we have not exonorated God until we have addressed the issue of how God acts. Chapter six begins with a brief statement of what it means for God to act justly, it continues with an examination of five ways in which God does act justly, and it concludes by addressing two major objections against God's acting thus - coercion and denial of miraculous action. The identification and explication of these ways that God acts in relation to the world comprises a major segment of this work. Yet, God is not aloof from nor corrupted by his interactionism with the world as shown in the seventh chapter on worshipfulness.