Divine Power and Evil A Reply to Process Theodicy Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies Series

Evil perplexes us all and threatens to undermine the meaningfulness of our existence. How can we reconcile the reality of evil with the notion of a God who is perfectly good and powerful? Process theodicy, whose foremost proponent is David Griffin, suggests one answer: because every being possesses its own power of self-determination in order for God to attain the divine aim of higher goodness for the world, God must take the risk of the possibility of evil. Divine Power and Evil responds to Griffin's criticisms against traditional theodicy, assesses the merits of process theodicy, and points out ways in which traditional theism could incorporate a number of Griffin's valuable insights in progressing toward a philosophically and theologically satisfactory theodicy. It provides a new and important contribution to a long-standing debate within philosophy of religion and theology.

Introduction 1. God’s Persuasive Power of and the Correlations of Value and Power in Process Theism 2. The Process God’s Divine Aim and the Risk of Evil 3. Delimiting the Traditional Notion of Divine Omnipotence 4. Metaphysical Hypotheses and Divine Omnipotence 5. Meaning, Hope and Worshipfulness of the Process God 6. Monistic Power of God in Traditional Theism 7. Incompatibility of Freedom in Free-Will Theism 8. Why God Does Not Prevent All Evil 9. Genuine Evil and Task of the Philosophical Theologian 10. Conclusion: Toward a More Adequate Theodicy

Kenneth K. Pak (Ph.D., KU Leuven) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gulf University for Science & Technology, Kuwait. His primary area of teaching and research is philosophy of religion, especially the problem of evil.