> > 1) Amos 3:6
> > 2) Through Incarnation & cross, God is also the victim of evil.
> > 3) Governanace means that God brings his ultimate good out of
> > the whole process, even the evil aspects of it.
> >2 is the essential & distinctively Christian feature of an adequate
> >theodicy.
>
> It is certainly a good thing that #2 is the "essential and
> distinctively Christian feature" here, since "Governance" (I am assuming it
> is accurately described by George Murphy)
I meant only to suggest one implication of governance.
is an exceedingly feeble notion on
> which to hang a theodicy, and this for at least two reasons.
> First, the claim that God can bring good out of evil in no way
> diminishes the reality of the original and antecedent evil. Any good
> issuing from evil presumes a prior condition of evil, and that's precisely
> the problem a theodicy needs to address.
A theodicy must address the creation of a world with the
_possibility_ of evil, as well as God's concurrence in processes which,
in a given situation, produce evil effects. There's nothing bad about a
volcanic eruption unless people live near it.
This sort of "governance" can't
> lay a glove on the problem of evil.
It may if the greatest good of God's ultimate future depends on
a universe in which evil is possible - Polkinghorne's "free process
defense" & the traditional "free will defence". This is unattractive if
God is a puppet master who impassibly makes creatures suffer to achieve
his goal. But the picture is quite different if God participates in
creation & suffers with it - which is partly why #2 above is crucial.
> Second, even if it is possible to render a good result from a prior
> evil circumstance, this is hardly the sort of activity that requires a
> deity, since we all occasionally endeavor to do the same thing.
But we can't create _ex nihilo_ & this, in the full sense, is
what God's creation out of/in spite of evil is. Note how in Rom.4 Paul
ties together justification of the ungodly, resurrection of the dead
(the cross again!) & creation out of nothing.
George Murphy