The Religious Adequacy of a Euteleological Theism

Abstract

Abstract This chapter considers the first of two topics which seem to present the biggest obstacles to the religious adequacy of a euteleological theism: can it adequately explain evil in a world it claims exists to realize the supreme good? The classical ‘privationist’ account of evil (as the absence of the good there ought to be) is endorsed. It is argued that there is a viable power-of-love soteriology (and realized eschatology) according to which, while there is no guarantee of an ultimate, incorruptibly perfect, fulfilment of creation’s overall purpose, there is still a meaningful victory of good over evil. Even so, a euteleological theism faces intellectual problems of evil. If evil is the privation of the good there ought to be, there is no outright logical inconsistency in evil’s existence in a world that satisfies euteleological theism. Yet it still needs explaining how the evils that actually occur could arise if the Universe exists to realize the supreme good. A euteleological ‘theodicy’ is proposed, using themes familiar from speculative theodicy, according to which (for all we know) the processes required for concretely realizing the supreme good may inherently have limitations which make it statistically, though not logically, inevitable that evils occur. The kind of radical analogizing proposed in the previous chapter blocks the extension of the standard ‘logical’ Argument from Evil to a euteleological theism. The chapter ends with remarks on how a euteleological theism views the phenomenon of good that emerges from evil.