Revised thesis (doctoral)--Monash University, Australia, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-367) and index.

Revised thesis (doctoral)--Monash University, Australia, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-367) and index.

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-119).

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2003. / Bibliography: leaves 120-126.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, November, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p.87-88)

This dissertation proposes the adoption of the concept of tragedy as a theological category, as a way to address the traditional problem of suffering in the natural world, customarily known as the problem of natural evil. The theological utilization of the concept of tragedy enables a Christian doctrine of creation to remain accountable to the structures and processes of the natural world, including evolutionary development. Many traditions evince an awareness of the intractability of suffering in nature and there have been various religious responses to it. Within some Christian communities, the discovery by Charles Darwin (1809-1882) of evolution by natural selection proved disruptive to established ways of addressing that issue. This disruption has been especially significant in the area of theological interpretations of creation. This is the case in part because of the way evolutionary theory reveals the role of starvation, predation, and constrained stochasticity in the development of ecosystems and organisms. Theological responses to evolution within the Christian tradition have typically failed to come to terms with these features of biological evolution. However, Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Donald MacKinnon (1913-1994), and Rowan Williams (b. 1950) have, in different ways, shown how theological interpretations of tragedy can achieve a high degree of realism in regard to suffering, respecting the unique characteristics of individual experiences while situating suffering in a theologically meaningful frame of reference. These thinkers have also identified an awareness of tragedy within the Christian tradition itself, particularly as it is reflected in liturgical practices. This dissertation employs these insights to address the issue of suffering in the natural world, in order to contribute to a realist Christian doctrine of creation. The theological category of tragedy does not solve the problem of natural evil. But it has the double virtue of attending closely to the specifics of the natural world and maintaining a principled tension between experiences of suffering and Christian claims about the possibility of redemption.

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Introduction Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel? An' Why Not Every Man: Black Theodicy in the Antebellum United States and the Problem of the Demonic God is an ambitious attempt to construct a coherent narrative that spans many centuries and connect numerous historical persons and figures in recent scholarship. I set out to understand how an enslaved person could have faith in the goodness of god despite their oppressed condition. I learned that most enslaved Africans first encountered Christianity when they became the “property” of Christians. Then, in a revolutionarily creative move, the Black community re-signified Christianity from a religious system synonymous with oppression to a theology of liberation. The Black community claimed they knew the real Christ, embodied by Jesus, the suffering servant. They discovered an intimate spiritual connection with the Children of Israel, delivered from slavery by the grace of God. Black people of the Christian faith created thousands of Spirituals lamenting their suffering and celebrating the promise of a liberated future on Earth and in God's heaven. Not everyone accepted Christianity, however. Many enslaved or otherwise oppressed people found much to be cynical of in those who claimed to be Godly; corruption, hypocrisy, violence, inhumanity. These skeptical voices speak to us through Slave Narratives and records of preachers who documented a certain humanistic doubt in the antebellum Black community. The lyrics of the Seculars, non-theistic music produced at the same time as the Spirituals, express humor and irony in reaction to the absurd nature of life as experienced by a Black person during slavery. I went on to explore contemporary critiques of the emancipative potential of theodicy, ending up mostly won over

This study seeks to describe the theodicy of Scottish theologian Peter Taylor Forsyth. We begin by making some preliminary comments concerning Forsyth’s conception of reality and his understanding of evil. We then examine Forsyth’s methodology of the theologia crucis, which he utilises in his justification of God. Forsyth sees a crucial event taking place at the Cross, “the self-justification of God”, one which constitutes the basis for all human attempts to justify God. We explore his multi-faceted understanding of this event, and how it leads to two outcomes which form the main thrusts of his theodicy. In Chapters 3 and 4, we look at the first such outcome, which is that God moves the world inexorably towards his glorious telos. We also consider here the significance of this first outcome for Forsyth’s theodicy, which is that it imparts to this theodicy a strongly teleological and historical nature. In Chapters 5 and 6, we consider the second outcome of God’s self-justification. This is the revelation that God suffered incomparably in the event of the Cross. We draw out two major implications of this for Forsyth’s theodicy, based upon the idea that God is the chief sufferer and giver in our battle against sin, and the possibility that Christ might serve as our model of faith in times of suffering. We turn, in our final two chapters, to examine Forsyth’s view on the origin of both sin and suffering, his understanding of the God-world relationship, and the significance of these for his theodicy. We conclude that Forsyth’s justification of God constitutes a robust and comprehensive response to the problem of evil, possibly rendering a valuable service to the task of Christian theodicy through its ability to integrate insights from what has hitherto been considered different approaches to the issue.

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