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The Triumph of God over Evil: Theodicy for a World of Suffering
Noted philosopher William Hasker explores a full range of issues concerning the problem of evil. Having taken account of the current state of the discussion and squarely facing some of the most trenchant arguments marshaled by John K. Roth and D. Z. Phillips, Hasker forges a constructive answer in some depth showing why the evil in the world does not provide evidence of a moral fault in God, the world's creator and governor. A fresh and provocative contribution to the ongoing discussion of theodicy.
228 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2008
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July 3, 2021
I just finished "The Triumph of God Over Evil: Theodicy for a World of Suffering," by William Hasker.
To whoever is doing the thesis on Theodicy at Wake Seminary, I think I bought up most of the books you used and sold to the used bookstore. Thanks.
I have read Hasker before in his book on Metaphysics and his addition to The Openness of God. I hope I havent bitten off more than I can chew.
This is going to be good. Hasker spends the first chapter establishing the theistic framework from which he will analyze theodicy (open theism), and then he compares and contrasts it with classical theism which is totally seen along the lines of Augustinian/Calvinism. It is interesting because he eschews simple foreknowledge as it's own category allowing the only viable other option to be Molinism. I believe, if i read it correctly, he believes if he can kill both determinism and Molinism in argument he has likewise taken simple foreknowledge off the table. I think I know how he plans to do this, and it is that there is truly no philosophical difference from a Divine standpoint between determining all of reality and only knowing it (determinism and simple foreknowledge).
As a quick aside, his writing is good and not so philosophically inclined as to cause one to retrieve the motrin. Some are so philosophically heavy that it seems they try to wow the reader with syllogism in hopes of winning the argument via intellectual red herrings drug this way and that across the path the reader would rather stay on. I am also glad that Hasker leads with open theism rather than having it as the hidden mistress.
"If we surpress the protest and assure ourselves that everything that happens is Gods will and is for the best, the protest is likely to fester and cause spiritual damage in the form of repressed anger against God," p 39.
Ch 1 has Hasker exposing some weaknesses in existing theodicies.
Ch 2 has him showing how the holocaust has been spoken to by modern theodicies.
Ch 3 has him dealing with others as well but he brings up A. Plantinga's freewill defense. I think where I get a bit confused with Plantinga's stance is between his tradition and his adherence to Molinism. It isnt so much that under middle knowledge that God knows the counterfactals but does He know or determine the factuals? This makes a huge difference. According to Plantinga's tradition I believe he would have to say that God determines the factuals and knows the counterfactals. But this seems to fly in the face of a freewill defense since the factuals couldnt have been otherwise and had been decreed. If decreed (determined) then there is nothing free about it. This shifts blame for all evil back to God--moral or natural--and we are left with a loving God where "love" doesnt mean love; good doesnt mean good. The only salve we have is that He knows what would have been, and at this point I dont know how much His knowledge of the counterfactals actually helps anything. This model ends up being an intelligent determinism.
These three chapters are laying the groundwork which his following text will speak to in light of modern problems and contrasted to how they have been spoken to.
Ch 4 deals with the "all or best possible worlds concept. While this is more philosophical involved than I am (though I'm holding on well even if without much comment) he raises some interesting concepts as "concepts" rather than his personal stance: psychological and physical determinism. In psychological determinism one acts according to their greatest motive. I would therefore assume a counterpart would be physical determinism which would say we always act according to (roughly) our genetic (DNA?) Predisposition. My curiosity is would a compatiblist say that their view where one always acts according to their nature (as decreed by God) be the unity of psychological and physical determinism? (Side note: there can be no such thing as compatablist freewill since one can never be said to be able to chose otherwise; since not one is not free, they are a slave to their decreed nature.)
Ch 5 is getting into the meat of the matter. This chapter deals with natural evil and how people have responded in the past. One very strange one is by a young earth proponent who believes that via middle knowledge God foresees mankind's sin and creates a prebroken world that corresponds to that sin. This is an attempt to reconcile a few billion year old earth and stuff like a T Rex which was meat eating (attributed to the fall) from before Eden.
"God does not need a theodicy, but we do--at least, some of us do," p 120.
Hasker devotes 122 pp setting the stage by analyzing competing schools of thoughts theodicies; namely--as stated above--he is dealing with determinism and Molinism. Their best scholars have been looked at and found, in one way or another, wanting. The following 103 pp will be to use the framework of open theism to develop a theodicy beginning with natural evil.
Hasker points out that we should see that natural evil is impersonal. He says that all these extreme conditions like hurricanes have natural causes.
"The laws of nature, it seems, are not respecters of persons," p 130.
If, for instance, natural evil was intelligent and assumed good so as to always divert its power in a less or non humanly occupied place we would have to have a Spirit of lightning which Hasker says seems silly.
In dealing with natural laws or the constants known as fine tuning (the teleological argument) Hasker says that traditional process theism has no where to go. If God is blocked off from participation in the natural realm and all He can do is lure or influence toward the good then the six constants in the cosmos (I've heard there are some forty of them but he focuses on six) are random.
Haskers conclusion of natural evil is similar to the watchmaker concept in that God made the cosmos impersonal and it works by laws which He set in motion. Therefore to say that New Orleans was devastated in katrina by the wrath of God is just ludicrous (though the levee builders may share some of the evil). What NOLA experienced was the natural working of the earth which can not be reduced to God being mad. (Though here and in moral evil is a very important aspect that non process readers will be asking; I will see if he covers it before I show my hand in critique.)
Hasker begins his moral evil section stating that many live life under the assumption--like Job's "friends"--that there is somewhat of a covenant we have with God that if we live feel-good lives God will keep bad things from happening to us. Taken to the farthest extreme in determinism, God wont make bad things happen to us.
Getting into a freewill defense theodicy Hasker defines the terms. There are two concepts here which have to be fleshed out: compatablism and libertarianism. As freewill concepts go the determinist who affirms freewill will be a compatiblist where they freely act according to their nature which means when faced with a choice they will choose the option which is compatible to their nature. This means they cant choose otherwise: two or five or ten doors face them and only one is unlocked...by decree. The libertarian advocate sees all doors unlocked as options though they will by psychology and genetics be more inclined to one door than others at times but they always have the option--and responsibility--to do otherwise...no decree.
He deals with compatablism and its logical conclusions. Of God designed the cosmos and determined everything to be as it ended up being then we just have to accept that "good" and "love" for God look totally different than what we usually think of them. We have to believe that every atrocity is good and loving because it was determined to be from all eternity. Auschwitz was for the glory of God and we just have to be cool with that. (I cant get this mental image out of my mind that the determinists model of God, when anthropomorphically reduced, looks like Ric Flair letting rip a "whooo!"...for His Glory [insert: sunglasses and body oil]; that's just me.)
So proceeding Hasker will use the open theists libertarian freewill framework for dealing with moral evil. And begins with four assumptions:
It is good that there should be free, rational and responsible persons.
It is good for them to have occasion and opportunity to develope their inherent potentialities.
It is good that they be in communities.
They should, in community, develope their processes from within rather than being determined by a higher power.
As Hasker gets into the last chapter which is his synthesis of all that has be laid down before, be it natural evil and how that informs our perception of moral evil or his criticism of other theodicies dealing with moral evil he states that [I paraphrase] we cant expect God to be the moral policeman. I believe some of this was formed, or can see reflected in, his impersonal, natural evil theodicy.
In setting up this chapter Hasker does get to my aforementioned question. He is going over the differences between determinism, Molinism and open theism. He says that determinism and Molinism both basically land, no on divine permission for evil, but rather on divine design of evil. Open theism rather states that people are freely choosing good or evil under divine or evil influence where the only way God could change the outcome is by stripping ones free agency or miracle. It is this miracle aspect I hope he approaches. He further says that doing either of these two things would seriously undermine the regular operations of nature and the capacity for humans to take responsibility for their own actions.
He moves on to show through the biblical narrative that Gods end goal is to triumph over evil. Gladly he does in this narrative mention the demonic forces behind the Crucifixion. Though it is yet to be seen if he means personalized evil or structural; it sounds personal but sometimes academic works equivocate when speaking to these issues.
I take the summary of his moral evil theodicy to be God is not the moral police; He will reconcile all things to Himself (sans universalism). While I agree with both I believe Hasker gives hardly any place to miracles (I guess because of the aforementioned "police" comment) and scant mention of the demonic (See Dan. 10 for a more enchanted theodicy). While his treatment was good if a bit more philosophical and academic than I am, I believe that his bare mention of these two elements sets his trajectory a bit askew. For the record I think Hasker is an awesome academic, open theist and brother and I'm glad he is on our side generically as a Christian and specifically as an open theist.
To whoever is doing the thesis on Theodicy at Wake Seminary, I think I bought up most of the books you used and sold to the used bookstore. Thanks.
I have read Hasker before in his book on Metaphysics and his addition to The Openness of God. I hope I havent bitten off more than I can chew.
This is going to be good. Hasker spends the first chapter establishing the theistic framework from which he will analyze theodicy (open theism), and then he compares and contrasts it with classical theism which is totally seen along the lines of Augustinian/Calvinism. It is interesting because he eschews simple foreknowledge as it's own category allowing the only viable other option to be Molinism. I believe, if i read it correctly, he believes if he can kill both determinism and Molinism in argument he has likewise taken simple foreknowledge off the table. I think I know how he plans to do this, and it is that there is truly no philosophical difference from a Divine standpoint between determining all of reality and only knowing it (determinism and simple foreknowledge).
As a quick aside, his writing is good and not so philosophically inclined as to cause one to retrieve the motrin. Some are so philosophically heavy that it seems they try to wow the reader with syllogism in hopes of winning the argument via intellectual red herrings drug this way and that across the path the reader would rather stay on. I am also glad that Hasker leads with open theism rather than having it as the hidden mistress.
"If we surpress the protest and assure ourselves that everything that happens is Gods will and is for the best, the protest is likely to fester and cause spiritual damage in the form of repressed anger against God," p 39.
Ch 1 has Hasker exposing some weaknesses in existing theodicies.
Ch 2 has him showing how the holocaust has been spoken to by modern theodicies.
Ch 3 has him dealing with others as well but he brings up A. Plantinga's freewill defense. I think where I get a bit confused with Plantinga's stance is between his tradition and his adherence to Molinism. It isnt so much that under middle knowledge that God knows the counterfactals but does He know or determine the factuals? This makes a huge difference. According to Plantinga's tradition I believe he would have to say that God determines the factuals and knows the counterfactals. But this seems to fly in the face of a freewill defense since the factuals couldnt have been otherwise and had been decreed. If decreed (determined) then there is nothing free about it. This shifts blame for all evil back to God--moral or natural--and we are left with a loving God where "love" doesnt mean love; good doesnt mean good. The only salve we have is that He knows what would have been, and at this point I dont know how much His knowledge of the counterfactals actually helps anything. This model ends up being an intelligent determinism.
These three chapters are laying the groundwork which his following text will speak to in light of modern problems and contrasted to how they have been spoken to.
Ch 4 deals with the "all or best possible worlds concept. While this is more philosophical involved than I am (though I'm holding on well even if without much comment) he raises some interesting concepts as "concepts" rather than his personal stance: psychological and physical determinism. In psychological determinism one acts according to their greatest motive. I would therefore assume a counterpart would be physical determinism which would say we always act according to (roughly) our genetic (DNA?) Predisposition. My curiosity is would a compatiblist say that their view where one always acts according to their nature (as decreed by God) be the unity of psychological and physical determinism? (Side note: there can be no such thing as compatablist freewill since one can never be said to be able to chose otherwise; since not one is not free, they are a slave to their decreed nature.)
Ch 5 is getting into the meat of the matter. This chapter deals with natural evil and how people have responded in the past. One very strange one is by a young earth proponent who believes that via middle knowledge God foresees mankind's sin and creates a prebroken world that corresponds to that sin. This is an attempt to reconcile a few billion year old earth and stuff like a T Rex which was meat eating (attributed to the fall) from before Eden.
"God does not need a theodicy, but we do--at least, some of us do," p 120.
Hasker devotes 122 pp setting the stage by analyzing competing schools of thoughts theodicies; namely--as stated above--he is dealing with determinism and Molinism. Their best scholars have been looked at and found, in one way or another, wanting. The following 103 pp will be to use the framework of open theism to develop a theodicy beginning with natural evil.
Hasker points out that we should see that natural evil is impersonal. He says that all these extreme conditions like hurricanes have natural causes.
"The laws of nature, it seems, are not respecters of persons," p 130.
If, for instance, natural evil was intelligent and assumed good so as to always divert its power in a less or non humanly occupied place we would have to have a Spirit of lightning which Hasker says seems silly.
In dealing with natural laws or the constants known as fine tuning (the teleological argument) Hasker says that traditional process theism has no where to go. If God is blocked off from participation in the natural realm and all He can do is lure or influence toward the good then the six constants in the cosmos (I've heard there are some forty of them but he focuses on six) are random.
Haskers conclusion of natural evil is similar to the watchmaker concept in that God made the cosmos impersonal and it works by laws which He set in motion. Therefore to say that New Orleans was devastated in katrina by the wrath of God is just ludicrous (though the levee builders may share some of the evil). What NOLA experienced was the natural working of the earth which can not be reduced to God being mad. (Though here and in moral evil is a very important aspect that non process readers will be asking; I will see if he covers it before I show my hand in critique.)
Hasker begins his moral evil section stating that many live life under the assumption--like Job's "friends"--that there is somewhat of a covenant we have with God that if we live feel-good lives God will keep bad things from happening to us. Taken to the farthest extreme in determinism, God wont make bad things happen to us.
Getting into a freewill defense theodicy Hasker defines the terms. There are two concepts here which have to be fleshed out: compatablism and libertarianism. As freewill concepts go the determinist who affirms freewill will be a compatiblist where they freely act according to their nature which means when faced with a choice they will choose the option which is compatible to their nature. This means they cant choose otherwise: two or five or ten doors face them and only one is unlocked...by decree. The libertarian advocate sees all doors unlocked as options though they will by psychology and genetics be more inclined to one door than others at times but they always have the option--and responsibility--to do otherwise...no decree.
He deals with compatablism and its logical conclusions. Of God designed the cosmos and determined everything to be as it ended up being then we just have to accept that "good" and "love" for God look totally different than what we usually think of them. We have to believe that every atrocity is good and loving because it was determined to be from all eternity. Auschwitz was for the glory of God and we just have to be cool with that. (I cant get this mental image out of my mind that the determinists model of God, when anthropomorphically reduced, looks like Ric Flair letting rip a "whooo!"...for His Glory [insert: sunglasses and body oil]; that's just me.)
So proceeding Hasker will use the open theists libertarian freewill framework for dealing with moral evil. And begins with four assumptions:
It is good that there should be free, rational and responsible persons.
It is good for them to have occasion and opportunity to develope their inherent potentialities.
It is good that they be in communities.
They should, in community, develope their processes from within rather than being determined by a higher power.
As Hasker gets into the last chapter which is his synthesis of all that has be laid down before, be it natural evil and how that informs our perception of moral evil or his criticism of other theodicies dealing with moral evil he states that [I paraphrase] we cant expect God to be the moral policeman. I believe some of this was formed, or can see reflected in, his impersonal, natural evil theodicy.
In setting up this chapter Hasker does get to my aforementioned question. He is going over the differences between determinism, Molinism and open theism. He says that determinism and Molinism both basically land, no on divine permission for evil, but rather on divine design of evil. Open theism rather states that people are freely choosing good or evil under divine or evil influence where the only way God could change the outcome is by stripping ones free agency or miracle. It is this miracle aspect I hope he approaches. He further says that doing either of these two things would seriously undermine the regular operations of nature and the capacity for humans to take responsibility for their own actions.
He moves on to show through the biblical narrative that Gods end goal is to triumph over evil. Gladly he does in this narrative mention the demonic forces behind the Crucifixion. Though it is yet to be seen if he means personalized evil or structural; it sounds personal but sometimes academic works equivocate when speaking to these issues.
I take the summary of his moral evil theodicy to be God is not the moral police; He will reconcile all things to Himself (sans universalism). While I agree with both I believe Hasker gives hardly any place to miracles (I guess because of the aforementioned "police" comment) and scant mention of the demonic (See Dan. 10 for a more enchanted theodicy). While his treatment was good if a bit more philosophical and academic than I am, I believe that his bare mention of these two elements sets his trajectory a bit askew. For the record I think Hasker is an awesome academic, open theist and brother and I'm glad he is on our side generically as a Christian and specifically as an open theist.
January 20, 2025
It would be a good idea to read The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence before reading this on to get a good understanding of the Open Theism, that is the context for William Hasker's writing in this book. This book builds on the topics in Sanders' book to explore the problem of evil from a Christian philosophical perspective and will be difficult to read and understand without some background. Hasker doesn't pretend to have solved such a difficult problem. He summarized competing viewpoints on it from a number of significant thinkers and writer's on the the topic and presents his own arguments in such a way as to show that, though there be no definitive solution withing the realm of our understanding, there is definite hope and justification for faith in a good, loving and powerful God, despite the worst of evils that plague our world.
I highly recommend this book to all who are deeply concerned with the problem of God and evil.
I highly recommend this book to all who are deeply concerned with the problem of God and evil.
March 3, 2015
Hasker presents a theodicy from the standpoint of open theism. But even if the reader rejects open theism (as I do), Hasker's book is still useful -- and quite readable, though it requires time. He defends the use of theodicies to address the problem of evil and gives an overview and critiques of theodicies that philosophers and theologians have advanced. Through it all, Hasker remains irenic and pretty fair, except when he deals with soft determinism; he does not treat it well. Readers may want to see if he has interacted with other philosophers or theologians on that topic.
You may want to read this book if you want to know more about theodicy, the logical problem of evil, the evidential problem of evil, the free will defense, the skeptical theist defense, open theism, Molinism, or a Christian theology of evil (and its defeat).
You may want to read this book if you want to know more about theodicy, the logical problem of evil, the evidential problem of evil, the free will defense, the skeptical theist defense, open theism, Molinism, or a Christian theology of evil (and its defeat).
May 13, 2012
His entire argument hinges on how he feels God should work. If God's intent is to glorify man by means of creation then his position of open theism might be viable, but it makes God out to be completely useless.
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