Who Rules the World: Divine Providence and the Existence of Evil

by Hans Schwarz

Overview

Over a career spanning more than fifty years, Hans Schwarz has grappled with nearly all of Christianity's major theological questions. In this latest volume, Schwarz tackles the perennial problem of evil. How is it possible to reconcile the manifest evil and pain in the world with the biblical promise of hope and redemption? Are we, in fact, "lonely wanderers in the immensity of the universe about whom nobody cares," or is there something above and beyond us in which we can trust?

To this perennial question Schwarz brings his signature blend of pastoral sensitivity and scholarly acumen. Informed by decades in the classroom, Schwarz offers a sweeping survey of views of the problem of evil, beginning with the world's major religious traditions before focusing on the major views across the broad span of Christian history.

The book aims to help readers interested in the problem of evil understand the broad sweep of human thought about the problem, and make informed assessments of the issue for themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506469263
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Hans Schwarz is professor emeritus of systematic theology at the University of Regensburg, Germany. From 1967 to 1981 he was professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He has presented more than six hundred lectures on five continents and is the author of more than thirty books, including The Christian Faith: A Creedal Account (2014) and The Human Being: A Theological Anthropology (2013). His more than forty doctoral students teach in many different countries.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

1 Good and Evil in the History of Religions 3

The Dualistic Approach 3

The Fatalistic Approach 10

2 Evil in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures 23

God and Evil in the Old Testament 23

The New Testament 42

3 The Early Church 57

Irenaeus: Humans Are Created in the Image of God 57

Augustine: God's Providence and the Existence of Evil 59

4 Middle Ages and the Reformation Period 65

Thomas Aquinas: The Goodness of God and the Deficiency of Evil 65

John Calvin: The World Is Governed in All of its Parts by Divine Providence 68

Martin Luther: Though There Is Turmoil God Rules Supreme 71

5 The-Enlightenment 83

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: The Necessity of Evil 83

Voltaire: Where Is God? 86

Kant: A Theodicy Eludes Human Reason 89

Hume: Between Skepticism and Faith 93

6 The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 95

Hegel: History as a Justification of the Ways of God 95

Paley and Darwin: Goodness or Cruelty? 98

Barth: The Overpowering Goodness of God 104

Rahner: The Incomprehensibility of Suffering 108

Sölle and Rubenstein: The Weakness of God and the Holocaust 111

Moltmann: Theodicy as the Open Wound of Life in This World 114

7 The Present Situation 119

Process Thought: The Emerging God 119

The Irenaean Theodicy of John Hick 123

The Openness of God 129

Excursus: Open Theism and Process Theology 135

8 The God Who Cares 137

Who or What Is God? 137

God's Providential Care 142

God's Special Providence 167

9 Under God's Guidance 185

God the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer 185

Anticipation of a New Creation 188

Discerning the Mind of God 191

Selected Bibliography 195

Index of Subjects 199

Index of Names 201

Biblical References 205