Process theology provides a better way to think about how and why there is evil in the world. The core theological starting point in that God is not all-powerful but has a persuasive, loving power that is limited by the freedom inherent in the world.

1. Intro to Process Theology

2. Intro to Process
Theology
Science and Religion
(God and the World)
Evil and Suffering
Jesus and Creative Transformation
Ethics: Pluralism, Economism, and
Ecology

3. 1. How can I have a faith that
honors both science and the Bible?
2. Why does God cause bad things
to happen?
All simplifications of
religious dogma are
shipwrecked upon the
rock of the problem
of evil." -ANW

4. Rebecca Parker

5. Supernaturalism
or Deism
God All-determining theism
OR
Free-will theism
World

6. 3 major problems
Tension between God's goodness
and God's power
Misunderstanding of God's power
Fallacy of a single cause

7. The problem of evil
(theodicy)
1. God is, by definition, all-powerful
and all-good.
2. If God is all-powerful, God could
unilaterally prevent all evil.
3. If God is all-good, God would want to
prevent all evil.
4. Evil does occur.
5. Therefore God does not exist.

8. God is all-good.
OR
God is all-powerful.

9. God's Power in
Process Theology
Omnipotent
Omnipresent
Almighty
Persuasive
All-powerful Love-power
God World

10. What is the highest
form of power?
Love or coercion?

11. Multiple causation

12. Key themes
Creation out of chaos
Multiple causation
Persuasive, love-power
Capacity to be good and evil rises together
future is open
freedom is a necessity not a gift or divine
choice because it is built into the nature of
things

13. Sin vs. "Natural"
Evil
Sin = human
rebellion against
creation through
unnecessary
violence
Natural evil = forms
of evil that are not
caused by humans

14. Process theology sees the
universe as creative,
interrelational, dynamic, and
open to the future. In process
theology, God is relational,
present in every moment of our
lives and in all entities and
levels of being. The world is
interconnected, in effect a giant
ecosystem where what harms or
blesses one, harms or blesses all.

15. Next week:
Jesus and
Creative Transformation