theodicy. Such a theodicy will not claim that “every evil leads to a greater good,” but
rather that the nature and structure of the world as a whole make possible many and great
goods and that the evils the world contains, however tragic they may be, do not negate
the goodness of God's creation taken as a whole. The most famous example of such a
theodicy is John Hick's (1978) “soul-making theodicy,” but there are other examples, and
much more work along these lines remains to be done.^5
Toward Maturity: Multiple Challenges
All of the topics mentioned in the previous section continue to be actively discussed, but
the past two decades have seen a notable broadening of the field of analytic philosophy of
religion, with many new, or previously underexplored, topics becoming important
subjects for research. These topics include philosophical studies of particular religious
(especially Christian) doctrines, divine command theories of ethics, the relation between
religion and science, the philosophical analysis of non-Western religions, the problem of
religious pluralism, religious realism and antirealism, and the implications of religious
beliefs for general epistemology, along with still others. It is out of the question for all of
these to be discussed here even briefly, so this section is limited to two main topics. First,
we will survey recent philosophical work on the doctrine of divine providence. Then I
will propose a topic that has not recently been a major part of the agenda but that, I
suggest, needs to become so in the near future: the nature of necessary truth.
That God exercises providential control and guidance over earthly events is a common
tenet of the monotheistic religions. According to the Talmud, for example, “The Holy
One sits and nourishes both the horns of the wild ox and the ova of lice” (Shabbat 107b),
and “He is occupied in making ladders, casting down the one and elevating the other”
(Genesis Rabbah 68.4). Recent philosophical discussions concerning this doctrine have
been carried out in a Christian context, but are in principle applicable as well to Judaism
and Islam.
From a philosophical standpoint, the crucial variables for a doctrine of providence are
divine power, divine knowledge, and human free will. However, the nature and extent of
divine power are not in question among the major candidate views on the topic: they
would agree that the exercise of God's power is limited only by what is logically possible
and by what is “morally possible” for God in view of God's essential moral perfection.
The one exception to this generalization is the process theism based on the thought of A.
N. Whitehead (see Griffin 1976), which holds that God's power is “always persuasive,
never coercive.” On this view God can and does “lure” finite beings toward the direction
that will best fulfill their potential. But having done this, God has no control whatever
over the choices actually made by the creatures. It is often claimed that this view is much
less troubled by the problem of evil than is traditional theism, but this has recently been
disputed (Hasker 2000). What is clear, however, is that the degree of divine control is far
less than seems to be required by the monotheistic faiths, at least in anything like their
traditional forms. Analytic philosophers of religion, with a few exceptions, tend to shun
process theism. Even those who are atheists usually disbelieve in the God of traditional
theism rather than in the process deity!