Kathryn Tanner on Divine Agency and the Problem of Providential Evil
In this article I engage with Kathryn Tanner's theological framework for understanding God's agency, focusing on the way her rules of non-contrastive transcendence and non-competitive immanence govern her account of God's acts of creation, providence, incarnation, and atonement. I arg...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Modern theology
Year: 2025, Volume: 41, Issue: 4, Pages: 625-637 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In this article I engage with Kathryn Tanner's theological framework for understanding God's agency, focusing on the way her rules of non-contrastive transcendence and non-competitive immanence govern her account of God's acts of creation, providence, incarnation, and atonement. I argue that Tanner's account of God as beneficent gift-giver uniquely confronts a problem of providential evil and I offer a revised framework better able to incorporate the inexplicable existence of divinely sanctioned human suffering under sin and death. Central to the revised picture is a recognition of the deeply ambiguous character of God's providential order and a concept of incarnational solidarity suited to that reality. Finally, I highlight an explanatory advantage that my revised picture has over Tanner's in answering what William R. Jones called a “multievidential objection” to the claim of liberation theologians that under conditions of social and political evil God takes sides with the oppressed. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-0025 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Modern theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/moth.70012 |
