Review of David Ray Griffin, Evil Revisited
by John M. Frame
[ I
am reprinting this review here, which originally appeared in the Calvin Theological Journal.
[2]
]
Griffin
is one of the
most prominent advocates of process theology and perhaps the movement's
leading spokesman on the question of theodicy, the problem of evil. In
this volume, he restates the theses of his earlier book, God, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), and he offers rebuttals to the
critics of his earlier argument.
There
is not much in this book for those of us who hold to a traditional
Calvinistic position (he calls it "all-determining theism"). He
brushes that position aside with quick strokes: all-determining theism
makes sin meaningless and evil ultimately illusory (pp. 13-14). In this
short but rather confusing discussion, he mixes up Lutheran ("God's
left hand"), Reformed ("revealed" vs. "secret"
will) and Roman Catholic (evil is non-being) motifs.
Nor
is there anything much in the book for those who have basic questions about process theology, such as,
(1)
How do we know that the world is made up of creative actual occasions,
without resorting to the fallacy of division-- i.e., without gratuitously
attributing the qualities of our experienced world to its supposed basic
elements?
(2)
What are the qualifications of process theologians to revise the biblical
teachings about God? (They have academic credentials, yes; but those are
usually considered inadequate to convey religious authority. Are they known for their piety, their
holiness, their kindness, their prophetic mandates, their extraordinary
friendships with God?)
(3)
Is process theology too high a price to pay for a solution to the problem
of evil? Do we really want to give up the central biblical teaching of the
sovereignty of God so that we can get an intellectually satisfying answer?
Or does loyalty to Jesus Christ demand that we put up with an occasional
mystery?
(4)
Is the process God any more than a principle of unity within the plurality
of the world itself? If not, why should we call it "God?"
We
can grasp at least the general direction of
Griffin
's thinking on these matters by
his statement on p. 52:
My position,
by contrast, assumes that we have no infallible revelation. That
assumption is based partly on the fact that no such revelation seems to
exist, but partly on the fact that my understanding of the God-world
relationship does not allow for any such revelation to occur.
The latter clause indicates the presupposition
which he brings to the question of revelation: his own autonomous thought
must always be the ultimate judge of any purported revelation. Therefore,
the Bible, which on the contrary claims the right to rule over all human
thought, must be dismissed as, in effect, fraudulent. Those who accept the
Bible's claim must similarly dismiss
Griffin
's
approach.
Who,
then, can benefit from this book? Well, those of us who, for professional
reasons, must keep up with the ins and outs of process theology probably
cannot legitimately avoid this volume. There are a few new wrinkles here.
Griffin
announces
in the preface that this book contains a stronger doctrine of
evil, which he calls "the demonic." He also tries to answer
the objection that the process God, while answering the problem
of evil, enfeebles our hope by raising questions about God's ultimate
triumph.
There
is also an interesting discussion in which
Griffin
distinguishes between efficient
cause and coercion (PP. 96-119): God does not coerce (he only
"persuades," as the process tradition emphasizes), but he does
cause efficiently. This distinction requires
Griffin
, of course, to redefine
"efficient cause" so that it refers only to the divine gift of
each occasion's "initial aim". In my view, this redefinition
does not help very much to answer the concerns which prompted
the question. There is still nothing in the process system
that corresponds well to the traditional concept of efficient cause.
The
book also contains a relatively new process doctrine of the Trinity: God,
the world, and creativity (pp. 188-192). Process theologians have found it
notoriously difficult to formulate a functional equivalent to historic
trinitarianism compatible with their system. Their God, of course, is bi-
or di-polar, not tri-polar.
Griffin
's
approach is more cogent than the alternatives, granted his premises; but
it does in effect grant the charge of pantheism.
The
volume will also be of interest to those whom
Griffin
calls "traditional free
will theists" and to those with a scholarly interest in that
position. Most of the critics to whom
Griffin
replies are of that persuasion:
people who hold an Arminian-libertarian view of free will and who believe
that is a sufficient answer to the problem of evil. Among them are
David and Randall Basinger, Steven T. Davis, Alvin Plantinga,
Nelson Pike, Bruce Reichenbach.
Griffin
's
dialogue with these (and with some fellow process theologians) takes up
most of the book.
It
does seem to me that this sort of Arminianism faces a crisis today.
Griffin's critique of it, like the critiques of less extreme thinkers like
Richard Rice and Clark Pinnock, seems to me to be cogent in this way: if
Arminians really want to say that man is fully autonomous in his choices,
then they must deny the biblical teaching (Rice and Pinnock, of course,
would not put it this way; nothing would prevent Griffin from doing so)
that God's omniscience includes future events (cf. pp. 83-87). If
God knows the future perfectly, then some kind of fore-ordination exists, either from God's will or from some
other mysterious source (fate?). To eliminate this
"determinism," one must eliminate divine foreknowledge or rest
with mystery; but of course the hallmark of Arminianism is not to rest with mystery. So the
Arminian is balancing on a razor's edge. The more he thinks, the more he
is in danger of falling either to one side (denying scriptural teaching,
or even embracing process theology itself) or the other (Calvinism, or
"all-determining theism").
Griffin
is an intelligent
writer, whatever one may think of his presuppositions. Every now and then,
he presents an insight that deserves consideration even by Calvinists.
For example, on pp. 31-32, he argues that God's goodness follows from his
omniscience, since his omniscience is not merely a propositional
understanding but an actual "feeling" of all that is happening.
Orthodox Calvinists will reject the pantheistic assumptions here; but can
we deny that God knows not only the propositional truths about the universe
but also, somehow, knows how every finite being feels? To follow out the
implications of this fact might help us to a better balance between
intellect and emotion in our view of God and in our human epistemology.
On
the whole, then, this book is a worthy sequel to God, Power and Evil; but its usefulness is limited for
those who reject the distinctives of Arminian and process thought.
_