Preface

Summary

In my earlier book, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, I registered my discontent with standard “big-picture” and “free-will” theodicies. Not only do they not do justice to the very worst evils – the ones I identified as “horrendous.” I argued that, where horrors are concerned, no solution within the confines of a religion-neutral value-theory is possible. By contrast, a range of options opens up if one turns to the wider resources of Christian theology. One methodological moral of my story was that, in explaining how Christian faith can be coherent, Christian philosophers should not act as if Christian beliefs sum to “restricted-standard theism” – the claim that there exists an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good God. Instead, Christian philosophers should bring the richer and more nuanced doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and atonement into play.

My own wrestlings with evil convinced me that, while sin and horrors are both problems, horrors are the more fundamental problem. My opening question in this book is: what does Christology look like, if rescuing the world from horrendous evils is the Savior's principal job? Where Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God urged philosophers to be more theological, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology invites theologians to define the soteriological problem in a philosophical way. I myself am committed to this approach and its consequences. Naturally, I hope my arguments will convince many readers.