ABSTRACT
I gladly pay homage to Teilhard’s priority by basing a short summary of my thesis on a quotation from his work. In a 1947 essay entitled “Reflections on original sin,” he noted that, in an evolutionary universe,
Thus did Teilhard understate his breathtaking claim that the great, brooding Problem of Evil, which for thousands of years has burdened and vanquished the best minds of philosophy and theology, is nothing more than a pseudoproblem – an optical illusion of the mind, which vanishes into thin air the moment one shifts one’s point of view. And he was right, as right as he was bold. How could this be? Were the wisdom and insight of all who went before surpassed by those of Teilhard? No, and still less by my own. What has occurred here is a simple paradigm shift, of the sort familiar in all branches of knowledge. The thinkers who were and still are defeated by the problems of evil and theodicy have merely been lacking an essential piece of the puzzle: a deep understanding (and not a mere acknowledgment) of the fact that the world has not simply been created by divine fiat, but has evolved. Seen from that promontory of knowledge, the world looks entirely different: not every option was available to the Creator.
