ABSTRACT
Drawing on much of Aquinas's thinking on creation, providence, and evil, this chapter exposits and defends some of the fundamental tenets of this book's Thomistic theodicy. According to this theodicy, evil only exists because God, in accordance with his perfect goodness, wills so much good to exist, including all kinds and levels of good things that can and do go bad (or cause and suffer much evil). Moreover, God only allows evil to occur from which he can and does draw good. It is because God is sovereign over all of the evil that occurs in the world that he is able to redeem it in the end, which consists of ordering it to the goodness of the world as a whole, thereby ensuring that it actually contributes to the goodness of the world as a whole in the end. This chapter further discusses how it is fitting for God to create using an evolutionary process that yields a world replete with all kinds and levels of good things. And, it shows how God's exercising sovereignty over what we do (whether good or bad) is consistent with our possessing and exercising libertarian free will.
