ABSTRACT
Could we live in this world without meaning or hope? Could we endure this world, the world of trivial or mundane senselessness on the one hand, the world of unbearable wretchedness and horrendous evil on the other? Could we go on without a sense that our existence has meaning and that good will prevail in the end? It is hard to imagine how. Yet, the inevitability of our approaching death, the possibility that we will be no more in the end, not to mention the miseries that are thrust upon us, all these seem to threaten to take away any sense of meaning and hope that we have. Indeed, if death is final and if all come to nothing in the end, then all our struggles and achievements seem to be swallowed up by the great abyss. What then is the point of it all? In the end, good is ultimately overpowered by evil. In view of this, any satisfactory theodicy must deal with and reconcile the distressing reality of evil with a God, not just any kind of God, but one that could provide the meaningfulness of our existence and the hope for the triumph of good over evil. A God who could not be trusted for meaning and hope could hardly be trusted with our commitment or be worthy of our worship. Could the process God provide the ground for such meaning, hope and worship?
