Making Room for the Story to Continue?

Volume editor

Ernst M. Conradie

Volume editor

Upolu Lumā Vaai

Synopsis

This fourth volume of the series on “An Earthed Faith” focuses on providence. The ten invited essays address the following core question: How could the suffering of God’s creatures in the “Anthropocene” be reconciled with trust in God’s loving care? Addressing this question will require theological reflection on the classic themes related to the doctrine of providence, including creatio continua, conservatio, gubernatio, and concursus. For some, God’s providence (common grace) is a necessary requirement to allow (to make room for) the history of salvation to proceed. For others, the suffering embedded in God’s “good” creation requires responses to the theodicy problem: Why would a loving God allow creatures to suffer so much? What is the relationship between so-called natural evil and social evil? Is the underlying problem human sin, or is it the inadequacies, the tragic dimension – indeed, the violence embedded in God’s world? Again, this last question is hinted at in the question mark after the title.

Chapters

“In God We Trust”? A Core Christian Conviction and Its Multiple Challenges amid the “Anthropocene”

Ernst Conradie, Upolu Lumā Vaai
Divine Providence amid Ecological Crises: A Nigerian Perspective

Aku Antombikums
Common Grace and Sustainability: Some South African Reformed Perspectives

Ernst Conradie
Evolution and Providence: A View from Aotearoa

Nicola Creegan
Divine Providence and Critical Liminalities: An Ecotheopoetic Search for Post-Anthropic Subaltern Planetary Ethics

Baiju Markose
The Challenge of “Angry Weather”: Planetary Perspectives on the Providence of God from Life Lived Down Under

Clive Pearson
On Providence, Suffering, and Creation Faith: Perspectives from “Anthropocene” Aporias

Elizabeth Pyne
Mosquitoes, Dengue, and Butterflies: Providential Masks of the Hidden God

Marisa Strizzi
God’s Providence and Suffering from Climate Change in the African Context

Gloriose Umuziranenge , Eraste Rukera
Does God Care for Cows? A Dutch Perspective on the Perils and Prospects of Providence in the “Anthropocene”

Gijsbert van den Brink
Continuing the Conversation in Christian Ecotheology on God’s Providence

Ernst Conradie, Upolu Lumā Vaai