God and Religion

Gardner chooses God and religion as one of his central themes in "Redemption." More specifically, Gardner chooses to explore theodicy, the defense of God's omnipotence and goodness in the face of evil. The central question of theodicy is, of course, if God is good and all-powerful, why does God allow evil in the world? How is it that a beneficent and omnipotent God would allow a small child to be crushed to death under the wheels of a cultipacker?

Dale Hawthorne represents the paradox of God's goodness and God's omnipotence in his response to David's death. His mind "swung violently at this time, reversing itself almost hour by hour, from desperate faith to the most savage, black-hearted atheism.... He was unable to d ecide, one moment full of rage at God's injustice, the next moment wracked by doubt of his existence." Often, when presented with unbearable...