The Poetics of Evil: Toward an Aesthetic Theodicy by Philip Tallon (review)

In the recent film The Tree of Life, director Terrence Malick unfolds a seemingly short narrative of the revelation of a young man's death to his remaining family through vignettes of his brother's memories interspersed with dramatically beautiful imaginings of the genesis of life in the universe. When the viewer wonders what these two disparate portraits have to do with one another, the opening of the film is recalled: a quote from Job 38:4, 7. Malick succeeds when the viewer realizes, in an almost Augustinian fashion, that the tragedy of death and the beauty of life are false dichotomies. Evil and beauty do, somehow, go together.

This is the territory in which Philip Tallon writes. In The Poetics of Evil: Toward an Aesthetic Theodicy, Tallon navigates through multiple disciplines in order to draw together the tasks of both aesthetics and theodicy into a more unified, biblical picture. He clearly states the premise of the book in the introduction: "Aesthetic considerations play a valuable role in the task of theodicy, and, hence, theodicists ought to highlight aesthetics as part of their goal to attempt to resolve the prima facie tension between the idea of God and the fact of evil" (xviii). Without considering the possible contributions of aesthetics, theodicy is generally relegated to theological response rather than theological assertion, making it, in the end, a subsection of theology rather than one that encompasses all areas of doctrine—including creation and Christology.

Though this work would be most fully enjoyed by a specialist in either of the fields broached, Tallon's keen attention to both sides of the coin, aesthetics and theodicy, offers the non-specialist a clear entry into the discussion. Tallon structures the work by first covering the foundations of the relationship in academic work thus far between aesthetics and theodicy, and then addressing three aesthetic motifs (harmony, tragedy, and horror) and the ways in which they may be useful to inform a more well-developed theodicy. Though one can almost become lost in the myriad sections and subsections, the observant reader will follow Tallon's major thread of discussion: that the current literature on or peripheral to the topic at hand is helpful, but in the end incomplete (and, at times, misguided in its critiques). Tallon focuses on the contributions of John Hick, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Augustine of Hippo, Wendy Farley, and Marilyn Adams especially. His critiques are fair and constructive, seeing something useful in each that, when combined with the usefulness of others, may yield far greater insight into the task at hand. This is perhaps the main strength of the work. In addition, Tallon's contribution to the aesthetic category of horror in chapter 5 is notable, and his interactions here with Adams bolster his earlier critiques of Augustine's cosmic perspective on beauty and evil. Horror offers the Christian theodicist an opportunity to delve deeper into the theological quandaries of nihilism and brutality, especially.

Despite the small labour required, Tallon transforms mundane flipping back and forth between the main text and endnotes into a richly rewarding activity. In one instance, one of Tallon's endnotes (224n65), referring to a section on Augustine's aesthetic theodicy, could almost stand alone and be developed into a separate section of the book. Tallon often uses the space well to provide extended quotes from primary sources, which both increases the readability of the main text and provides the reader with useful—though supplemental—information.

Tallon is certainly to be commended for ploughing the ground to draw two seemingly incompatible fields together. There are critiques one might make. For instance, Tallon engages with evil primarily through the category of "privation of good" because of his reliance on Augustine, typically eschewing other patristic treatments of embodied evil (i.e., the satanic or demonic). One realizes, however, that this is, in the end, a necessary exclusion due to Tallon's main focus...