MAKING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL LESS PROBLEMATIC: THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE WORK OF ANNIE DILLARD COLE WILLIAM HARTIN Wycliffe College, University of Toronto I. While much has been written on Annie Dillard’s literary contributions, comparatively little has been said about her theological views, especially with reference to her more recent work, For the Time Being. This may in part be due to her style, which does not provide the kind of linear argument that has come to be expected in academic theology. Even so, Dillard does engage in theological conver- sation, and shows that she is familiar with the Church Fathers, Medieval Mystics and Hasidic Judaism. I want to argue that there is a development in Dillard’s theology as one moves from her early work to her more recent, especially in her theodical trilogy. 1 I will trace Dillard’s move from a natural religion bounded by Scriptural poles to an embrace of scepticism in her more recent work. I suggest that the movement is one directed from a premodern-type understanding of evil, where it is borne, even with difficulty, to a modern understanding of evil. 2 In the latter case, Dillard sac- rifices the biblical notion of God’s omnipotence in order to achieve a level of rational certainty that was not present in her earlier work. This is, at its most fundamental, Dillard’s wrestling with divine providence, as she struggles to comprehend God’s governance of a chaotic world. Dillard is all nerve, all sight. And it is her feeling and her seeing the world so keenly, espe- cially evil and suffering, that perplexes her. She takes up questions of theodicy in three works. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a vast and beautiful exploration of the natural world. The book is filled with sightings of nature and the reflections arising from these by Dillard. Visceral imagery is used to paint the world as a spectacularly wonderful place, a place that is studded by both a terrible beauty and staggering evil. The book leaves the reader reeling as if drunk, struck by both the intricacy of the world and the shock of pain where ‘we wake, if ever we wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence...’. 3 In the footsteps of Thoreau, Dillard combines empirical gleanings with metaphysical musings. 4 In Holy the Firm Dillard takes a turn toward the more explicitly theological. She confronts the problem of human suffering in a dense nonfiction narrative touching on the life of the artist, and ultimately questions the solidity of creation and the presence of God after she is made aware of a plane crash in which a neighbourhood girl has her face ‘burned off.’ 5 The last text of Dillard to be examined is For the Time Being, a strange book that continually slides between several different vignettes: the formation of sand, the life of Teilhard de Chardin, histories of clouds, a trip Dillard took to China, and conversations within Hasidic Judaism. Dillard meanders through these discreet narratives until her project unfolds, connecting the dots, V C 2017 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. HeyJ •• (2017), pp. ••–••