The Problem of Evil Reconsidered: An Original African Philosophical Theodicy Grounded in Nigerian Religious Traditions

This dissertation reconstructs the problem of evil and develops an original African philosophical theodicy grounded in Nigerian religious traditions, engaging Islamic, Christian, and indigenous traditional theological philosophies from all six geopolitical zones to produce a philosophically rigorous response to the problem of evil that does not rely on Western metaphysical assumptions. The problem of evil has been the subject of extensive Western philosophical theodicy from Augustine to Plantinga, but African religious philosophical traditions have been marginalised in this literature despite containing sophisticated responses to the problem, constituting the major theoretical gap this dissertation addresses. A three-phase methodology is employed, combining systematic philosophical analysis of the problem of evil from Mackie, Plantinga, and Swinburne; reconstruction of theodical resources from Yoruba Orisa theology, Igbo chi cosmology, Islamic kalam theodicy, and Middle Belt indigenous cosmologies through 90 interviews with religious scholars, traditional priests, and philosophy of religion academics; and constructive philosophical synthesis developing the original African Relational Theodicy. The dissertation proposes the African Relational Theodicy as an original contribution, arguing that evil is philosophically addressed in African traditions not primarily through abstract logical defence of divine omnipotence but through the framework of relational restoration, in which divine response to evil is measured by the quality of communal healing it enables rather than by logical consistency proofs. Original contributions include the theodicy framework, a critique of Western theodicy from African philosophical standpoints, and an interfaith philosophical dialogue methodology. Keywords: problem of evil, African theodicy, Nigerian religious philosophy, relational ontology, philosophy of religion.