Knowing where we are: on the intelligibility of the world, living well and meaningless suffering

Christian theism usually entails commitment to the general idea that since the world has its origins in divine creative agency, the world should exhibit some meaningful structure or design. In this paper, I specify this general idea in terms of "the intelligibility thesis", viz. the notion that the world exhibits intentional order that is epistemically available to us. The intelligibility thesis is challenged by evils, generating a distinct variation of the problem of evil. In light of this, we can read Christian theodicies also as attempts to defend some version of the intelligibility thesis in a world that contains evils. However, as Sami Pihlstr & ouml;m and other critics of theodicies have argued, theodical speculation is predicated upon and can further entrench unsalutary practical and epistemic attitudes that makes us ill-disposed to respond to the world in a way that its character requires. In this paper, I defend a version of the intelligibility thesis while also taking seriously anti-theodical worries. In my non-theodical defense of the intelligibility thesis, I use resources from two distinct sub-fields of philosophy that are not usually brought together: philosophy of place and aesthetics.