Theodicies can be distinguished as “hard-nosed” or “good-hearted.” Typical features of each are given. I reject the former; they set the bar too low for God. Considerable discussion is devoted to Eleonore Stump's recent Wandering in Darkness, which sets the standard for good-hearted theodicies. I then develop the notion of a “perfect creature”, a possible being indistinguishable from God except lacking aseity, and argue that God should have created only perfect creatures. Since He did not, He is not. Theodicies, therefore, (...) are in trouble if there is a best possible world and it is a perfect creature world. (shrink)

The question of why bad things happen (to good people) has puzzled individuals over generations and across different cultures. The most popular approach is to turn the issue into a question about God: Why does he allow bad things that lead to the suffering of often innocent bystanders? Some have drawn conclusions that there can be no God. These attempts that seek to find meaning in suffering are called theodicies. Thus, theodicies promise that the torment of the innocent is not (...) in vain. In this article, I argue that theodicy as a viewpoint, independent of its intention, does injustice to the experience of the sufferer. Furthermore, an Adornian approach to suffering avoids the instrumentalization of others’ suffering and that instead of relating to another person’s suffering through theodicy, Adorno’s notion of non-identity opens up an alternative, non-coercive avenue. (shrink)

Theodicy, the enterprise of searching for greater goods that might plausibly justify God’s permission of evil, is often criticized on the grounds that the project has systematically failed to unearth any such goods. But theodicists also face a deeper challenge, one that places under question the very attempt to look for any morally sufficient reasons God might have for creating a world littered with evil. This ‘anti-theodical’ view argues that theists (and non-theists) ought to reject, primarily for moral reasons, (...) the project of ‘justifying the ways of God to men’. Unfortunately, this view has not received the serious attention it deserves, particularly in analytic philosophy of religion. Taking my cues from such anti-theodicists as Kenneth Surin, D.Z. Phillips and Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, I defend several reasons for holding that the way of thinking about God and evil enshrined in theodical discourse can only add to the world’s evils, not remove or illuminate them. (shrink)

The Babylonian Theodicy. By Takayoshi Oshima. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts, vol. 9. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2013. Pp. lxiii + 63. $39. [Distributed by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind.].

Summary Mats Wahlberg argues that evolutionary theodicies fail to show how an evolutionary process was necessary in order to reach the goal God is said to have had when creating our world. The authors of this article argue that Wahlberg‘s critique fails if one takes into consideration the distinction between type- and token-values. The question that guides Wahlberg‘s discussion is whether or not unique type-values require an evolution in order to be instantiated or not. He does not, however, discuss whether (...) unique token-values require evolution. This article will address this question, and argue that the theodicies he claims to fail does not do so for the reasons put forward by Wahlberg if interpreted as focusing on token-unique values. The authors will also argue that theodicies other than those evaluated by Wahlberg succeed in identifying type-unique values that can only be brought about through evolution. (shrink)

This volume presents the theory of culture of the Russian‑born German Jewish social philosopher David Koigen (1879-1933). Heir to Hermann Cohen's neo‑Kantian interpretation of Judaism, he transforms the religion of reason into an ethical Intimitätsreligion. He draws upon a great variety of intellectual currents, among them, Max Scheler's philosophy of values, the historical sociology of Max Weber, the sociology of religion of Émile Durkheim, Ernst Troeltsch and Georg Simmel and American pragmatism. Influenced by his personal experience of marginality in German (...) academia yet the same time unconstrained by the dictates of the German Jewish discourse, Koigen shapes these theoretical strands into an original argument which unfolds along two trajectories: theodicy of culture and ethos. Distinguished from ethics, ethos identifies the non-formal factors that foster a group's sense of collective identity as it adapts to continuous change. From a Jewish perspective, ethos is grounded in the biblical covenant as the paradigm of a social contract and corporate liability. Although the normative content of the covenantal ethos is subject to gradual secularization, its metaphysical and existential assumptions, Koigen argues, continue to inform Jewish self-understanding. The concept of ethos identifies the dialectic of tradition as it shapes Jewish religious consciousness, and, in turn, is shaped by the evolving cultural and axiological sensibilities. In consonance, Jewish identity cannot be reduced to ethnicity or a purely secular culture. Urban develops these fragmentary and inchoate theories into a sociology of religious knowledge and suggests to read Koigen not just as a Jewish sociologist but as the first sociologist of Judaism who proposes to overcome the dogmatic anti-metaphysical stance of European sociology. (shrink)

SummaryHow can the immense amount of suffering and waste inherent in the evolutionary process be reconciled with the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent God? A widely embraced proposal in the area of “evolutionary theodicy” is the so-called “Only Way”-argument. This argument contends that certain valuable goods – in particular, creaturely independence and human freedom – can only come about through a genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled process of evolution. In a previous article, I have argued that the (...) “Only Way”-argument can be defeated by a “Twin Earth”-thought experiment: If God is omnipotent, he could have created – directly, without evolution – creatures that are molecule-for-molecule identical to those that he actually created through evolution. If the creatures that he actually created have freedom and independence, there is no valid reason to deny that the non-evolved “twin creatures” would also be free and independent. Recently, Eikrem and Søvik have suggested a way of blocking my Twin Earth-argument by appealing to the distinction between type-values and token-values. While ES admit that the Twin Earth-argument shows the non-necessity of evolution for the existence of certain type-goods, they argue that an evolutionary creation can be justified by appeal to valuable token-goods that could not have existed without evolution. In this article, I respond to ES’s token-goods argument by showing that it is incompatible with a basic presupposition of “Only Way” evolutionary theodicies, namely the claim that the evolutionary process is genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled. (shrink)

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION T JLJe1bn1z was above all things a metaphysician. That does not mean that his head was in the clouds, or that the particular sciences ...

The word “theodicy” comes from the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (diké). Although coined by Leibniz, the attempt it represents is far older. In the Jewish tradition, it stretches to the beginning—that is to the stories of Genesis with their attempts to explain how evil could exist in a world created by God. God, after each creative act, sees that his creations are “good.” Women, however, bear their children in pain (Gn 3:16) and the ground, sprouting “thorns (...) and thistles,” can at times appears “cursed” to the farmer (Gn 3:18). How do we explain this? How is it compatible with God’s justice? Is it, in fact, possible to “justify God’s ways to man”? Beginning with Genesis’s account of man’s disobedience, there is a whole tradition of efforts to answer this question. It includes Isaiah’s notion of the “suffering servant”—the person who suffers for the sins of others—and the Maccabean notion of the “martyr”—the innocent and just sufferer who serves as a witness for the truth. As the philosopher, Hans Jonas, observes, the “event of Auschwitz” marks an important challenge to this tradition. “Auschwitz” names not just the setting in which over a million Jews, Gypsies and Poles perished. It also signifies the dehumanization of its victims. In the “factory-like working of its machine” for extermination, even the gesture of martyrdom and witness was not left to the dying. In Jonas’s words, “Not fidelity or infidelity, belief or unbelief, not guilt or punishment, not trial, witness and messianic hope, nay, not even strength or weakness, heroism or cowardice, defiance or submission had a place there. .... Of all this, Auschwitz, which also devoured the infants and babes, knew.. (shrink)

Theodicy is often rejected because a suffering person is hardly interested in abstract arguments—even if these arguments were convincing, they might not change the suffering she is experiencing. I propose a twofold theodicy. First, Christians are invited to promote positive apologetics—they should show the internal consistency of divine revelation, which recommends that they should alleviate suffering and promote flourishing. Second, Christians should develop negative apologetics and show the untenability of objections to the Christian view of evil and suffering, (...) including the seemingly uncontroversial objection that a world without innocent suffering would be better in terms of justice than the one we live in. My argument is that in both positive and negative apologetics believers should be guided by devotion and commitment to God. The more they love and trust God, and consequently believe what God has revealed, the more they are expected to encourage both flourishing and rational confrontation. (shrink)

Recent theological treatments of political economy have tended to ignore the early-modern origins from which the capital market system arose. An effort is made here to trace a specific conceptual development from the theodicies of G. W. Leibniz and Bishop William King to the economic theory of David Hume and Adam Smith, a development that implies certain theological transmutations. Both the theodicist and economist claim, for different reasons, that nature itself is capable of redeeming evils. Two theoretical shifts contributed to (...) this development: rational optimism and conjectural historiography. Scrutinizing the mechanistic backdrop for this historical narrative discloses acute theological compromises. (shrink)

Theodicy wrestles with suffering and pain, while seeking to understand God's engagement with these realities. Cancer raises similar questions, while focusing on specific aspects of those questions. Cancer appears to challenge many aspects of Christian doctrine, in particular issues regarding the origin of sin, Christology, and ultimately ones doctrine of God. This article explores how my own personal diagnosis of colon cancer has led to an exploration and re-evaluation of these traditional doctrines and their relevance for my own faith (...) journey. The realities of cancer, and random cell mutation as an evolutionary driver, appear to call into question traditional understandings of the origin of suffering and sin, and, I would argue, the very role of Jesus. A process theology that redefines core features of the nature of God is proposed as one way of addressing these doctrines and their impact for faith. These features will note the limited nature of God with regard to power and knowledge as well as the nature of a God who truly risks. (shrink)

In this study we relate four different measures: the theodicy models proposed by van der Ven, the coping strategies proposed by Pargament, a measure of positive or negative self-image and the post critical belief scales we ourselves have developed. We analysed the data of 251 Dutch-speaking Belgians. In the analysis we focus on the relation of the different measures with the post critical belief scales. Different types of believers are using different theodicy models, somewhat different coping strategies and (...) we observe some differences in self-image, where believers have a more positive self-image than non-believers. We could suggest that there is a specific theodicy model used by symbolic believers and another theodicy model used by more literal believers. The former could be interpreted as more developed and perhaps more religiously mature. (shrink)

Our aim here is to show that an enigmatic text of Avicenna's Glosses, devoted to the problem of evil, takes on its full meaning in the light of the last chapter of the Šifā ' on De generatione et corruptione. We will see how Avicenna, deepening and developing a cosmological argument already present in the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias on the De generatione, ends up building most of his theodicy on the relative incommensurability of the different celestial periods. (...) All the problem of divine Justice is thus reinterpreted in terms of opposition between discrete and continuous. Finally we will show the importance that this development of Avicenna had in Western Christendom in the 14th century, and the complex relationship which Leibniz has with it in his recently edited reflections on the Great Year. (shrink)

From a theoretical standpoint, the problem of human suffering can be understood as one formulation of the classical problem of evil, which calls into question the compatibility of the existence of a perfect God with the extent to which human beings suffer. Philosophical responses to this problem have traditionally been posed in the form of theodicies, or justifications of the divine. In this article, I argue that the theodical approach in analytic philosophy of religion exhibits both morally and epistemically harmful (...) tendencies and that philosophers would do better to shift their perspective from the hypothetical “God’s-eye view” to the standpoint of those who actually suffer. By focusing less on defending the epistemic rationality of religious belief and more on the therapeutic effectiveness of particular imaginings of God with respect to suffering, we can recover, (re)construct, and/or (re)appropriate more virtuous approaches to the individual and collective struggle with the life of faith in the face of suffering. (shrink)

Theodicy and Toleration Seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair of topics to treat in a single paper. Toleration usually means putting up with beliefs or actions with which one disagrees, and it is practiced because the beliefs or actions in question are not disagreeable enough to justify interference. It is usually taken to be a topic for moral and political philosophy. Theodicy, on the other hand, is the attempt to solve the problem of evil; that (...) is, to explain the origin of suffering and sin in a way that does not make God a moral cause of those evils.1 While theodicy concerns the notions of good and evil, and could therefore be considered a moral topic, historical and contemporary discussions of it have .. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a discussion of chapter 3 of Adrian Moore’s The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, which is titled “Leibniz: Metaphysics in the Service of Theodicy.” Here Moore discusses the philosophy of Leibniz and comes to a damning conclusion. My main aim is to suggest that such a conclusion might be a little premature. I begin by outlining Moore’s discussion of Leibniz and then raise some problems for the objections that Moore presents. I follow this by raising (...) a Moore-inspired problem of my own and offer a possible response. The response is based on a little-known essay of Leibniz’s called “Leibniz’s Philosophical Dream” and leads me to consider Leibniz’s deepest motivations for engaging in philosophical reflection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 275-276 [Access article in PDF] Zbigniew Janowski. Cartesian Theodicy: Descartes' Quest for Certitude. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002. Pp. 181. Cloth, $30.00. Janowski begins this original and erudite work by saying that although "the Meditations have never [before] been interpreted as a theodicy... insofar as theodicy is concerned with examining the relationship between the existence of evil on the one (...) hand and God's omnipotence and benevolence on the other, Descartes's question 'How would the goodness of God not preclude the possibility that nature is deceptive?' is in perfect conformity with, and continues the long tradition of, Christian apologetics" (13). This is not to deny Descartes's primary role in replacing God's causal role in nature with mechanistic science, and his separating religious truth from that of reason. But Descartes also is profoundly concerned with problems of error, evil, God's role in our sins, and Absolute Truth. Janowski is concerned "to show how Descartes' philosophy is derived from the early-seventeenth-century debates over divine and human freedom" by concentrating on the "incongruity between the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent Creator and man's imperfect nature [and] the nature and scope of human freedom" (19). He presents "the problem of error... as the problem of evil; the problem of human will... as the problem of human freedom, and the quest for Certitude... as theodicy, that is, as the vindication of God's goodness and omnipotence" (19-20). His ground for this is his interpretation of Cartesianism as "a kind of epistemological Augustinianism" (20).The view of basic Christian theology is that God is omnipotent and benevolent, and that all his creations are good, so evil is merely the absence of good. According to Descartes, free will makes both error and evil possible. But Augustine says that after the Fall of Man, free will is corrupt and can incline only to evil. So the only good man can do is by way of God's grace, which man cannot resist, for man is not really free to choose between good and evil. But here, Descartes is in disagreement with Augustine. Again, theodicy concerns the problem of the apparent discrepancy between the power of the creator and the imperfections of creation. And the problem is that Descartes's God is an all-powerful being that is absolutely unlimited and creates everything including logical, moral, and legal principles. Descartes's God is not constrained by the principles of non-contradiction (as opposed to St. Thomas's God, who is so constrained). Descartes's argument is that only God is immutable, nothing created is immutable, so no principle created by God, not the Ten Commandments, not the principle of non-contradiction, is immutable.This doctrine of indifferently created eternal truths allies Descartes with the Molinists who argue that God is indifferent in the sense of all powerful, and that humans have a freedom of indifference in that even given grace, they can decide to do either good or evil. This is in opposition to Augustinians and Jansenists who believe that human will corrupted by the Fall of Man can choose only evil until God gives one grace, after which one can choose only good—which, in either case, rules out any notion of freedom of choice between good and evil by an indifferent free will. Descartes believes that we can choose evil even when God gives us grace to choose good. Descartes does follow Augustine in asserting that for God, knowing and willing are the same, in opposition to St. Thomas. But for humans, knowing and willing are separate, and so humans can both err and sin.Descartes's theodicy is that everything depends on God—physics, mathematics, morals, and law. Without God there would be only nihilism. A great difficulty with this doctrine of eternal truths, however, is that it "makes the nature of God completely incomprehensible to man" (102). This is the doctrine of the Hidden God. But in a backhanded way, it saves Descartes's position. He argues that... (shrink)

Edward Nieznański developed two logical systems to deal with the problem of evil and to refute religious determinism. However, when formalized in first-order modal logic, two axioms of each system contradict one another, revealing that there is an underlying minimal set of axioms enough to settle the questions. In this article, we develop this minimal system, called N3, which is based on Nieznański’s contribution. The purpose of N3 is to solve the logical problem of evil through the defeat of a (...) version of religious determinism. On the one hand, these questions are also addressed by Nieznański’s systems, but, on the other hand, they are obtained in N3 with fewer assumptions. Our approach can be considered a case of logic of religion, that is, of logic applied to religious discourse, as proposed by Józef Maria Bocheński; in this particular case, it is a discourse in theodicy, which is situated in the context of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The aim of the book is to refute the claim that God's omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence on the one hand and the existence of evil on the other are together inconsistent. This is shown first by unmasking many types of such claims as either logical fallacies or as presupposing false assumptions. Secondly the author formulates God's attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence and the existence of 10 types of evil in an axiomatic system. This contains the theorems about God's knowledge, (...) will, causation and benevolence without leading to any inconsistency. It proves the compatibility between God's attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence with the fact of existence of evil. The author offers a consistency proof for the whole axiomatic system with the help of a model in which all axioms and theorems are satisfied"-- Back cover. (shrink)

‘Simulation Hypotheses’ are imaginative scenarios that are typically employed in philosophy to speculate on how likely it is that we are currently living within a simulated universe as well as on our possibility for ever discerning whether we do in fact inhabit one. These philosophical questions in particular overshadowed other aspects and potential uses of simulation hypotheses, some of which are foregrounded in this article. More specifically, “A Theodicy for Artificial Universes” focuses on the moral implications of simulation hypotheses (...) with the objective of speculatively answering questions concerning computer simulations such as: If we are indeed living in a computer simulation, what might be its purpose? What aspirations and values could be inferentially attributed to its alleged creators? And would living in a simulated universe affect the value and meaning we attribute to our existence? (shrink)

The term theodicy was coined by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and is inherent in the question of how evil can exist if an intrinsically good God guides everything. The publication of this oeuvre initiated intense philosophical and theological discourse in the subsequent centuries, during which many issues that bare upon human well-being were articulated. Also, Leibniz’s rational approach to the relationship between God and evil raised a number of issues related to the topic of belief. This topic (...) has entangled discourses on theodicy with a long-lasting debate on beliefs, which goes back to Antiquity. Recently, a paradigm-shift shed new light on the understanding of belief. Science has begun to address the neurophysiological mechanisms of the processes that underpin belief formation, modulation, and change. The term credition was coined in order to capture and reflect this new and innovative understanding of the fluidity of beliefs and believing. This paper presents various features of a pattern of interrelationships between well-being, theodicy, and credition. (shrink)

The existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God, most theists would claim, because evil either results from the activities of free agents, or it contributes in some way toward their moral development. According to the ‘free-will defence’, evil and suffering are necessary consequences of free-will. Proponents of the ‘soul-making argument’—a theodicy with a different emphasis—argue that a universe which is imperfect will nurture a whole range of virtues in a way impossible either in a perfect world, (...) or in a totally evil one. The pain of animals is widely thought to constitute a major difficulty for both of these accounts, for if we ask whether the only evils present in the world result directly from the free actions of created agents, or contribute in some way to ‘soul-making’ of such agents, we are bound to admit that, on the face of it, much animal pain does not. (shrink)

The literature on the problem of evil does not draw enough upon the relevant debates in (meta)ethics, and ethical theorists (broadly understood) can engage with the problem of evil as a way of inquiry in their field. I review how the problem of evil is essentially formed based on (evaluative and deontic) ethical judgments, and how responses to it, either theistic or atheistic, are mainly based on the relevant ethical judgments. Meanwhile, though contemporary debates in metaphysics and epistemology have influenced (...) the literature on the problem of evil, the same does not hold true for ethics. This suggests that there are ways to engage with the problem of evil as doing axiology or ethical theory more generally, which may be fruitful regardless of their being theodicy. I end by briefly discussing an example focused on the idea of moral progress. (shrink)

This article is a critical and appreciative interaction with Christopher Southgate's theodicy and theology of glory. I critique in particular his rejection of all dualist moves in theodicy. I question why Southgate can ascribe evil to some human actions, many of which are automatic and unconscious, but not to any other level or form of consciousness. I argue that he may rely too heavily on rational scientific categories, which are not sufficient in themselves to carry the weight of (...) key theological concepts. His use of poetry is powerful and suggestive, but in the end, he may not give it enough epistemic weight. (shrink)

The problem of eternal separation is the problem of explaining how someone could be happy in heaven while knowing that his beloved is in hell. Some argue that this problem is insoluble, while others try to solve it through the lover, the beloved, or the love between them. I argue that the problem of eternal separation is really three problems, namely, of suffering, separation, and regret. I show that no existing reply solves these problems simultaneously. I then present a new (...) approach through theodicy. I argue that, if we reflect on what it would take to defeat the suffering from losing one’s beloved to hell, a regress emerges, and an adequate solution to the problem of eternal separation is a solution to this regress. I articulate five replies to the regress and evaluate their prospects. The upshot is a roadmap to defending the traditional Christian view of heaven and hell. (shrink)

_Plato’s Theodicy_ argues successfully that the earliest major contribution to the attempt to justify the ways of an omnibenevolent deity against the ubiquity of evil is made in Plato’s dialogues. It is the first published book-length treatment of this subject.

This study is the first work ever to interpret the Meditations as theodicy. I show that Descartes' attempt to define the role of God for man's cognitive fallibility in so far as God is the creator of man's nature, is a reiteration of an old Epicurean argument pointing out the incongruity between the existence of God and evil. The question of the nature and origin of error which Descartes addresses in the First Meditation is reformulated in the Fourth Meditation (...) into broader considerations about the nature and scope of human freedom. ;The point of gravity of my thesis is Descartes' conceptions of human freedom and divine liberty. Since the conception of human freedom is the reversal of the doctrine of divine liberty, I analyze the two conceptions as two sides of the same problem--the problem of man's relation to God, or the problem of the relation of finitude to Infinity. I show that Descartes' quest for Certitude--which runs parallel to his attempt to overcome the problem of an evil deity--can be reformulated into the problem of creation. I present the problem of error as the problem of evil, and the problem of human will I present as the problem of human freedom, and the search for Certitude I interpret as the vindication of God's goodness and omnipotence, that is, theodicy. ;There are several points which are essential for Cartesian metaphysics, and which, as I demonstrate, Descartes borrowed from St. Augustine: the doctrine of the eternal truths , the conception of human freedom, the theory of error and the explanation of the will's propensity towards error , and the account of human nature. It is my contention that as much as Descartes insisted on the timelessness of his philosophy, what he had to say on the relationship between God and man is a reflection of the 17th c. theological debates which were fought by the Augustinians and the Molinists and were expressed by Descartes in the language and categories created by St. Augustine. (shrink)

In this article, I outline the major themes of ‘anti-theodicy’. Anti-theodicy is characterised as a reaction, as rejection, against traditional solutions to the problem of evil and against the traditional formulations of the problem of evil to which those solutions respond. I detail numerous ‘moral’ anti-theodical objections to theodicy, illustrating the central claim of anti-theodicy: Theodicy is morally objectionable. I also detail some ‘non-moral’ anti-theodical objections, illustrating the second major claim of anti-theodicy: Traditional formulations (...) of the problem of evil are conceptually misguided. My focus remains on the analytic philosophical tradition throughout, but I briefly allude to the rich theological tradition of anti-theodicy. Although we should recognise the significant degree of diversity amongst anti-theodical arguments and the philosophical views of their proponents, this article should serve to illustrate the general theme: ‘Theodicies mediate a praxis that sanctions evil.’. (shrink)

Resumen En este estudio se pretende hacer una lectura contemporánea de tres categorías centrales en el pensamiento del teólogo alemán Jürgen Moltmann, a saber: la teodicea, el pathos de Dios y el Crucificado. Inicialmente, se presentan los principales autores relacionados con la teología de la cruz para así enmarcar históricamente la pregunta por Dios ante el sufrimiento humano y la consecuente interpretación de la cruz de Cristo como escenario trinitario en el que se manifiesta la pasión de Dios, ambos, pregunta (...) e interpretación, cardinales para cuestionar la teología con bases idealistas o metafísicas. Finalmente, se hace énfasis en la vigencia de estos aportes por su criticidad y pertinencia para el quehacer teológico en general.The present study aims to make a contemporary reading of three central categories in the thought of the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, namely: The Theodicy, God´s pathos and the crucified. The article initially presents a tour of the main characters and postures of the theology of the Cross to frame historicallly question toward God in front of suffering as a starting point for theological work; The Cross of Christ as a stage in which the God´s Passion is manifested and theology is questioned with idealistic or metaphysical bases and the cross as a trinitarian scenario. This article, finally, involves a contemporary theological reading of these contributions evidencing its criticality and relevance for general theological work. (shrink)

This chapter narrates in broad strokes the history of theodicy. Starting with an indication how Biblical texts have functioned in theodical thinking, it discusses the key ideas of Irenaeus (soul‐making), St. Augustine (free will), Leibniz (best of all possible worlds), Joseph Butler (imperfect comprehension of God's governance), Hegel (cunning of Reason), C.S. Lewis (God's megaphone), Ewing (principle of organic unities), Plantinga (felix culpa), and Swinburne (greater goods).

I develop a new theodicy in defense of Anselmian theism, one that has several advantages over traditional and recent replies to the Problem of Evil. To make my case, I first explain the value of a positive trajectory: a forward-in-time decrease in ‘first-order-gratuitous’ evil: evil that is not necessary for any equal-or-greater first-order good, but may be necessary for a higher-order good, such as the good of strongly positive axiological trajectory. Positive trajectory arguably contributes goodness to a world in (...) proportion to the magnitude of this trajectory, and worlds that contain first-order-gratuitous evil thereby have the potential to contain a strongly positive trajectory. This would arguably explain why God would permit first-order-gratuitous evils: he may be indifferent between a world with no first-order-gratuitous evil and a world with some first-order-gratuitous evil but a strongly positive trajectory. Next, I answer the most salient objections to this theodicy. Finally, I explain how this theodicy is superior to some common theodicies. (shrink)

This book is the result of a conference that addressed two pressing issues for christianity in the modern world.

This paper summarizes a version of the argument from evil for atheism and then assesses several theodicies, including those that appeal to punishment, evil as a necessary counterpart for good, free will, natural evil as natural consequence, natural law, higher-order goods, and the conjunctive "Big Reason" including all the above and more beside.

Theodicy begins with the recognition that the world is not obviously under the care of a loving God with limitless power and wisdom. If it were, why would the world be burdened with its considerable amount and variety of evil? Theodicists are those who attempt to answer this question by suggesting a possible rationale for the appearance of evil in a theocentric universe. In the past theodicists have taken up the cause of theodicy in the service of piety, (...) so that God might be defended against libel from humans, particularly the accusation that God's reign lacks justice. Contemporary practitioners, who live in a world where the existence of God can no longer be presumed, tend to favour theodicy as an exercise in securing the rationality of religious belief. Their hope is that one crucial theoretical obstacle to responsible belief in God will have been eliminated, once the idea of God has been reconciled with the reality of evil. What has commonly united theodicists, at least since the Enlightenment, is that they must answer to a non–believing antagonist. Until relatively recently, theodicy has been a debate between apologists for theistic faith and their cultured detractors. (shrink)

In responding to Peter Forrest’s defence of ‘tough-minded theodicy’, I point to some problematic features of theodicies of this sort, in particular their commitment to an anthropomorphic conception of God which tends to assimilate the Creator to the creaturely and so diminishes the otherness and mystery of God. This remains the case, I argue, even granted Forrest’s view that God may have a very different kind of morality from the one we mortals are subject to.

Theodicy needs to show, for all actual evils e, that 1) in allowing e, a God would bring about a necessary condition of a good g not achievable in any other morally permissible way, 2) if e occurs, g occurs, 3) it is morally permissible for God to allow e, and 4) g is at least as good as e is bad. This article contributes to a full-scale theodicy by showing that A being of use (e.g., by suffering) (...) to B is a great good for A, and that in consequence, if 1) and 2) are satisfied, 3) and 4) are also likely to be satisfied. (shrink)

Despite the harsh scientific basis of Social Darwinism, its followers strove to unify nature with humane feelings—for world views necessarily attempt such reconciliations. To answer the difficult “problem of evil” posed by natural selection and survival of the fittest, Social Darwinists such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Herbert Spencer resorted to three kinds of theodicy: sentimental denial of the problem, belief in progress, and belief in perfection. Spencer's writings particulary display at different times both a rigid individualism (...) and a softer organicism. Eventually, however, T. H. Huxley would abandon the attempt, acknowledging in effect that no complete world view was possible. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to reconstruct Berkeley’s views on the nature of God and his Providence, as well as the way he refers to the problem of evil and justice in the world. My analysis is based on one of the early works by Berkeley, i.e. Principles of Human Knowledge. Its aim is to present Berkeley’s understanding of theodicy as different from the one suggested by Leibniz in Theodicy.

This paper is a discussion of Eleonore Stump’s “The Problem of Evil.” Stump, I argue, has attempted a theodicy with several desirable features; among them, an effort to provide a positive account of the compatibility of natural evils with God’s goodness that makes use of specifically Christian doctrines. However, the doctrines Stump makes use of---and, in particular, her conception of hell and her interpretation of original sin---raise, I suggest, more problems than they solve.

Although Political Theology examined mainly the political dimension of the relationship between God-Father and God-Son, it is paramount to consider the political performance of the Holy Spirit in the Economy of Redemption. The Holy Spirit has been characterized as the binding cause and the principle of relationality both referring to God’s inner life and to God’s relationship with His creatures. As the personalization of relationality, the Holy Spirit performs a unique task: to bring together what is apart by means of (...) organisation. This power of the Spirit to turn a plurality into a unity is manifested in the Latin translation of oikonomía as disposition, that is, giving a special order to the multiple elements within a certain totality. Within this activity of the Spirit, Theodicy can be regarded as the way to depict God’s arrangement of the world and of history, bringing everything together towards the eschatological Kingdom of God. The paper aims at showing this fundamental activity of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, and intends to pose the question on how to think on a theology beyond theodicy, that is, how to think on a Trinitarian God beyond the categories of sovereignty and totalization. (shrink)

Two general sorts of responses to the suffering caused by the 9/11 attacks are distinguishable in the statements of public officials, journalists, and citizens: one manifests a tragic sensibility, another takes the form of theodicy. Each response entails a distinctive set of expectations about the nature of political agency and solidarity in a democracy. With its claim of access to a transcendental form of truth, theodicy promises a robust sense of political solidarity and agency based on a shared (...) religious belief. Tragic modes of appeal muster their consolatory effects by appealing to intuitions or taste rather than religious belief and therefore potentially remain open to more diverse public audiences. (shrink)

I interpret Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art” in terms of his contemporaneous lectures on Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom. I uncover several connections and similarities between the two works, which make possible a new reading of the artwork essay: namely, as an “ontodicy.” This term of Jean-Luc Nancy’s denotes the readiness with which Heidegger’s thinking on Being may be used to justify evil. I argue that Nancy’s term may be applied legitimately to the artwork (...) essay also, i.e., that it can be read as a silent justification of evil. (shrink)

This chapter describes the three main theories of divine providence (what the author calls the Molinist, the Thomist, and the Open Theist views) and considers the implications that endorsing one or another theory might have for what kind of theodicy (and what kind of defense) one can offer in response to arguments from evil. The chapter also briefly considers the author's reasons for thinking that the Molinist position leaves one the best equipped to deal with such arguments.