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Why almost all moral critique of theodicies is misplaced

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2008

ATLE O. SØVIK
ATLE O. SØVIK
Affiliation:
MF Norwegian School of Theology, PO Box 5144 Majorstuen, 0302 Oslo, Norway
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Abstract

Much moral critique of theodicies is misplaced. Firstly, much of the critique begs the question because it presupposes something else to be true than what the theodicy claims; had the theodicy been true, it would not be immoral. Secondly, much of the moral critique shows situations where theodicies are inappropriate, and argues that they should never be communicated because of these situations. But if a theory is true, there will be some situations where it is appropriate to communicate it, and others where it is not. This is no basis for a moral dismissal of the theory.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 479 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1.  Michael Stoeber Reclaiming Theodicy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), x.

2.  Examples, which can reasonably be interpreted as this kind of moral critique, can be found in John Swinton Raging with Compassion (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007), 17–28; Jan-Olav Henriksen ‘Ondskap, teologi og religion’, Arr, 18 (2006), 81–91, 82; Grace Jantzen Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), 259, quoted in Stoeber Reclaiming Theodicy, 63; D. Z. Phillips The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (London: SCM Press, 2004), 59–60; Sarah Pinnock Beyond Theodicy (New York NY: State University of New York Press, 2002), 135–138; John E. Thiel God, Evil and Innocent Suffering (New York NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002), 45–46 and 50–51; John K. Roth, in Stephen T. Davis (ed.) Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy: A New Edition (Louisville KY: W. J. Knox Press, 2001), 17; Lars Fr. H. Svendsen Ondskapens filosofi (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2001), 212; John Hick ‘Providence and the problem of evil’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 47 (2000), 57–61, 61; Michael P. Levine ‘Swinburne's heaven: one hell of a place’, Religious Studies, 29 (1993), 519–531, 531; Regina Ammicht-Quinn Von Lissabon bis Auschwitz. Zum Paradigmawechsel in der Theodizeefrage (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1992), 254 and 257; Terence Tilley The Evils of Theodicy (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991), 219; David R. Griffin Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), 5 and 19; and Kenneth Surin Theology and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 146–149. See also further examples in the notes below.

3.  See for example Surin Theology and the Problem of Evil, 83–86; Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, 236–238; or Levine ‘Swinburne's heaven’, 531.

4.  All or parts of this critique can be found for example in Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, 235–251; Pinnock Beyond Theodicy, 138; Thiel God, Evil and Innocent Suffering, 46; William H. Willimon Sighing for Eden: Sin, Evil, and the Christian Life (Nashville TN: Abingdon Press, 1985), 73; and Wendy Farley Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville KY: W. J. Knox Press, 1990), 69; the last two are both quoted in Dan Stiver ‘The problem of theodicy’, Review and Expositor, 93 (1996), 507–517, 509.

5.  Surin Theology and the Problem of Evil, 146–149; Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, 219; and Pinnock Beyond Theodicy, 135–138.

6.  For example Peter van Inwagen, in W. J. Wainwright (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: University Press, 2005), 189–191.

7.  Stiver ‘The problem of theodicy’, 512; Stoeber Reclaiming Theodicy, 65.

8.  This is my impression from participating at conferences in Europe and the USA. See also Stoeber Reclaiming Theodicy, 65; and Ammicht-Quinn Von Lissabon bis Auschwitz, 14.

9.  I avoid the big debate about truth here, as I believe my point will be the same if you substitute ‘true’ with ‘more or less likely to be true’. I presuppose that a theodicy can be discussed as more or less likely to be true.

10.  Thiel God, Evil and Innocent Suffering, 46. See also 53.

11.  Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, 3 (emphasis in text).

12.  See Richard Swinburne Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

13.  Ibid., 151–152.

14.  Surin Theology and the Problem of Evil, 146–149; Pinnock Beyond Theodicy, 135–138. This view is shared also by Michael Scott ‘The morality of theodicies’, Religious Studies, 32 (1996), 1–13, 4.

15.  For example Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, part II; or Swinton Raging with Compassion, 17–28.

16.  Irving Greenberg ‘Cloud of smoke, pillar of fire: Judaism, Christianity and modernity after the Holocaust’, in Eva Fleischner (ed.) Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? (New York NY, KTAV, 1977), 23. This principle is quoted and accepted in Surin Theology and the Problem of Evil, 146–149; Pinnock Beyond Theodicy, 135–138; and also by Roth, in Davis Encountering Evil, 33.

17.  Tilley The Evils of Theodicy, 219.

18.  Thanks are due to T. Fagermoen, A. Eikrem, P. Gravem, J.-O. Henriksen, J. Kaufman, the Editor, and an anonymous referee for this journal for helpful comments on earlier drafts.