Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T00:56:10.774Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A critique of Samuel Shearn's moral critique of theodicies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2014

ATLE OTTESEN SØVIK  and
ASLE EIKREM
ATLE OTTESEN SØVIK
Affiliation:
Department of Systematic Theology, MF – Norwegian School of Theology, P.O. Box 5144 Majorstuen, 0302 Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
ASLE EIKREM
Affiliation:
Department of Systematic Theology, MF – Norwegian School of Theology, P.O. Box 5144 Majorstuen, 0302 Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In ‘Moral critique and defence of theodicy’ (2013) Samuel Shearn argues that ambitious theodicies trivialize horrendous suffering in an unacceptable way by reinterpreting evils in a way sufferers do not accept. Against Shearn, the authors of this article will argue that sufferer acceptance should not be used as a criterion for the moral acceptability of what theodicies say about horrendous evils. Also, since theodicy is done in the public square, Shearn does not find it relevant to distinguish between contexts in which it is morally improper to communicate theodicies and those in which it is not. We disagree, and present some arguments as to why making such distinctions is morally relevant. Furthermore Shearn argues that theodicy is self-defeating if it aims to comfort sufferers of horrendous evils. We will critically re-examine the examples used to support his conclusion, and suggest that theodicies do have a comforting function. Finally, Shearn describes the difference between theodicy and anti-theodicy as an aesthetic impasse, rather than a moral issue. Against this, we find good reasons to affirm its predominant moral character.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 261 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benjamin, W. (2008) The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, Jephcott, E. F. N. (tr.) (New York: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Dalferth, I. U. (2003) Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen: Hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).Google Scholar
Hygen, J. (1973) Guds allmakt og det ondes problem (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget).Google Scholar
Griffin, D. (1991) Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Puntel, L. B. (2008) Structure and Being: A Theoretical Framework for a Systematic Philosophy (University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press).Google Scholar
Shearn, S. (2013) ‘Moral critique and defence of theodicy’, Religious Studies, 49, 1–20.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1998) Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Søvik, A. O. (2008) ‘Why almost all moral critique of theodicies is misplaced’, Religious Studies, 44, 479–484.Google Scholar
Søvik, A. O. (2011) The Problem of Evil and the Power of God (Leiden: Brill).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, K. (1996) Religion and Creation (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Ward, K. (2007) Divine Action: Examining God's Role in an Open and Emergent Universe (Philadelphia PA: Templeton Foundation Press).Google Scholar
Ward, K. (2008) Why There Almost Certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Oxford: Lion).Google Scholar