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More on moral critique of theodicies: reply to Robert Simpson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2010

ATLE OTTESEN SØVIK
ATLE OTTESEN SØVIK*
Affiliation:
MF Norwegian School of Theology, PO Box 5144Majorstuen, 0302 Oslo, Norway
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The article discusses moral critique of theodicies, and suggests the need for several distinctions in order to avoid misunderstanding. It distinguishes between moral critique of concrete theodicies and theodicies in general, and between moral critique of the content of theodicies and the consequences of theodicies. But there are also different kinds of moral critique of the content and the consequences. After presenting these distinctions, the article responds to Robert Simpson's ‘Some moral critique of theodicies is misplaced, but not all’.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 383 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

Notes

1. See Søvik, Atle O. ‘Why almost all moral critique of theodicies is misplaced’, Religious Studies, 44 (2008), 479–486CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Simpson, Robert ‘Some moral critique of theodicy is misplaced, but not all’, Religious Studies, 45 (2009), 339–346CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All in-text references are to the article by Simpson.

2. To criticize a theodicy morally for having the consequence that it silences or pacifies people is an example of moral critique of the consequences of a theodicy. Above, I made a distinction between two kinds of moral critique of consequences of theodicies. The first was moral critique of the consequences of someone believing a theodicy, and the other was moral critique of the consequences of a theodicy being communicated in some context. The critique of silencing/pacifying could be interpreted as either kind; someone might be pacified as a consequence of believing a theodicy, or someone could be criticized for trying to silence someone by offering a theodicy in a certain context. I guess the critique of silencing/pacifying could also be made into a critique of the content of certain kinds of theodicies. Then it would have to be shown that a concrete theodicy in its content treats a topic in a certain way and addresses certain people in a way that constitutes an immoral attempt at silencing or pacifying someone.

3. Claudia Welz Love's Transcendence and the Problem of Theodicy, Religion in Philosophy and Theology, 30 (Tübingen: Mohr, 2008), v (emphasis added). The claim is repeated on page 5. She defines ‘the problem of theodicy’ as ‘the question of how the theistic belief in an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good God is compatible with the experience that there is evil in the world’; ibid., 1.

4. I define the question of whether belief in God is inconsistent as a theoretical problem, since it is a question of truth, and theories aim for truth.

5. Steven Pinker How the Mind Works (New York NY: Norton, 1997), 455–460.

6. Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World's Religions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 275–276.

7. Thanks to my colleagues Asle Eikrem and Jan-Olav Henriksen for an interesting discussion of some of the topics in this article.