Theodicy on Trial
Theodicy on Trial
(This is the author’s accepted manuscript without copyediting, formatting, or final corrections. It will be published in its final form in an upcoming issue of Philosophia).
“Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.” (Job 13:15, ESV)
Introduction
Recent years have witnessed the growing popularity of the view known as anti-theodicy. Antitheodicists generally hold that, on various grounds and for various reasons, the theodical enterprise should be abandoned. In this paper, I want to consider a specific kind of antitheodical argument that I think poses a strong challenge to the theodical enterprise. Antitheodicists like Kenneth Surin, Terrence Tilley, D. Z. Philips, Nick Trakakis etc have posed versions of this type of argument: the moral consequentialist critique of theodicy. Simply put, this line of argumentation aims to demonstrate that we should abandon the theodical enterprise altogether by claiming that its practice directly and/or indirectly leads to harmful consequences to the individual sufferer and to society. Consequently, anti-theodicists argue that on moral grounds, theodicy ought not be practiced. In this paper, I argue that theodicists who defend traditional theodicies, what I will term ‘theodicies-of-embrace’, have been unable to provide a sufficiently persuasive response to the problem of ‘horrendous evils’, and therefore, seem to be vulnerable to the moral consequentialist criticisms. In order for the theodical enterprise to provide an adequate response, I will argue that the theodical enterprise needs to broaden its understanding of itself. More particularly, I will argue, this broader understanding must formulate more holistic kinds of theodicies, what I designate as ‘theodicies-of-embrace-protest’. ‘Theodicies-of-embraceprotest’ acknowledge that there is some value in traditional ‘theodicies-of-embrace’ and therefore, resists the call to abandon theodical discourse altogether while at the same time, 1