Editing Theodicy (section)

==Alternatives==

===Jewish anti-theodicy===
{{Main|Holocaust theology}}
In 1998, Jewish theologian [[Zachary Braiterman]] coined the term anti-theodicy in his book ''(God) After Auschwitz'' to describe Jews, both in a biblical and post-Holocaust context, whose response to the problem of evil is protest and refusal to investigate the relationship between God and suffering. An anti-theodicy acts in opposition to a theodicy and places full blame for all experience of evil onto God, but must rise from an individual's belief in and love of God. Anti-theodicy has been likened to [[Job (religious figure)|Job's]] protests in the [[Book of Job]].<ref>Marty & Taliaferro 2010, p. 17</ref> Braiterman wrote that an anti-theodicy rejects the idea that there is a meaningful relationship between God and evil or that God could be justified for the experience of evil.<ref>Gibbs & Wolfson 2002, p. 38</ref>

[[File:Emmanuel Levinas.jpg|thumb|Levinas]] The [[Holocaust]] prompted a reconsideration of theodicy in some [[Jewish theology|Jewish]] circles.<ref>Pinnock 2002, p. 8</ref> French Jewish philosopher [[Emmanuel Levinas]], who had himself been a [[prisoner of war]] in Nazi Germany, declared theodicy to be "blasphemous", arguing that it is the "source of all immorality", and demanded that the project of theodicy be ended. Levinas asked whether the idea of [[moral absolutism|absolutism]] survived after the Holocaust; he proposed it did. He argued that humans are not called to justify God in the face of evil, but to attempt to live godly lives; rather than considering whether God was present during the Holocaust, the duty of humans is to build a world where goodness will prevail.<ref>Patterson & Roth 2005, pp. 189–90</ref>

Professor of theology David R. Blumenthal, in his book ''Facing the Abusing God'', supports the "theology of protest", which he saw as presented in the 1979 play, ''[[The Trial of God]]''. He supports the view that survivors of the Holocaust cannot forgive God and so must protest about it. Blumenthal believes that a similar theology is presented in the Book of Job, in which Job does not question God's existence or power, but his morality and justice.<ref>Blumenthal 1993, pp. 250–51</ref> Other prominent voices in the Jewish tradition include the Nobel prize winning author Elie Wiesel and Richard L. Rubinstein in his book ''The Cunning of History''.<ref>Rubinstein, Richard L. ''The Cunning of History''.</ref>

[[File:Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson2 crop.jpg|thumb|Menachem Mendel Schneerson]] [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]], the seventh Rebbe of [[Chabad|Chabad Lubavitch]], sought to elucidate how faith (or trust, {{Transliteration|he|emunah}}) in God defines the full, transcendental preconditions of anti-theodicy. Endorsing the attitude of "holy protest" found in the stories of Job and Jeremiah, but also in those of Abraham ([[Vayeira|Genesis 18]]) and Moses ([[Ki Tissa|Exodus 33]]), Rabbi Schneerson argued that a phenomenology of protest, when carried through to its logical limits, reveals a profound conviction in cosmic justice such as is first found in Abraham's question: "Will the Judge of the whole earth not do justice?" (Genesis 18:25).<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|18:25|JPS}}</ref> Recalling Kant's 1791 essay on the failure of all theoretical attempts in theodicy,<ref>''Über das Misslingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodizee'' http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/germanphilosophy/files/2013/02/Kant-On-the-Miscarriage-of-all-Philosophical-Trials-at-Theodicy.pdf</ref> a viable practical theodicy is identified with [[Chabad messianism|messianism]]. This faithful anti-theodicy is worked out in a long letter of 26 April 1965 to [[Elie Wiesel]].<ref>http://www.chighel.com/opening-statement-7a/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150801100919/http://www.chighel.com/opening-statement-7a/ |date=2015-08-01 }} The original letter in Yiddish is found in R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, ''Likutei Siḥot'', Vol. 33 (New York: Kehot, 1962–2001), pp. 255–60.</ref>

Hannah Arendt offers notable resistance to this trend of anti-theodicy in her works ''[[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]'' and—more sensationally—in her reporting of the [[Eichmann trial]] collected in ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem]]''. Without resorting to transcendental authority, purely by observation, Arendt arrives at a conclusion similar to Augustine's theodicy: She ascribes [[Eichmann trial|Adolf Eichmann's]] evil actions to a lack of empathic imagination and to the thoughtlessness of his conformity to norms of careerism within the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]]. She finds a thoughtlessness or total absence of consideration for other perspectives at the center of his behavior. The quality of this lack she describes as "[[Eichmann in Jerusalem#Banality of evil|the banality of evil]]."  Arendt did not intend to propose "the banality of evil" as a technical term or fixed nomination by which to describe the void of empathic imagination she observed—it just happened to be a phrase within her description that was appropriated by the reviewing press and by other scholarly responsa. Banality is only a facet or particular quality of her vantage point looking into this emptiness.

===Christian alternatives to theodicy===
A number of Christian writers oppose theodicies. Todd Billings deems constructing theodicies to be a "destructive practice".<ref>Todd Billings, "Theodicy as a 'Lived Question': Moving Beyond a Theoretical Approach to Theodicy", http://www.luthersem.edu/ctrf/JCTR/Vol05/billings.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110213041622/http://www2.luthersem.edu/ctrf/JCTR/Vol05/billings.htm |date=2011-02-13 }} Accessed September 25, 2013. About the author: http://www.westernsem.edu/about/faculty-staff/.</ref> In the same vein, [[Nick Trakakis]] observes that "theodical discourse can only add to the world's evils, not remove or illuminate them."<ref>Nick Trakakis, "Theodicy: The Solution to the Problem of Evil, or Part of the Problem?", [https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11841-008-0063-6 Springerlink.com], accessed December 19, 2009.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Franklin |first1=James |date=2020 |title=Antitheodicy and the grading of theodicies by moral offensiveness |url=https://rdcu.be/b6cLu |journal=Sophia |volume=59 |issue= 3|pages=563–576 |doi=10.1007/s11841-020-00765-w |s2cid=225461563 |access-date=29 June 2021|hdl=1959.4/unsworks_71905 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> As an alternative to theodicy, some theologians have advocated "reflection on tragedy" as a more befitting reply to evil.<ref>Donald W. Musser and [[Joseph L. Price]], eds., ''A New Handbook of Christian Theology'' (Abingdon Press, 1992), s.v. "Tragedy."</ref> For example, Wendy Farley believes that "a desire for justice" and "anger and pity at suffering" should replace "theodicy's cool justifications of evil".<ref>Wendy Farley, ''Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: a Contemporary Theodicy'' (Westminster John Knox Press, 1990) 12, 23.</ref> Sarah K. Pinnock opposes abstract theodicies that would legitimize evil and suffering. However, she endorses theodicy discussions in which people ponder God, evil, and suffering from a practical faith perspective.<ref>Sarah Katherine Pinnock, ''Beyond Theodicy'' (SUNY Press, 2002), 135, 141.</ref>

[[File:David Bentley Hart 3 Nov 2022 Interview cropped.png|thumb|David Bentley Hart]] In an essay for [[The Hedgehog Review]], Eugene McCarraher called [[David Bentley Hart]]'s 2005 book ''[[The Doors of the Sea]]'' "a ferocious attack on theodicy in the wake of the previous year's tsunami" (referring to the [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami|2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean]]).<ref>{{citation | publisher=[[The Hedgehog Review]] |title=A Divine Comedy |url=https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/america-on-the-brink/articles/a-divine-comedy}}</ref> As Hart says on page 58 of the book: "The principal task of theodicy is to explain why paradise is not a logical possibility." Hart's refusal to concede that theodicy has any positive capacity to explain the purpose of evil is in line with many Greek church fathers. For example, see Eric D. Perl's ''Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite'':
{{Blockquote
|text=[[Dionysius the Areopagite|Dionysius]]' ...refusal to assign a cause to evil, then, marks not the failure but the success of his treatment of the problem. To explain evil, to attribute a cause to it, would necessarily be to explain it away, to deny that evil is genuinely evil at all. For to explain something is to show how it is in some way good. ...Only by not explaining evil, by insisting rather on its radical causelessness, its unintelligibility, can we take evil seriously as evil. This is why most "theodicies" fail precisely insofar as they succeed. To the extent that they satisfactorily account for or make sense of evil, they tacitly or expressly deny that it is evil and show that it is in fact good. Dionysius' treatment of evil, on the other hand, succeeds by failing, recognizing that the sheer negativity that is evil must be uncaused and hence inexplicable, for otherwise it would not be negativity and would not be evil. It has been wisely remarked that any satisfactory account of evil must enable us to retain our outrage at it. Most theodicies fail this test, for in supposedly allowing us to understand evil they justify it and thus take away our outrage. For Dionysius, however, evil remains outrageous precisely because it is irrational, because there is no reason, no justification for it. The privation theory of evil, expressed in a radical form by Dionysius, is not a shallow disregard or denial of the evident evils in the world. It means rather that, confronted with the evils in the world, we can only say that for no reason, and therefore outrageously, the world as we find it does not perfectly love God, the Good, the sole end of all love. And since the Good is the principle of intelligibility and hence of being, to the extent that anything fails to partake of that principle it is deficient in being. The recognition of evils in the world and in ourselves is the recognition that the world and ourselves, as we find them, are less than fully existent because we do not perfectly love God, the Good.
}}

[[Karl Barth]] viewed the evil of human suffering as ultimately in the "control of [[divine providence]]".<ref>Karl Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'' (T & T Clark, 1957), IV-1, 246.</ref> Given this view, Barth deemed it impossible for humans to devise a theodicy that establishes "the idea of the goodness of God".<ref>Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'', III-1, 368.</ref> For Barth, only the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucifixion]] could establish the goodness of God. In the crucifixion, God bears and suffers what humanity suffers.<ref>Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'', II-2, 165.</ref> This suffering by God Himself makes human theodicies anticlimactic.<ref>Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'', IV-1, 246.</ref> Barth found a "twofold justification" in the crucifixion:<ref>Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'', II-2, 223.</ref> the [[Justification (theology)|justification of sinful humanity]] and "the justification in which God justifies Himself".<ref>Barth, ''Church Dogmatics'', IV-1, 564.</ref>

[[Christian Science]] offers a solution to the problem by denying that evil ultimately exists.<ref>Ben Dupre, "The Problem of Evil", 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know, London, Quercus, 2007, p. 166: "Denying that there is ultimately any such thing as evil, as advocated by Christian Scientists, solves the problem at a stroke, but such a remedy is too hard for most to swallow."</ref><ref>Whale, J. S. The Christian answer to the problem of evil. 1948</ref> [[Mary Baker Eddy]] and [[Mark Twain]] had some contrasting views on theodicy and suffering, which are well-described by [[Stephen Gottschalk]].<ref>"Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism" (Indiana University Press, 2006) 83, 123, etc.</ref>

[[Redemptive suffering]], based in [[Pope John Paul II]]'s [[theology of the body]], embraces suffering as having value in and of itself.<ref name="Adrian J. Reimers">{{cite news|last=Reimers|first=Adrian J.|title=Human Suffering and Jon Paul II's Theology of the Body|url=https://www3.nd.edu/~areimers/Suffering-JPII-expanded.htm|access-date=2017-08-08|archive-date=2014-12-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141228055449/http://www3.nd.edu/~areimers/Suffering-JPII-expanded.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicprimer.org/papal/theology_of_the_body.pdf|title=Catholicprimer.org|website=www.catholicprimer.org|access-date=2017-08-08|archive-date=2017-08-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808141833/http://catholicprimer.org/papal/theology_of_the_body.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Eleonore Stump]] in ''Wandering in Darkness'' uses psychology, narrative and exegesis to demonstrate that redemptive suffering, as found in Thomistic theodicy, can constitute a consistent and cogent defence for the problem of suffering.<ref name="Eleonore Stump">{{cite book|last=Stump|first=Eleonore|title=Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering| publisher=Oxford University Press| location=N.Y. New York|year=2010|isbn=978-0-19-927742-1}}</ref>

===Free-will defense===
{{See also|Theodicy and the Bible#Bible and free-will theodicy}}
As an alternative to a theodicy, a defense may be offered as a response to the problem of evil. A defense attempts to show that God's existence is not made logically impossible by the existence of evil; it does not need to be true or plausible, merely logically possible. American philosopher [[Alvin Plantinga]] offers [[Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense|a free-will defense]] which argues that human [[free will]] sufficiently explains the existence of evil while maintaining that God's existence remains logically possible.<ref>McGrath 1995, p. 193</ref> He argues that, if God's existence and the existence of evil are to be logically inconsistent, a premise must be provided which, if true, would make them inconsistent; as none has been provided, the existence of God and evil must be consistent. Free will furthers this argument by providing a premise which, in conjunction with the existence of evil, entails that God's existence remains consistent.<ref>Plantinga & Sennett 1998, pp. 22–24</ref> Opponents have argued this defense is discredited by the existence of non-human related evil such as droughts, tsunamis and malaria.<ref name="Ehrman2009">{{cite book|author=Bart D. Ehrman|title=God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer|url=https://archive.org/details/godsproblemhowbi00ehrm|url-access=registration|date=13 October 2009|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-174440-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/godsproblemhowbi00ehrm/page/12 12]}}</ref>

In his recent book, ''Evil, Sin and Christian Theism'' (2022), [[Andrew Loke]] develops a Big Picture free-will defense argument arguing that God's justification for allowing suffering is not mainly based on an argument from future benefits but on the very nature of love which involves "allowing humans to exercise their free will in morally significant ways."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Loke |first1=Andrew Ter Ern |title=Evil, Sin and Christian Theism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |page=203}}</ref> He employs the Big Picture approach in which "Christian theism provides the big picture and uses a combination of theodicies" in defense of a moderate version of skeptical theism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Loke |first1=Andrew Ter Ern |title=Evil, Sin and Christian Theism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |page=5}}</ref> The Big Picture approach, according to him, helps to put the problem of evil and suffering in perspective of the bigger picture that answers the Big Questions of a worldview such as "What is the greatest good? What is the meaning of life? Where do I come from? Where am I going?" He argues that Christian theism provides the best overall consistent answers to these questions: "the greatest good is to have a right relationship with God, the source of all good. The meaning of life...is to live our lives for the greatest good;...to glorify God and enjoy him..."<ref name="loke 13">{{cite book |last1=Loke |first1=Andrew Ter Ern |title=Evil, Sin and Christian Theism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |page=13}}</ref> The bigger picture of a just, all-powerful, and loving God who will ultimately defeat evil serves as the backdrop against which all temporal suffering can obtain a meaningful understanding.<ref name="loke 13"/>

===Cosmodicy and anthropodicy===
<!--'Cosmodicy' and 'Anthropodicy' redirect here-->
A '''cosmodicy'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> attempts to justify the fundamental goodness of the [[universe]] in the face of [[evil]], and an '''anthropodicy'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> attempts to justify the fundamental goodness of [[human nature]] in the face of the evils produced by humans.<ref>Carsten Meiner, Kristin Veel, eds., ''The Cultural Life of Catastrophes and Crises'' (Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 243.</ref>

Considering the relationship between theodicy and cosmodicy, {{ill|Johannes van der Ven|de|Johannes A. van der Ven}} argued that the choice between theodicy and cosmodicy is a false dilemma.<ref>Van der Ven 1989, p. 205</ref> Philip E. Devenish proposed what he described as "a nuanced view in which theodicy and cosmodicy are rendered complementary, rather than alternative concepts".<ref>Devenish 1992, pp. 5–23</ref> Theologian J. Matthew Ashley described the relationship between theodicy, cosmodicy and anthropodicy:

{{blockquote|In classical terms, this is to broach the problem of theodicy: how to think about God in the face of the presence of suffering in God's creation. After God's dethronement as the subject of history, the question rebounds to the new subject of history: the human being. As a consequence, theodicy becomes anthropodicy – justifications of our faith in humanity as the subject of history, in the face of the suffering that is so inextricably woven into the history that humanity makes.<ref>Ashley 2010, pp. 870–902</ref>}}

==== Essential kenosis ====
Essential [[kenosis]] is a form of [[process theology]] (related to "[[open theism]]") that allows one to affirm that God is almighty, while simultaneously affirming that God cannot prevent genuine evil. Because out of love God necessarily gives [[freedom]], [[Agency (philosophy)|agency]], [[self-organization]], natural processes, and law-like regularities to creation, God cannot override, withdraw, or fail to provide such capacities. Consequently, God is not culpable for failing to prevent genuine evil. The work of [[Thomas Jay Oord]] explains this view most fully.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence|publisher = IVP Academic|date = 2015-12-06|isbn = 978-0-8308-4084-7|language = en|first = Thomas Jay|last = Oord}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = The Nature of Love: A Theology|url = https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Love-Dr-Thomas-Oord-ebook/dp/B003UD7QQ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447257773&sr=1-1&keywords=nature+of+love+oord|publisher = Chalice Press|date = 2010-04-10|language = en|first = Thomas|last = Oord}}</ref>

{{ill|Gijsbert van den Brink|nl}} effectively refutes any view which says God has restricted his power because of his love saying it creates a "metaphysical dualism", and it would not alleviate God's responsibility for evil because God could have prevented evil by not restricting himself. Van den Brink goes on to elaborate an explanation of power and love within the Trinitarian view which equates power and love, and what he calls "the power of love" as representative of God's involvement in the struggle against evil.<ref name="Gijsbert van den Brink">{{cite book| last=van den Brink| first=Gijsbert| title=Almighty God: A Study on the Doctrine of Divine Omnipotence| publisher=Kok Pharos publishing House| location=Kampen, the Netherlands|year=1993|pages=263–73}}</ref>