Beyond Theodicy analyzes the rising tide of objections to explanations and justifications for why God permits evil and suffering in the world. In response to the Holocaust, striking parallels have emerged between major Jewish and Christian thinkers centering on practical faith approaches that offer meaning within suffering. Author Sarah K. Pinnock focuses on Jewish thinkers Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch and Christian thinkers Gabriel Marcel and Johann Baptist Metz to present two diverse rejections of theodicy, one existential, represented by Buber and Marcel, and one political, represented by Bloch and Metz. Pinnock interweaves the disciplines of philosophy of religion, post-Holocaust thought, and liberation theology to formulate a dynamic vision of religious hope and resistance.
True theodicy is partly a theoretical corrective to evangelistic impatience: discounting the distortions arising from over-eager salesmanship. And partly it is a work of poetic intensification, dedicated to faith’s necessary struggle against resentment. This book contains a systematic survey of the classic theoretical-corrective theodicy tradition initiated, in the early Seventeenth Century, by Jakob Böhme. Two centuries later, Böhme’s lyrical thought is translated into rigorous philosophical terms by Schelling; and is, then, further, set in context by Hegel’s doctrine of providence at work in world history. The old ‘God’ of mere evangelistic impatience is, as Hegel sees things, ‘dead’. And so theodicy is liberated, to play its proper role: illustrated here with particular reference to the book of Job, the post-Holocaust poetry of Nelly Sachs, and the thought of Simone Weil. A boldly polemical study, this book is a bid to re-ignite debate on the whole topic of theodicy. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars in religious studies, theology and philosophy.
Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love grapples with the same fundamental question that has vexed philosophers and theologians since the advent of monotheistic religion, and continues as a barrier to belief for many today. Namely, if God is so good, how can natural disaster, genocide, trauma - and my present suffering - occur? Historically, there have been two apparently very different approaches to the problem: the pastoral, or practical, on the one hand and the systematic on the other. However, Richard Norton suggests that these two lines of thought may not be as separate as they seem, and may indeed be dependent on one another for their cohesion. Drawing on Julian's medieval experience of personal and population-wide suffering, alongside that of more recent theologians such as Dorothy Solle and Jurgen Moltmann, Norton constructs a compassionate model of theodicy that can be of use to both pastoral and systematic theologians. Throughout, he remains sensitive to the raw atrocity of evil, while preserving a vision of God as the one who ensures that all shall be well.
Why does God permit evil and suffering? This question, known as the problem of evil in theological and philosophical circles, has perennially vexed Christian theology. Academic studies on the problem of evil, however, have failed to move the conversation forward in recent years. In this volume, designed for students and scholars alike, Mark S. M. Scott traces the major models and motifs in Christian explanations for evil (called theodicies) and argues for a thorough rethinking of the problem of evil and theodicy based on distinctly Christian theological criteria and resources.
If God is all powerful and entirely good and loving, why is there so much evil in the world? Based on a close canonical reading of Scripture, this book offers a new approach to the challenge of reconciling the Christian confession of a loving God with the realities of suffering and evil. John Peckham offers a constructive proposal for a theodicy of love that upholds both the sovereignty of God and human freedom, showing that Scripture points toward a framework for thinking about God's love in relation to the world.
This is a revised edition of John Milbank’s masterpiece, which sketches the outline of a specifically theological social theory. The Times Higher Education Supplement wrote of the first edition that it was “a tour de force of systematic theology. It would be churlish not to acknowledge its provocation and brilliance”. Featured in The Church Times “100 Best Christian Books" Brings this classic work up-to-date by reviewing the development of modern social thought. Features a substantial new introduction by Milbank, clarifying the theoretical basis for his work. Challenges the notion that sociological critiques of theology are ‘scientific’. Outlines a specifically theological social theory, and in doing so, engages with a wide range of thinkers from Plato to Deleuze. Written by one of the world’s most influential contemporary theologians and the author of numerous books.
"Theodicy" is a book of philosophy by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz published in 1710, whose optimistic approach to the problem of evil is thought to have inspired Voltaire's "Candide". Much of the work consists of a response to the ideas of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, with whom Leibniz carried on a debate for many years. The "Theodicy" tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist. In effect, apparent flaws that can be identified in this world must exist in every possible world, because otherwise God would have chosen to create the world that excluded those flaws. Leibniz distinguishes three forms of evil: moral, physical, and metaphysical. Moral evil is sin, physical evil is pain, and metaphysical evil is limitation. God permits moral and physical evil for the sake of greater goods, and metaphysical evil is unavoidable since any created universe must necessarily fall short of God's absolute perfection.
2019 witnessed the 30th anniversary of the German reunification. But the remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall coincided with another event of global importance that caught much less attention: the 250th anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth. There is an undeniable historical and philosophical dimension to this coincidence. Napoleon’s appearance on the scene of world history seems to embody European universalism (soon thereafter in the form of a ‘modern’ imperial project); whilst scholars such as Francis Fukuyama saw in the events of 1989 its historical fulfilment. Today, we see more clearly that the fall of the Berlin Wall stands for an epistemic earthquake, which generated a world that can no longer be grasped through universal concepts. Here, we deal with the idea of Europe and of its relation to the world itself. Picking up on this contingency of world history with an ironic wink, the volume analyses in retrospect the epoch of European universalism. It focusses on its dialectics, polemically addressing and remembering both 1769 and 1989. L’année 2019 a été marquée par le 30e anniversaire de la réunification de l’Allemagne, éclipsant un autre événement d’envergure mondiale : le 250e anniversaire de Napoléon Bonaparte. La dimension philosophico-historique de cette coïncidence ne peut pourtant pas être négligée : si l’arrivée de Bonaparte sur la scène de l’histoire mondiale semble incarner l’avènement de l’universalisme européen (bientôt amené à prendre sa forme « moderne » et impériale), certains penseurs ont suggéré, avec Francis Fukuyama, que « 1989 » marquait son accomplissement historique. Aujourd’hui, il apparaît au contraire que la chute du mur de Berlin a été un véritable tremblement de terre épistémique, et rendu inopérants les concepts universels. Dans le monde d’après, c’est à l’idée d’Europe et à sa relation au monde que nous avons affaire. Revenant par un geste ironique sur cette contingence historique, le présent volume se veut une analyse rétrospective de l’époque de l’universalisme, dans toute la dialectique que les commémorations de 1769/1989 ont fait surgir.
