Theodicy is Important

The word theodicy means the justice of God.  Theodicy questions God’s ways of working with the world.  Some people think theodicy is a waste of time either because they don’t believe there is a God, or they think God is so problematic and mysterious that asking questions about the justice of God is absurd or some think theodicy is a sign of a lack of faith and an arrogant pride trying to investigate the glory of God.


While there may be some legitimacy to the above reservations concerning theodicy, I disagree with all of them.  Theodicy is a human attempt to understand and question the ways of God in a world of so much underserved suffering.  Theodicy is a faithful human attempt to trust God and stay sane at the same time.  Theodicy wonders about the methodology and fairness of God in our world.  And it does so as an outgrowth of faith and not against faith. 


Asking questions about the moral character and intent of God is also Biblical.  Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Moses confronts God regarding God’s attitude toward the Israelites and their long suffering under slavery in Egypt. Hagar laments to God as she lingers in the wilderness. Job challenges the morality of God and is vindicated by God.  In the book of Ezekiel, God laments that there is so little faith among the Hebrews that no one is willing to challenge God to keep God’s promises. And of course, in the New Testament, Jesus ends his life by crying out a question about God’s abandonment.


Theodicy is an inherent part of a faith that refuses to let God off the hook by making excuses about what God is not doing to defeat suffering and evil. We are presently living through the Coronavirus which has already killed almost 60,000 people in the USA. What is God doing amidst all these deaths?


There is a fine book called, Pathways in Theodicy by Mark S. M. Scott.  Scott reviews the different ways theodicy has been approached but does not favor one approach.  He argues we need to keep the theodicy question open and on the table. And I agree.


Why do I care so much about theodicy? Because faith is a risky business.We are proclaiming our faith in an invisible and highly problematic God.  Our faith should be honest and mature.  We ought to be intellectually and spiritually truthful about where our faith works and where it does not work.  In all my years of teaching I have tried to encourage and aggravate my students, particularly those who espouse faith, to tell the truth about the fragility and difficulty of faith.  Such thinking may cause some to doubt but doubt and faith are two parts of the same coin.  Theodicy is important!!!

Caught Between Faith and Facts

Whenever an event as evil as the Coronavirus rears its head and delivers its destruction upon us, we religious folk are caught between our deep desire to have faith and the facts our eyes are communicating to us. We are caught between faith and facts.


For Jews this happens because Jews trust the heart of God is revealed in the Torah.  God loves his people so much he gave them his only Torah to teach them what it meant to live a human life.  Whatever has happened to us across the centuries, we Jews trust against trust that God is for us and not against us.


Christians trust the heart of God has been revealed to all people in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  God loved his people so much he sent his only son to die and be raised.  In Jesus, God shows how much God loves humanity and does not leave them alone.  And Christians trust “nothing shall separate them from the love of God.”


And Muslims trust God so loved the world that he sent his final revelation through Muhammad and had it written down in the Quran.  Muslims trust that everything that happens to human beings is in some mysterious way the will of God.  Five times a day Muslims proclaim their hope and trust that Allah is truly God, for us and not against us.


All this is well and good.  It is our faith. And we want our faith to be true.


But when the craziness and horror of evil lives among us, people of faith are compelled or forced to live in the tension between faith and facts.  And the fact is:  despite the Biblical assertions of God’s commitment to justice and love, hundred of thousands are being killed.  Despite prayers upon prayers upon prayers, the silence of God lives among us.  Of course, we can and will give the usual reasons or excuses to make God not look so bad.  After all, look at all those who survive the virus.  We can sing more hymns.  We can babble on about the mystery of God’s ways.  And let’s face it, theologians and religious leaders have honed their craft over the years to disqualify or eliminate any questioning of the deity.


But this is nothing new.  Faith and facts collide in the Biblical stories.  And those of us who have studied the Holocaust are aware of the silence or indifference of God.  Years ago, Elie Wiesel opined that Jesus was most Jewish and most honest when, on the cross, he implored the deity, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”


So, this is our predicament.  We have just come through two holidays, Passover and Easter, where God’s deliverance was rehearsed and celebrated.  Despite all that, if we religious believers are willing to be honest, we will admit we are aware of the tension in which we are compelled to live. 


After all, Jews and Christians and Muslims are communities who have always been waiting for God to act like God.  In the meantime, believers are caught in the tension between their faith in God and the facts screaming at them in the face.  So, I say again, Stay sane out there.