More on moral critique of theodicies: reply to Robert Simpson

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’.

Moral critique and defence of theodicy

“…Theodicy is written and spoken in the public arena, in the world of ideas, and to propagate a theodicy is to communicate it at once to potentially everyone, because the theodicy of academic journals finds its way to the pulpits and popular religious books, providing religious communities with theodical narratives for interpreting horrendous evils. Therefore, contra Søvik, there is no strictly ‘theoretical context’ (Søvik (2011), 386) to which one can turn and safely do theodicy. It follows from this that for ambitious theodicies, ‘if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another's sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them’ (Hart (2005), 100).…”

“…Phillips also argues that many theodicies present God as an immoral agent by human standards and are thus immoral to endorse. Søvik disagrees; he thinks that only God, and not the theodicist, would be immoral (see Søvik (2011), 387).…”