Theodicy

Some people regard theodicy as scandalous and sacrilegious. Theo means God and dike means
judgement, in the Greek language. Theodicy is a judgement made about God regarding the evil
in the world God created. Theodicy is people’s putting of God on trial because of the evil so
obvious in the world God created. They are vindications of divine justice in the face of the
existence of evil. They can also be termed as the efforts to give reasons for the fact of and the
enormous amount of suffering that characterizes life, human and other things.

God’s very existence is challenged by the existence of evil. Some people believe that because
of the suffering rampant in the world, if not God’s existence, at least God’s omnipotence and
omniscience are to be questioned.

Put simply, if an omnipotent and Omniscient God created the world, why is it so flowed? Did
God not what he was doing? Or Couldn’t God stop things from going wrong? Or Did God
simply not care?

In the Nazi holocaust, six million Jews died as well as millions of other undesirables and they
not only died but they died in mental, spiritual and physical agony. Where was God while all
that was happening? But of course, it wasn’t God who killed the Jews. It was the Nazis and
their mad man Hitler. But someone would ask, had God no power over these Nazis and Hitler?
Was God unaware of what was going on? Did God not care? Or is it perhaps the case that there
is no God to be powerful, knowledgeable, loving or caring? Is it that God is just a wish that
people invented to make life appear as if it were not solitary, wolfish, brutish and nasty?

Still more, what about the suffering of children to discredit the claim that God loves humans
as the parent loves the child. The amount of sheer physical suffering in the world at any moment
is staggering to complete. This is a problem for every one but it is a special kind of a problem
for those who believe the world is ruled by a God of power, omniscience and goodness and
who reputedly loves humans as a father loves his children.

In the world, there seems to be two types of evils i.e., the natural evil which includes suffering
natural causes as diseases, earth quakes, famine etc., and the moral evil caused by human sin.

To deal with this problem has been a major concern of western philosophers, theologians as
well as ordinary people. We have several more or less successful answers given to the dilemma
of suffering in the world created by an omniscient, omnipotent and good God.

1. The Jobian Idea. As Job discovered, one is not ask for an explanation of evil. We are
simply supposed to accept suffering and evil assuming that God knows what He is
doing. To those that subscribe to this reasoning, to as a question or to question God is
indeed in itself evil.
2. Earlier than Job’s answer, the Hebrews had an answer which rather is unsuccessful.
They said that suffering was a direct result of sin and payment for it. This was the theory
of Job’s friends when they came to console him in his difficulties. It was also the notion
 that laid behind the often-repeated biblical explanations that Israel’s troubles were
caused by its sinful behavior.
One might accept such a notion that a nation suffers for its sins and people too. But
what of the children? A child dies of AIDS or Leukemia not because of having sinned.
The ancient Hebrews lamely proposed that the sin, the iniquity had been committed
before the child was born by the parents or fore fathers.
3. Some people have tried to vindicate God by denying the reality of evil. Evil is not a
thing of God; it is not a thing at all. It is an illusion of the mind. It is simply the absence
of what people call good. Basic to Hindu thought is the claim that all reality is God
Brahman. All things exist in the unity of God. God is all and all is God. The every world
that we encountered is the world as it appears not the world as it really is.
If we could just see the real world, the underlying world, the God world, we would see
that evil is not a status in reality. It is metaphysically non-existent. Suffering and evil
are erroneous thinking, mistaking appearance for reality. When one comes to
understand completely that he and God are the same reality, even the appearance of evil
disappears, (Kant). Ignorance should be overcome. God is exonerated. One knows that
it was not God but man who was the cause of the evil, that in fact, evil never did at any
time truly exist. It was all a mistake.
4. Evil is useful. Without evil as a contrast and stimulus, perfection would never be
attempted, much less, even accomplished. The German philosopher and mathematician,
Gott Fred argued against those who proposed that God might have made things better
than he did. He notes that such persons propose that God was a faulty architect. He
argued that any created world must have in itself imperfections. He therefore suggests
that only God is absolutely perfect.
Furthermore, the imperfection of this world are not pure negations. Imperfection, what
you call evil, can be seen as making a positive contribution in that it stands as a contrast
highlighting the goodness and beauty of the all creation. Just as in painting, dark strokes
and smudges are helpful in giving perspectives to the whole.
Other 18th century theologians asserted that evil was not simply an accident in finite
creation but a part of God’s plan. There had to be evil in the part that the whole might
be good. Evil is necessary in high moral endeavors because a world without evil persons
to resist would not present the situations for those moral decisions necessary to develop
moral strength.
Although suffering sometimes crushes the sufferer, it also often results in a spiritual
maturity in the sufferer or those who witness the suffering that could not otherwise be
accomplished without allowing such an amount of suffering. One who experiences a
pain of a toothache can surely appreciate more fully the pleasure of not having the
toothache.

(To be continued)