Prolegomena to meta-theodicy

Abstract

This paper deals with the project of meta-theodicy, which is offered as an alternative to the extreme points of view of (1) justifying evil to prove the existence of God or (2) re­fusing the very possibility of meaningful research of the relationship between suffering and God. The author summarizes the history and logic of theodicy briefly, and then ex­plains its modern alternative, called anti-theodicy. The author argues that, firstly, meta-theodicy can be viewed as an interdisciplinary project in which a large amount of differ­ent scholastic data can be ordered into a single whole; secondly, that meta-theodicy should clarify how the question of suffering and God’s silence can be raised; thirdly, that one methodological advantage of meta-theodicy is that a researcher does not take a cer­tain position, but tries to consider different approaches to the problem.