Theodicy
Theodicy is a branch of theology that studies how the existence of a good or benevolent God may be reconciled with the existence of evil. An attempt to reconcile the co-existence of evil and God is sometimes called "a theodicy." See the article on the problem of evil for examples.
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2 The problem of evil 3 The existence of God 4 The nature of God 5 Why do events and circumstances occur? |
The term theodicy comes from the Greek thÃÂéos (meaning "god") and dikÃÂé (meaning "right" or "just"), meaning literally "the justice of God." The term was coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a work entitled Essais de ThÃÂéodicÃÂée sur la bontÃÂé de Dieu, la libertÃÂé de l'homme et l'origine du mal. The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, that, indeed, notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds. (See Panglossianism.)
The problem of evil has from earliest times engrossed the attention of philosophers. In his Dictionnaire historique et critique, the well-known sceptic Pierre Bayle denied the goodness and omnipotence of God on account of the sufferings experienced in this earthly life. The ThÃÂéodicÃÂée of Leibniz was directed mainly against Bayle. Imitating the example of Leibniz, other philosophers also called their treatises on the problem of evil theodicies. In a thorough treatment of the question, the proofs both of the existence and of the attributes of God could not be disregarded, and the knowledge of God was gradually brought within the domain of theodicy, and theodicy came to be synonymous with natural theology (theologia naturalis) that is, the department of metaphysics which presents the positive proofs for the existence and attributes of God and solves the opposing difficulties. Theodicy, therefore, may be defined as an attempt to explain the nature of God through the exercise of reason alone. This is in juxtaposition to theology, which attempts to explain the nature of God using supernatural revelation and faith.
The first task of theodicy is to prove the existence of God. It is usually presupposed that the suprasensible can be known and that the limits of experience pure and immediate can be transcended. The justification of this assumption must be furnished by other branches of philosophy, such as criteriology and metaphysics.
Even in the Middle Ages there were those who denied that the existence of God could be proved absolutely by the understanding alone, and took refuge in revelation. In his Summa contra Gentiles (I, c. xii) St. Thomas Aquinas refers to such reasoners. At a later date this opinion was championed by the Nominalists, William of Occam and Gabriel Biel, as well as by the Reformers; the Jansenists demanded the special aid of grace. In the nineteenth century the Traditionalists asserted that only when some vestiges of the original revelation reached man could he deduce with certainty the existence of God. Dr. J. Kuhn, formerly professor at TÃÂübingen declares that the clear recognition of the existence of God requires a pure soul unstained by sin.
Ontologism went to the other extreme and asserted the immediate cognition of God. St. Anselm offered an a priori proof of the existence of God, the ontological argument. This, however, has always been rejected by the majority of Catholic philosophers, notwithstanding the modifications of Duns Scotus, Leibniz, RenÃÂé Descartes, and Kurt GÃÂödel (cf. Dr. Otto Paschen, Der ontologische Gottesbeweis in der Scholastik, Aachen, 1903; M. Esser, Der ontologische Gottesbeweis und seine Geschichte, Bonn, 1905).
The first modern objections to the demonstrability of God were voiced by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. In their systems a scientific proof of the existence of a supernatural being was impossible.
In response to Hume and Kant, some sought new ways of justifying the existence of God. The Scotch School led by Thomas Reid taught that the fact of the existence of God is accepted by us without knowledge of reasons but simply by a natural impulse. That God exists, this school said, is one of the chief metaphysical principles that we accept not because they are evident in themselves or because they can be proved, but because common sense obliges us to accept them. In Germany, the School of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi taught that our reason is able to perceive the suprasensible. Jacobi distinguished three faculties: sense, reason, and understanding. Just as sense has immediate perception of the material so has reason immediate perception of the immaterial, while the understanding brings these perceptions to our consciousness and unites them to one another (StÃÂöckl, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, II, 82 sqq.). God's existence, then, cannot be proved--Jacobi, like Kant, rejected the absolute value of the principle of causality--it must be felt by the mind. In his Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that when our understanding ponders over the existence of God it encounters nothing but contradictions; the impulses of our hearts, however, are of more value than the understanding, and these proclaim clearly to us the truths of natural religion, namely, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.
The same theory was advocated in Germany by Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834), who assumed an inner religious sense by means of which we feel religious truths. According to Schleiermacher, religion consists solely in this inner perception, and dogmatic doctrines are unessential (StÃÂöckl, loc. cit., 199 sqq.). Many modern Protestant theologians follow in Schleiermacher's footsteps, and teach that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated; certainty as to this truth is only furnished us by inner experience, feeling, and perception.
Modernist Christianity also denies the demonstrability of the existence of God. According to them we can only know something of God by means of the vital immanence, that is, under favorable circumstances the need of the Divine dormant in our subconsciousness becomes conscious and arouses that religious feeling or experience in which God reveals himself to us. In condemnation of this view the oath against Modernism formulated by Pius X says: "Deum ... naturali rationis lumine per ea quae facta sunt, hoc est per visibilia creationis opera, tanquam causam per effectus certo cognosci adeoque demostrari etiam posse, profiteor." ("I declare that by the natural light of reason, God can be certainly known and therefore His existence demonstrated through the things that are made, i.e., through the visible works of creation, as the cause is known through its effects.")
Another class of philosophers asserts that the proofs for the existence of God present indeed a fairly large probability but no absolute certainty. A number of obscure points, they say, always remain. In order to overcome these difficulties there is necessary either an act of the will, a religious experience, or the discernment of the misery of the world without God, so that finally the heart makes the decision. This view is maintained, among others, by the English statesman Arthur Balfour in his book The Foundations of Belief (1895). The opinions set forth in this work were adopted in France by BrunetiÃÂére, the editor of the Revue des deux Mondes. Many orthodox Protestants express themselves in the same manner, as, for instance, Dr. E. Dennert, President of the Kepler Society, in his work Ist Gott tot? (Stuttgart, 1908).
A dispute arose as to whether there are a number of proofs of the existence of God or whether all are not merely parts of one and the same proof (cf. Dr. C. Braig, Gottesbeweis oder Gottesbeweise?, Stuttgart, 1889). While all such proofs would end in the same way, by asserting the existence of God, they do not all start at the same place. St. Thomas calls them aptly (Summ. theol., I, Q. ii, a.3) ViÃÂæ; roads to the apprehension of God which all open on the same highway.
After demonstrating the existence of God, theodicy investigates the question of to God's nature and attributes. The latter are in part absolute (quiescentia) and in part relative (operativa). In the first class belong traits such as infinity, immutability, omnipresence, and eternity; to the second class the knowledge, volition, and action of God. The action of God includes the creation, maintenance, and government of the world, the co-operation of God with the activity of the creature, and the working of miracles. While many grant that all our cognition of God is incomplete, this branch of theodicy attempts to explain those traits of God which we have some understanding of. It includes, for instance, the classical problem of how God can be infinitely good and yet allow evil to occur.
Maltheist theodicy answers this question by noting that the "problem of evil" is not a problem at all—the initial question has a simple answer, there is no way that a benevolent omnipotent God would allow evil in the world. Therefore, they reason, God is either not benevolent or not omnipotent. Both of these are, however, anathema to to orthodox Christian theology.
Classical Christianity, i.e, from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine, has also been called "modified Dualism", since the powers of good and evil are unequal, and the evil power is merely tolerated by the good power, who turns all the acts of the evil power into eventual good. Sts. Augustine and Basil the Great both explicitly mention this idea. St. John of Damascus proposed that God deliberately leaves some events "in our hands". In early modern times (1714) a modified Dualism was advocated by St. John (Maximovitch) of Tobolsk.
(Needs list of religions which support each rationality)
Origin of the term
The problem of evil
The existence of God
The nature of God
Why do events and circumstances occur?
Many individuals wonder why events occur or why an individual appears in a given cirumstance. For instance, suffering seems to be a universal phenomenon. Max Weber proposed that an answer to the question Why do people suffer? gives insight to the sociology of those who answer it. He also proposed that any religion's explanation for why events and circumstances must happen falls into one of into three categories: karma, dualism, and predestination.