Theodicy

He believes that through understanding religion, we can explain human motivation. To Weber, religion provides humanity answers to theodicy questions such as suffering and misfortunes to undeserved people and vice versa. Religion provide answers to this unbalanced world and thus motivates humanity to find salvation through it. Whether that salvation is a relief from suffering or simply…

Theodicy is a term which describes the problem with evil in the world and begs the question, if an all-knowing, all-powerful God exists, why does he allow evil to persist among his followers? This paper will seek to examine the relationship between good and evil and attempt to provide some explanation as to how evil continues to exist in a world in which God is a part of so many peoples’ lives. An argument will be made that evil thrives in modern society not because of any action that God fails…

Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is a bleak parable chronicling the journey of a father and son across a desolate, post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy’s work typically focuses on themes such as human nature, theodicy and the evil within society, with an overriding nihilistic worldview. The Road follows through on this, with McCarthy prophesying our destruction as a consequence of these societal flaws, and reminding modern readers of how much we have to lose if we remain on this path of…

Throughout the epic of Gilgamesh the theme of man vs. nature is extensively explored through the characters Enkidu and Gilgamesh. At the start of the epic, Enkidu represents the wild, and Gilgamesh represents the civilized man. However, Enkidu finds himself becoming civilized through his sexuality with the harlot Shamhat, along with his newfound friendship with Gilgamesh. Once Enkidu becomes somewhat civilized, he is no longer welcome among the animals. This transition is meant to praise…

To his only son and every person of color, Ta-Nehisi Coates pens an open letter within the pages of Between the World and Me. Reliving a year full of tragedy found in 2015 and remembering a lifetime of pain, Coates offers to his readers through vivid storytelling, an almost entirely pessimistic perspective of life in a black body. The strength of black bodies is often circumvented by the frailty projected onto them by those with “the need to be white.” In the gaps of Coates’s pessimism is an…

Our question is purposefully vague. When did Job live? When were parts of the book written? When did it reach the form in which we read it now? We start with the epic narrative about a character named Job. Presuming for now that the account reflects a historical figure whose story gained entrance into the traditions of Israel at some point, when might he have lived? As we will see in the next chapter, Job’s age suggests that we are to be thinking of the patriarchal period, in other words, about…

The important role that healthy interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships play is depicted in the model of the Trinity. According to Darrell Johnson’s Experiencing the Trinity, “we are created and redeemed to enter into the love each person of the Trinity has for the other” (64). This statement encompasses both intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions. The Trinity is one; thus the love that each person in the Trinity has towards another person in the Trinity is the love that the Trinity…

For many years, Theist and Atheist have attempted to argue their points concerning God’s existence. In both instances, each group appears to constantly attempt to disprove their counterpart. This is done in a variety of ways and some of which we will look at in this paper. Typically, the place that each side begins with is a straight forward question. Is there a God? However, after this question the ones that follow are anything but straight forward. Due to this, there are many people on each…

intervention does not deserve to live. Yet, by believing in an omnipotent being, one is forced to submit to a God who allows acts of cruelty. In the book Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan, the author presents a diverse set of characters who deal with this theodicy through their own theological positions. By the end of the novel, Mei…

the center of Christian life. They both stress in their theology the power of the future over the present. A significant difference between them is that whereas Moltmann wants theology to relate to the experiences of life, especially the problem of theodicy, Pannenberg seems to be more interested in producing a coherent and systematic theology. This seems to logically…