Theodicy as Empire: A Cross-cultural Exploration

This paper explores to what extent “theodices” (broadly construed) not only can be read, but also actually served, primarily as legitimations of empires and other political powers and socio-economic orders, not as justifications of gods and other superhuman agents and cosmic forces. For the sake of this preliminary analysis, I draw on the twelfth-century (Neo)Confucian Zhu Xi, the eighth-ninth-century Advaita Vedantan Adi Shankara, and the fourth-fifth-century Christian Augustine of Hippo. Time permitting, attention will also be given to the contemporary theodicists of “Christian philosophy.”