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Theodicies under suspicion

Submitted to Program Units
1: Political Theology Unit and Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion Unit

Nathan R. B. Loewen, University of Alabama, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

How might theodicies serve to mask and marginalize structural violence? (either tacitly or explicitly) “Theodicy” here works as a category for arguments that defend religious or metaphysical claims from contradictions based on events of the actual world. We have selected proposals that articulate a theodicy, and then critically analyze how it functions to justify structural conditions such as inequalities, civil violence, xenophobia, political structures, or disparities of health, education, etc. Proposals may work with typical sources (e.g. texts, scriptures) or less-conventional sources (e.g. oral traditions, social media, laws, etc.).

Papers

  • Thaddeus Robinson, Muhlenberg College

    Spinoza on Theodicy as Foolish Wonder

    Abstract

    In this paper I consider the place of theodicy in Spinoza’s well-known critique of clerical power.  In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza explains how clerical authorities maintain power by driving a feedback loop between fear and superstition.  Although Spinoza criticizes the philosophical underpinnings of theodicy itself, he also criticizes its promulgation as pernicious. Drawing on Spinoza’s account of the affects, I connect Spinoza’s view about the dangers of theodicy in terms of his account of wonder, and more broadly to 17th century concerns about the dangers of wonder—as opposed to curiosity—in natural philosophy.  Understood as foolish wonder, we will be in a position to see how theodicy relates to the fear/superstition loop.  I close by briefly comparing Spinoza’s criticism of theodicy to that of contemporary critics.  

  • Jack Bernardi, Virginia Tech

    The Price of Providence: Central Banking and the Book of Job

    Abstract

    This paper considers an economic dimension of theodicy as a legitimating discourse: reconciling the tension between a sovereign's ultimate power and yet inability (or their ultimate benevolence and yet refusal) to intervene into a system of distribution and valuation to create justice. It begins with a theo-political reading of the Book of Job, linking the text's insistence on (divine) sovereignty as the sole basis of wisdom and justice with Modern Monetary Theory's contentions in debates over the role of the Federal Reserve. The specter of Job is raised again with Hobbes' Leviathan: in the attempted 1611 monetary renovations of James Stuart, we observe an ostensibly 'divinizing' monarch perform uncharacteristic impotence before the demands of foreign markets, in which the cost of re-capitalizing domestic market liquidity is effectively forced onto the bearers of base-metal currency. 

  • Emily Theus, Yale University

    The “Partial Theodicy” of Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene

    Abstract

    Theorists of ecological crisis privilege concepts of ambiguity and partiality as simultaneously truer to material realities andmore politically and ethically promising. Taking Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene concept as a case study, this paper asks if this move successfully avoids theodicy. Though Haraway defines the “time-place” of the Chthulucene in opposition to the salvific logics of theodicy, her celebration of ambiguity emerges from a reading of ecological breakdown as the source of a renewed vision of entanglement. In other words, ecological crisis becomes an opportunity to materialize a reformulated best-case scenario. I argue that Haraway’s attempt to circumvent theodicy recapitulates its errors: naturalizing loss and assigning a silver lining to structural violence. I call this persisting logic of theodicy a “partial theodicy.” 

  • Justin Tse, Singapore Management University
    Xenia Chan, Augustana University

    ‘Transnationally Asian’ Theodicies: Troubling “Social Formations” in Transpacific Counterpoetics

    Abstract

    In this paper, we explore political theodicies in “transnationally Asian” literatures after 2010. We claim that the literary cultures of these transpacific networks and communities constitute what Yunte Huang calls a “counterpoetics” that attempts to challenge what Gary Okihiro calls the “social formations” that shape the power structures of transpacific arenas. Herein lies the theodicy: we argue that these transpacific counterpoetics also have trouble naming the powers that constellate these social formations. We move across three literary cultures: military apocalypses arising from Korean diasporas, geopolitical tensions in Sinophone and Vietnamese communities, and ecological disasters circulating from the Fukushima subduction earthquake in Japan. Our paper contributes to the global critique of political theodicies by showing in the transpacific region that evil might be seen in the wounds of war and disaster, but naming what exactly inflicts this violence is difficult – and generates even more pain in its indeterminate articulation.

Business Meeting
Marie-Helene Gorisse, University of Birmingham, Presiding
Nathan R. B. Loewen, University of Alabama, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours

Schedule Preference Other

not Tuesday
Schedule Info

Saturday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Tags

#philosophy of religion#global philosophy #critical philosophy #African traditions #Spinoza #Chthulu #Asian traditions #theodicy
#Theodicy
#Philosophy of Religion
#digitalreligion
#money #sovereignty #political theology #job #numismatics #theodicy
entanglement
Theodicy
Donna Haraway
ecological crisis

Session Identifier

A23-221