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Theodicies Under Suspicion Part 1

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

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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.). We wish to host a conversation that is typically on the margins of discourses in our field. This June, online session is created to have more voices contribute to this topic.

Papers

  • Timothy D. Knepper, Drake University

    Theodicy as Empire: A Cross-cultural Exploration

    Abstract

    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.”

  • Nathaniel Holmes, Florida Memorial University

    Theodicy in Disguise: Metaphysical Naturalism and the Justification of Evil and Suffering

    Abstract

    Metaphysical Naturalism is actually a type of theodicy in that it seeks to justify and attribute meaning to evil and suffering. In so doing, it provides cover for a range of forms of oppressive actions and behaviors. This presentation proposes an alternative approach employing resources from American Pragmatism that both takes suffering seriously and articulate a metaphysical framework for transformative actions against evil and suffering.    

  • George Schmidt, Vanderbilt University

    The Natural Evil of the Anthropocene: A Critical Analysis of Climate-Change Adaptation Strategies in Bangladesh Coastal Farmlands

    Abstract

    This essay examines lucrative “climate-change adaptation strategies” put forward by development NGOs in southwestern Bangladesh coastal farmlands for the purposes of reframing contemporary Anthropocene discourse as a theodicy that legitimates on-going practices of capitalist exploitation. Recognition that humans have a major suite of impacts on the natural environment has a much-longer history than the word “Anthropocene.” Contemporary Anthropocene discourse, however, hyper-charges this recognition of human activity in-general while perpetuating a false universalism that erases histories of racism, colonialism, and classism. In Bangladesh, a place particularly vulnerable to climate change, Anthropocene discourse “not only obfuscates longer histories of dispossession, it also justifies political economies of ecological devastation. In this way, the concept of the Anthropocene functions apologetically as a theodicy for a pervasive logic of capitalist development that justifies extraction and ecological damage in the name of an abstracted economic growth.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes
Schedule Info

Wednesday, 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM (June Online Meeting)

Tags

Theodicy
evil
American Pragmatism
Bangladesh
adaptation
# climate change
#anthropocene
soil salinity
#ecology
NGOs

Session Identifier

AO26-200