More (see my last post on the subject) from Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. . .
Not only are we always judging, condemning/justifying ourselves and each other, we also judge, condemn/justify God. Bayer has some interesting reflections on “theodicy,” the question of how or why God allows evil, drawing on sources that I wasn’t familiar with. But what most struck me was Bayer’s observation that when the idea of God fades away in some people’s minds, the problem of theodicy remains. He describes a “secular theodicy.” No longer, “why does God allow evil and suffering,” but “why does existence allow evil and suffering.” In many ways, that latter question is harder to answer. I am seeing that this is why so many people today believe that life is meaningless, absurd, pointless, and (in a tragic number of cases) not worth living.
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