{"id":37074,"date":"2012-08-07T00:03:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T07:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=37074"},"modified":"2014-12-30T14:42:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T21:42:46","slug":"theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists.html","title":{"rendered":"Theodicy is a problem for monotheists, not theists"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>A polytheist doesn\u2019t have to ask why an omnipotent good God allows evil. He can always just chalk it up to Loki or Kali.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, a satanist isn\u2019t going to be too troubled when an internet atheist demands to know why satan allows bad things to happen. It\u2019s the dude\u2019s *job*, man.<\/p>\n<p>The problem of evil does not become an issue when you posit the existence of an unseen supernatural realm transcending what is knowable to the senses and beyond the realm of time, space, matter, and energy measurable by the sciences.<\/p>\n<p>It only becomes an issue when you say that there is one omnipotent, omniscient, and *good* God who is utterly perfect.<\/p>\n<p>Just so you know. That\u2019s but one reason that polytheism had a prima facie appeal to ancient pagans and why, as Christian culture fades and we return to knee jerk assessments of the universe based on first glances and \u201cIt seems to me\u2026\u201d philosophising around the water cooler, there\u2019s no particular reason that polytheism shouldn\u2019t reassert itself again. When a culture stops believing in God it doesn\u2019t believe in nothing. It believes in anything. A culture that is pagan in habits will eventually become pagan in intellect and fall for all the old lies and errors again, polytheism among them.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A polytheist doesn\u2019t have to ask why an omnipotent good God allows evil. He can always just chalk it up to Loki or Kali. Similarly, a satanist isn\u2019t going to be too troubled when an internet atheist demands to know why satan allows bad things to happen. It\u2019s the dude\u2019s *job*, man. The problem of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[193],"class_list":["post-37074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-theological-reflections"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Theodicy is a problem for monotheists, not theists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A polytheist doesn&#039;t have to ask why an omnipotent good God allows evil. He can always just chalk it up to Loki or Kali. Similarly, a satanist isn&#039;t going\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Theodicy is a problem for monotheists, not theists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A polytheist doesn&#039;t have to ask why an omnipotent good God allows evil. He can always just chalk it up to Loki or Kali. Similarly, a satanist isn&#039;t going\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-07T07:03:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-30T21:42:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/theodicy-is-a-problem-for-monotheists-not-theists.html\",\"name\":\"Theodicy is a problem for monotheists, not theists\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-07T07:03:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-30T21:42:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"A polytheist doesn't have to ask why an omnipotent good God allows evil. 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