Theodicy

Roger Ebert seems so stunned in his review of L'Enfant (which I haven't seen) that he gets knocked back into the realm of theology, producing a fascinating little meditation on theodicy.

"Theodicy" is a seminary word for the attempt(s) to defend the idea of a good, loving and powerful God against the counterevidence of a world full of pain, suffering, evil. It's an immensely unsatisfying pursuit, but also an immensely important one — even if you don't happen to believe in a good, loving and powerful God.

Anyway, here's Ebert:

L'Enfant sees with the eye of God. The film has granted free will to its central character, Bruno, and now it watches, intense but detached, to see how he will use it. …

There is a theological belief that God gives us free will and waits to see how we will use it. If he were to interfere, it would not be free will at all. …

It's with that in mind that the visual strategy of [filmmakers Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne] reflects the eye of God. Having made a universe that has set this creature Bruno into motion, God (and we) look to see what he will do.

Yes, yes. Free will mustn't be interfered with. But there also seems to be a case for interference. Frederick Buechner states that case in the following passage from The Alphabet of Grace:

Driving home from church one morning full of Christ, I thought, giddy in the head almost and if not speaking in tongues at least singing in tongues some kind of witless, wordless psalm, I turned on the radio for the 12 o'clock news and heard how a four year old had died that morning somewhere. The child had kept his parents awake all night with his crying and carrying on, and the parents to punish him filled the tub with scalding water and put him in. These parents filled the scalding water with their child to punish him and, scalding and scalded, he died crying out in tongues as I heard it reported on the radio on my way back from of all places church and prayed to almighty God to kick to pieces such a world or to kick to pieces Himself and His Son and His Holy Ghost world without end standing there by the side of that screaming tub and doing nothing while with his scrawny little buttocks bare, the hopeless little four-year-old whistle, the child was lowered in his mother's arms. I am acquainted with the reasons that theologians give and that I have given myself for why God does not, in the name of human freedom must not, by the very nature of things as he has himself established that nature cannot and will not, interfere in these sordid matters, but I prayed nonetheless for his interference.