Theological Theodicy

Book excerpt: The question of God's relationship to evil is a long-running one in the history of Christianity, and the term often deployed for this task has been theodicy. The way theodicy has historically been pursued, however, has been problematic on a number of counts. Most significantly, these efforts have generally been insufficiently theological. This work hopes to subvert and reconfigure the theodical task in a way that can be accessible to nonspecialists. Overall, the book hopes to cast the "god" of theodicy as the triune God of Christian confession, a move that shapes and alters distinctly all that follows in what has traditionally been considered a philosophical matter.