Trying to say something new or relevant about theodicy is tantamount to attempting to say something creative about Franz Kafka or Radiohead. I love talking and writing about these artists, so here goes an attempt to talk about theodicy in light of the Jewish fast, Tisha B'Av, a fast on the 9th of the Jewish month of Av that commemorates the destruction of the Temple, among other national tragedies.
For the most part, people tend to think of theodicy as a settled matter, one way or the other. Either, the weight of evil proves so the absence of a god, or the irrelevance of god so conclusively that it obviates the need for further discussion, or the matter requires too much metaphysical speculation and Talmudic casuistic thinking that it provides nothing but the most superficial of intellectual answers. The only people who actually speak about theodicy in any sort of dynamic manner are the theologians of today who in general few people read. We find ourselves in theodicy limbo. The question retains its importance and its complexity, while we feel that no answer could even begin to provide solace or intellectual satisfaction.
After the Holocaust, most thinkers slowly realized the paucity of any previous answer to attempt to justify the ways of God in the eyes of man. Consequently, they opted to explain that though an answer exists, we cannot, with our limited human understanding, possibly fathom the divine reasons for the way of the world. Instead of focusing on the vexing questions, they explain, we should focus on how we can better both ourselves and the world. To an extent, this type of answer respects human dignity while at the same time it undercuts our human intellect. It posits that we would never deign to deny the pain and suffering or attempt to explain it away through a simplistic understanding of evil as tit for tat for sin. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, one of the unsung thinkers of Jewish thought in the 20th century, stated that any sort of theodicy you would not feel comfortable saying to a parent who lost their child is not any sort of theodicy we can endorse. Theodicy must not only provide academic answers but emotional solace.
However, this type of thought also treats human beings as limited, and sets boundaries to human thought. They tell us both based on authority and experience not to delve into these mysteries of the infinite. It will provide nothing but frustration. But to whom will this suffice? We never think of the horrors of tragedy until it relates to us personally, but when it does, how many of us can truly take heart in the eternal mercy of a God we cannot ever in this lifetime understand? So much of our religious personalities these day centers on the questions we can ask, and if we take away the ability to ask this basic question then we deprive religious man of the great founts of religious frustration and inspiration.
Yet, what other options do we have? No one in the history of thought has ever created a coherent, accepted and holistic thought of theodicy. Even on an intellectual level, every answer in the long tradition has not stood the test of time. We like to think of Judaism as a unique religion that espouses a theology of protest, but a even a cursory glance at the history of Jewish thought belies this assertion.
If so, where does this leave us? It appears to leave us in a constant state of ambivalence. Even if we want to embrace a godly world, a world in which a divine being cares about us, about our children, our worries, our world, we must confront this unanswerable question. Enter the scroll of Lamentations.
Lamentations, one of the five scrolls in the Jewish Bible, is a response to the destruction of the first Temple. Written in a dense, terse, poetically rich and complex five chapters, it has been a challenging text since its appearance. To then attempt to extract a theodicy from Lamentations seems like a losing endeavor. Despite all of this, I contend that Lamentations offers an interesting model of engagement with theodicy that both respects human dignity and our human intellect.
The most curious part of Lamentations, besides its jarring poetics, is its lack of narrative coherence. At first glance, as many academics note, it's hard to fathom how these five chapters fit together. If we look at these chapters in a holistic sense in terms of their stance on theodicy, we see the same phenomenon. The first chapter largely consists of classic sin theodicy (see verse five) in which the narrator easily accepts the justice of God's punishment. Yet, chapter 2 turns a 180. Chapter 2 of Lamentations signifies one of the harshest chapters in the whole Bible. In it, the narrator rails, yells, screams at God that he destroyed without any mercy (a phrase that is repeated no less than five times). Twice, God is referred to as the enemy of the Jewish people, and at the end God is a God who can watch mothers eat their children in the streets without intervening. This is the theodicy of protest, not of sin or of acceptance. This same vacillating pattern repeats itself through the rest of the book numerous times. How though can we reconcile these conflicting strands. Scholars give numerous answers all of which make sense.
One answer simply explains that these voices represent temporal stages. Who says that these chapters need to have been written at the same time. In fact, it is clear from the text itself that chapter five was written with hindsight, with some distance from the tragedy. If so, then perhaps, these different sentiments arise at different points in the stage of national mourning.
Another answer, in a similar vein, doesn't see this as a temporal continuity but as the varied, layered and complex feelings of a mourner. A mourner, at any given moment can feel both a sense of justice and a sense of injustice, anger and love can mingle with ease in the life and mind of a mourner. Consequently, given the disarray of life after the temple it would be shocking if we found any a coherent theodicy.
To modify this answer, we need to think of Lamentations as more of a dialogic text. Mikhail Bakhtin, a famous Russian literary theorist, explicated a dialogic theory of literature in which certain texts can be read as engaging in an active, dynamic dialogue with previous texts, with itself and with readers. To that, we can add that often in biblical texts there is a dialogue with God. This helps explain a curious facet of Lamentations. Despite the harsh sentiments, the narrator turns from talking before or about God to talking to God (see chapter 2 verse 19 for the most jarring example of this). Almost out of nowhere, after attacking the ways of God, the narrator will urge that we all turn to God and pour out our hearts. You can understand that these turns toward God soften the anger of the texts, but alternatively, you can understand that they frame the anger in the text in dialogues. What allows Jeremiah to oscillate between positions is not simply the complex emotions of a mourner over time, but as well, an extended conversation with God about theodicy. Theodicy, according to this, gains its importance not only as answer to an impossible question, but as an ongoing issue to discuss with God.
Theodicy is not something abstract that resides outside the realm of our messy reality, but neither is it simply a prod to do better deeds. We are owed an answer for the Holocaust, and for all tragedy. God, in this scheme, does not want us to let him off the hook. Rather, what he desires an engaged conversation with Him.
Theodicy is an endless prompt to deepen and broaden our relationship with God. Just as a husband and wife who don't fight but let their wounds fester will experience backlash, so too in our relationship with God, often referred to as a marriage relationshi,p demands that we discuss everything, whether our joy or our anger in the experience of life. It is an essential part of our ongoing conversation with God.