Nietzsche famously proclaimed in The Gay Science: "God is dead". According to Nietzsche, by our very own actions, we have made God unnecessary in our world. Science, so it seemed, had progressed to provide atheological answers to the origin, purpose and even end of the universe and all biological life. Psychology began exploring the depths of the human mind with scientific detail, largely now dispelling notions of "free will" in neuroscience. Economics and sociology began providing scientific responses to how humans emerge in groups and interact. So as Nietzsche saw it, we had progressed to that point when we had killed off God. "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms."
Thing is, Nietzsche, even as an atheist, was doing theology. We're all theologians -- even if we don't believe in God.
Whenever there's a tragedy, we grope for answers. How can children be sold into the sex trade? Why do we allow the economic suffering of the poor? Why did Adam Lanza shoot up Sandyhook Elementary one year ago? In the aftermath of horrible events, we revisit them, in search of answers.
That search is the theological task of theodicy. But now, our theodicies are atheistic. Even our Christian ones.
Recently, someone posted about the suffering of children. She then proceeded to say that her prayer is that Jesus returns soon to end it all.
Beneath that prayer, of course, is a theodicy. Why do bad things happen? Where is God in all of it?
It seems she believes God is remote. Somewhere off, away from the suffering itself. This, I think, is the real atheism. Christians who have removed -- just as Neitzsche said -- God from the world. Now we do our theodicy (which is to say our theology) as practical atheists. God becomes nothing more than an abstract intellectual affirmation.
Ours is now a secular theodicy, but a theodicy nonetheless.
I take the Bible seriously. Which means I take Matthew 25 seriously: "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" (25.45). Whenever we see suffering and death, ours is to join in. In joining, we find God is there all along. My God isn't some absentee accountant, keeping a moral inventory of suffering, whose return brings a swift end to tormentors. My God is in the very depths of all suffering -- "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me" -- and calls us to join in as co-laborers in the Kingdom's work.
A biblical theodicy understands God's patience in waiting to return as itself an act of salvation. "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3.9). The problem of theodicy isn't in God's waiting to alleviate it. He is already working to transform the world (Romans 8). The issue of suffering --the problem of theodicy -- is with us, with Christians.
Instead of praying for God's return, I pray, "Thy will be done on earth". I'm not waiting for the final score. My vocation as a Christian is to live as an agent of reconciliation now (2 Corinthians 5).
The trouble, of course, comes when I view this living in isolation from the rest of God's people. Alone, we can do little. For this reason, Christians must recover the depth of an ecclesial soul: "The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul" (Acts 4.32). Together, we are agents of reconciliation.
The problem of the secular theodicy -- and the problem of modern atheism generally -- is that we Christians have given the world so little to believe. If you think God is remote and removed from suffering, you've already given over the faith for something cheap.
God doesn't have to swoop to the rescue. He's there, in the very heart of the suffering. Are we going to look? Are we going to do something?
Those are the questions of the Gospel. And they're the questions at the heart of theodicy.