This paper is indebted to Terrence Tilley in at least two ways.� First, in his monograph, The Evils of Theodicy,[1] he argues against the adequacy of highly abstract theodicies which intentionally distance themselves from pastoral and practice-oriented questions.� This proposal seeks to reconnect theodicy reflection with questions related to practice.� Second, I take his cue that while there may be a place for a defense of the faith with regard to evil, it should not include proposing an explanation of why God permits evils.[2]� The direction of the Christian tradition and the shape of Christian practice with regard to evil insist that the �why� question remains open and unanswered.

While I reflect elsewhere about the implications of this method,[3] in this paper I intend to present a constructive proposal which displays the type of reflection that can occur if one takes these basic assumptions from Tilley.� I describe how the space opened up by an unanswered theodicy question has both theological and practice-oriented dimensions.� In essence, I intend to show how the question of suffering becomes a lived question in compassionate action toward the sufferer, which implicitly claims that �this is not the way things are supposed to be.�� This is an action of protest�both against evil and against God, or at least against the delay of God�s full reign.� Yet, I contend that essential to this protest is the affirmation of trust�like in the biblical Psalms�of God�s power and goodness.�

My strategy for explaining this proposal is through giving a critical examination of John Roth�s provocative essay, �A Theodicy of Protest.�[4]� Roth�s passionate, existentially sensitive piece has established the dubious distinction since its 1981 publication of being one of the only representatives of the position in theodicy discussions in which God is omnipotent, but God is not good.� Although I do not agree with Roth�s final conclusion, Roth�s concern for the notion of protest and for discussing theodicy in a concrete sense make him a fruitful partner for dialogue in expositing my proposal.

Roth has a relentless sense that any appropriate discussion of theodicy must be honest about actual historical evils.� Giving examples from the holocaust in which suffering demeans and destroys, Roth quotes Hegel affirmingly that �history is �the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of people, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed.��[5]� How does one account for God permitting such horrors?� The key word here is �permitting,� because Roth feels that preventing the horrors is exactly what God could have done.� Roth quotes Mark 10:27 where Jesus claims that �everything is possible for God.�� Roth points to the Exodus and the Resurrection as ways in which God has interrupted the course of history for redemptive purposes.� Yet, �God�s saving acts in the world are too few and far between.�� For �if God raised Jesus from the dead, he had the might to thwart the Holocaust long before it ended.�[6]

As one might suspect from these comments, Roth is not tempted to look toward process theology for a solution.� The process God is not the scriptural one who Roth thinks is genuinely portrayed as almighty, and even though process theologians can explain the problem of evil, the God they are left with �is hardly worth bothering about.�[7]� Rather, Roth�s protest is against a God who is almighty and is fully able to intervene against evil, but chooses not to.� Of course, the traditional response to Roth�s concern is that God limits himself by endowing human beings with free will.� Thus, God is not responsible for the evil that humans cause.� But this �free will defense,� does not release God from culpability.� To the contrary, Roth argues that when one considers the concrete byproducts of free will, there are terrible things for which God is responsible.� Roth writes:

Richard L. Rubstein�s penetrating study of the Holocaust, The Cunning of History, makes the following observation: �Until ethical theorists and theologians are prepared to face without sentimentality the kind of action it is possible freely to perpetrate under conditions of utter respectability in an advanced, contemporary society, none of their assertions about the existence of moral norms will have much credibility.�� The inference I want to draw from Rubenstein�s assertion is this: human freedom has been used as God�s defense; in fact, it is crucial in his offense.[8]

In other words, for Roth God�s gift of freedom is none other than the gift of his absence, of leaving humanity behind precisely when divine intervention is needed.� God is thus morally culpable for this terrible gift�s consequences.� God is guilty.� Roth asserts that no matter what transformation takes place in paradise, the cost of human freedom is simply too high.� God should not have given it if it were to result in the crushing suffering and death of horrific events.

Thus, Roth is very similar to Ivan in Dostoevsky�s The Brother�s Karamazov.� Ivan argues that the cost of an innocent child suffering �to buy eternal harmony� for others is too high a price to pay for free will.^[9]� Ivan claims that his problem is not with God per se, but with God�s creation.� �It�s not God that I do not accept, you understand, it is this world of God�s, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept.�[10]

For Ivan, the horrors happening in creation simply cannot be justified.� If horrors are to be used in the end to create a higher harmony in heaven, then that is �too high a price on harmony; we can�t afford to pay so much for admission.� And therefore I hasten to return my ticket.�[11]� For Ivan to �return his ticket� means that he rejects the whole theistic framework which he feels is belittling to horrors.� Roth, struggling with a similar problem, rejects the goodness of God, while still affirming God�s existence and power.

Some of the reason that Roth clings to his God, though morally tarnished, is that God continues to provide the rationale for protest against evil in the world.� In The Rebel, Camus develops how Ivan moves from rejecting God for the sake of justice, to asserting that �everything is permitted.�� �The same man [Ivan] who so violently took the part of innocence, who trembled at the suffering of a child�from the moment that he rejects divine coherence and tries to discover his own rule of life, recognizes the legitimacy of murder�.� If all is permitted, he can kill his father or at least allow him to be killed.�[12]� At least in Dostoevsky�s narrative, Ivan is unable to sustain his high standard of justice�his rationale for protest against evil--after he rejects theism.� Roth does not want this deterioration to happen.� With Roth�s proposal, the protest is both vertical and horizontal and the two directions nurture each other.� Having an almighty God who promises good gifts assures that when evil happens, it will be seen as a scandal, something deeply out of place.� A compassionate response to the sufferer is a way of protesting to God that the evil is happening�and of course that same compassionate response is a protest against the perpetrators of the evil.� Roth wants to avoid both Ivan�s atheism and a Christian theodicy because both undermine his ground for double-protest.� With Ivan�s atheism, one can no longer protest against God about evil, and evil faces the danger of being normalized rather than treated as a scandal.� For a Christian theodicy that proposes a morally sufficient reason for God to permit evil, the grounds for protest against God and potentially against evil are threatened.� In this type of theodicy, the Psalmic cry of lament over evil is silenced as an explanation is given of how evil functions to provide a greater good.

Roth frames his proposal by using the language of putting God on trial.� Like Job, Roth has asked for his day in court with God to make his case against the divine.� Yet, before the case is over, Roth has declared God guilty.� The evidence is sufficiently clear that, as far as he can tell, God is in the wrong.� But Roth does not leave the courtroom and does not stop setting his case against God.� Why persist?� It seems that Roth has the sneaking suspicion, or perhaps the hope that he is wrong about his assessment of God�s moral life.� In describing the sort of protest we should give, Roth says that we have a �mandate to say what we feel [to God], and we must...so long as we speak for the sake of human well-being.� When dissent is raised in that spirit, its rebellious care may grip God�s heart.�[13]

Roth�s comment here is reminiscent of another courtroom situation in the New Testament.� In the eighteenth chapter of Luke�s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a Judge who �neither feared God nor had respect for the people� (18:2) There was a widow who was calling for justice against her opponent, but the judge was not responsive.� The widow was persistent, not leaving the judge alone.� So finally �because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming� (18:5).� In this way, Roth is right in thinking that God desires our complaint and our protest, and that it may �grip God�s heart.�� However, even in encouraging complaints, Jesus means to highlight the difference between the �unjust judge� and the Father--that if an unjust judge will respond to persistence by giving justice, how much more will God give justice to those who are persistent!� (18:6-8)

There is a question, however, about whether Roth has really established a rationale to continue protesting and complaining to God.� Why should one be persistent in complaining like the widow?� Why not leave the courtroom?� For the sake of those who have suffered horrifically, Roth feels he must be strong in his declaration that God has a dark side--one that will never appear as light.� For Roth, faith is risky business not only because God �stays hidden, absent� but because God is not �wholly good.� [14]

My sense is that Roth is right in saying that believers often experience the absence and hiddenness of God.� Roth is also right in saying that the God of the Bible wants humans to struggle and even fight with the divine�from Moses to the widow in Luke, scripture indicates that it is not only permissible but advisable to argue and protest with God.� But what makes persons who experience God�s absence cry out for the divine presence?� Is it not necessary to have a measure of trust in divine goodness?� I sense that it is not accident that Psalms of lament conventionally conclude with an affirmation of trust in God�s goodness and power.� The Psalms bitterly complain about God�s absence�about God�s lack of intervention�and the way in which God�s promises do not appear to be coming true.� But they are held together by the affirmations of trust�trust that God is able to do something about the troubles and that God would be responsive to the human plea.[15]�

What is at stake here is not just the rationale for repeatedly complaining to God, but whether it is sustainable for Roth to have any protest at all.� Roth wants to be in the posture of struggling with God and fighting against evil�and in both proclaiming that �this is not the way things are supposed to be.�� But Roth has already answered the theodicy question.� He has already handed in his verdict as guilty.� In a sense, he reverses Paul�s logic in Romans 8:18 to say that whatever eschatological goods are to come are not worthy to be compared with the suffering which has befallen us.� If this is the case, it is not clear why one would turn to this morally insufficient God, particularly when one is in need.� As one critic says, Roth�s God becomes �a grossly negligent murderer� (24) unworthy of trust particularly if one is vulnerable and suffering.

I sense that Roth�s mistake is in saying too much in the space of the theodicy question, which should remain open.� In the midst of suffering, God may seem absent and evil exercises a tyrannical reign.� The sufferer, and persons around her need to cry out the Psalmic lament, �my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?�� In protest against evil and God�s apparent absence, the Christian identifies with the sufferer empathetically, saying through her action that �this should not have happened.�� What happens when one comes up with a practice-oriented or theological answer to the question, �why is this evil happening?�� In Roth�s case, its answer is that God is not trustworthy enough to prevent what God should prevent.� Yet, if the Psalms are to be the church�s prayerbook, and if identifying with the sufferer in empathetic protest is a Christian way of responding to evil, the question �why is this evil happening?� needs to continue to be asked, but should not be answered.

According to Moltmann, the Christian �will not rest content with any slickly explanatory answer to the theodicy question. And he will also resist any attempts to soften the question down. The more a person believes, the more deeply he experiences pain over the suffering in the world, and the more passionately he asks about God and the new creation.�[16]

In this way, an open theodicy question becomes a lived question�protesting against God�s apparent absence by helping the sufferer, while simultaneously acting in hope that God will show himself good on his promises.

Before I conclude, I would like to clarify with several comments about what my proposal entails, and what it does not entail.� My proposal presents three features which should characterize theological reflection on the problem of evil.� First, the notion of protest against evil and simultaneously protest against the delay of God�s reign should be an essential feature of theodicy-reflection.� I agree with Roth�s insight that the two forms of protest (vertical and horizontal) are mutually enriching to each other.� Both Roth and Ivan are right in their moral indignation about horrendous evils, and theodicy reflection should seek to find grounds by which the protest can be repeated, like the persistent complaining of the woman in Luke 18.[17]� Thus, my second positive proposal is that in order to make repeated protest sustainable, the believer needs to hold together her protest with an affirmation of trust in God�s power and goodness.� The third part of my positive proposal is that an open theodicy question�informed by the theology of the first two positive dimensions�becomes a lived question for Christian practice.� The Christian�s concrete response to suffering�through coming close to the sufferer in compassion�is a way of asking the problem of evil through one�s action.� It simultaneously asserts that �this evil should not be happening,� and yet expresses an audacious hope for God�s promises in the face of God�s apparent absence.

Negatively, my proposal entails refusing to �answer� the theodicy question, if the question is framed in terms of finding the reasons that God has permitted evil to have the reign that it does.� God may have reasons.� Philosophers of religion like Alvin Plantinga have provided helpful explanations of how it can be rational for a Christian to believe in a good, almighty God even if she does not know the reasons for permitting evil.� The focus of this paper, although compatible with that approach, is rather to show some features of a post-Tilleyian theological account of the problem of suffering.�

Yet, even Tilley�s work cannot claim to be original in its emphasis upon treating the problem of suffering in a concrete manner that refuses to postulate God�s reasons for suffering.� Jurgen Moltmann shares the desire to avoid an answer to the theodicy question.� He has developed his practice-oriented theological reflection on the problem of evil in his doctrine of God (through divine passibility) and Christology.[18]� For Moltmann, Christ himself becomes alienated from God the Father, presenting his protest from the cross of �my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?�� Thus, even in experiencing alienation from God under the crushing weight of evil, one is identifying with Christ.� Yet, although features of the problem of suffering influence much of Moltmann�s theological reflection, he keeps with his plea above to �resist any attempts to soften the question down.�� In this way, Moltmann�s approach is a possible supplement to my proposal, although the basic features of my positive and negative proposal do not commit one way or another on questions of divine passibility and Christology.

Thus, my proposal entails bringing certain positive features and also certain negative limits to theological reflection about theodicy.� Central to this project should be the continuing reflection on the protesting cry of the sufferer, and how that cry interfaces with Christian faith and practice.