Kantian Anti-Theodicy and Job’s Sincerity

Abstract

Abstract. In his essay "On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy," Immanuel Kant uses the literary figures of Job and his "friends" in his argument against theodicies. According to Kant, Job's sincerity (rather than his patience in suffering) is his key virtue, in contrast to his "friends." Theodicies turn out to be insincere and therefore morally flawed. This article examines the problem of evil from a perspective integrating literary reading and philosophy, arguing that the Kantian ethical criticism of theodicism based on the Book of Job is highly relevant to contemporary discussions of evil and theodicy. IThis essay is based on a double perspective provided by literary reading and philosophy for approaching the problem of evil through a critical analysis of certain (philosophical and/or theological) texts and characters constructed and represented in them, particularly Kant's theodicy essay and its most important pre-text, the Book of Job. This methodology yields a novel approach to the familiar issue of theodicy vs.anti-theodicy. Our methodology differs from the more standard ways of examining philosophical ideas expressed in literature (for example, in works by such "philosophical" writers as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, or Siri Hustvedt). In the case discussed here, the use of literary figures and characters in a philosophical argument, rather than philosophical ideas and arguments in fictional literature, is central. Our discussion of the problem of evil and (anti-)theodicy seeks to show that certain ways of writing-especially of authoring a theodicy-could themselves be argued to exemplify moral vices and thereby to contribute to evil, instead of excusing or justifying it. That is, even intellectually

Anti-theodicies – An Adornian approach

“…Contemporary philosophers Kivistö and Pihlström (2017), for their part, refer to theodicies "as ethical failures of recognition." According to Kivistö and Pihlström, even the most noteworthy academic formulations of theodicy are subject to extirpating ethical criticism (Kivistö & Pihlström, 2016). The rejection of theodicies includes any atheist attempt to answer the problem of suffering (Kivistö & Pihlström, 2017).…”

“…The rejection of theodicies includes any atheist attempt to answer the problem of suffering (Kivistö & Pihlström, 2017). Because of the difficulty of doing justice to the experience of the sufferer through strictly intellectual, philosophical arguments, Kivistö and Pihlström (2016) develop an alternative approach to the problem of suffering (theodicy vs. anti-theodicy), in which the philosophical arguments are enriched with figures and characters from (selected) classical literature. Samuel Todes (2001) also makes use of the integration of "a great novelist" perspective when we try to make sense of the inconceivable suffering that took place in Auschwitz in an ethically sound manner.…”

“…An anti-theodicean account developed by Kivistö and Pihlström is, to a large extent, my starting point in the first section of the paper. Along the lines of Kivistö and Pihlström (2016;2017) and Pihlström (2020), I argue that theodicy as a viewpoint, independent of its intention, does injustice to the experience of the sufferer. It does so by "explaining away" the subjective and intimate experience of the sufferer, as it places that experience in the service of some greater good (e.g., to allow God to cultivate an individual or humankind) and wrongly places the sufferer in the background (see Kivistö & Pihlström, 2017).…”

Transcendental Anti-Theodicy

“…Even anti-theodicy itself in the Kantian sense based on the idea of sincerity or truthfulness, thematized (according to Kant 1791) in the Book of Job (cf. Kivistö and Pihlström 2016), will be vulnerable if the notion of truth is in danger. Kant (1791) praises the Book of Job for highlighting the moral virtues of sincerity and truthfulness (Aufrichtigkeit), which, in contrast to the traditional virtue of patience, he regards as Job's key virtues in contrast to his friends' theodicist speeches that seek to justify Job's meaningless suffering by arguing that God must have had a good reason to let him suffer.…”