The Evils of Theodicy

Using speech-act theory, Tilley reveals the practical and moral presuppositions and implications behind the communicative actions of speaking and writing that have yielded our classic texts relating God and evils: the Book of Job, Augustine's Enchiridion, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Hume's Dialogues, and George Eliot's Adam Bede. Tilley's analysis shows how distant the powerful speech acts embedded in these texts are from the Enlightenment discourse which has translated them into theodicy discourse. For too long theodicists have created a picture that misportrays the evils in God's world by dividing evil neatly into human sin and natural suffering. Such a picture obscures and even legitimates the "social sin" and "evil practices" which corrupt and destroy humans individually and collectively. The point of The Evils of Theodicy is not only to describe the theodicists' world but to change it radically.