Souls in the Dark: Theodicy and Domesticity in Home

Theodicy typically addresses the problem of evil in the public square, focusing on instances of paradigmatic evil that raise the issue broadly. Theodicy, however, also operates in the private sphere, where the conflict and chaos of family life raise doubts about God's goodness and power. Domest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Main Author: Scott, Mark S. M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI [2017]
In: Religions
Further subjects:B suffering love
B Theodicy
B Marilynne Robinson
B Gilead trilogy
B problem of evil
B Hope
B Stevens, John C.: Home
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Theodicy typically addresses the problem of evil in the public square, focusing on instances of paradigmatic evil that raise the issue broadly. Theodicy, however, also operates in the private sphere, where the conflict and chaos of family life raise doubts about God's goodness and power. Domestic suffering—here defined as the hurt, sorrows, and heartbreaks of family life, apart from domestic abuse, which belongs to a separate category—has often been neglected by theodicists. In this article, I will analyze Marilynne Robinson's fictional novel Home for insights into the problem of evil in the domestic realm. While it does not offer a domestic theodicy per se, Robinson's Home sheds light on the reality of suffering love and its bias toward hope, which charts new theological pathways in theodicy that have hitherto been underexplored.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel8120273