Justice in God, Man, Nature, Cosmos?

theodicy

anthropodicy

physiodicy

cosmodicy

Read from theologian J. Matthew Ashley: "In classical terms, this is to broach the problem of theodicy: how to think about God in the face of the presence of suffering in God's creation. After God's dethronement as the subject of history, the question rebounds to the new subject of history: the human being. As a consequence, theodicy becomes anthropodicy — justifications of our faith in humanity as the subject of history, in the face of the suffering that is so inextricably woven into the history that humanity makes. Mutatis mutandis, the universe story brings with it the need for a "cosmodicy." How do we think about the presence of suffering, on a massive scale, in the story of the cosmos, particularly when the cosmos itself is understood to be the subject of history? How do we justify our faith in the cosmos?

-- J. Matthew Ashley, "Reading the universe story theologically: the contribution of a biblical narrative imagination", Theological Studies, 2010, vol. 71, no. 4, pp. 870-902