Thanks so very much to all readers of Per Crucem ad Lucem who took the time to contribute a richly-helpful smorgasboard of readings and films in response to my previous post. This has been enormously helpful (and encouraging) and I’ve spent much of today checking out some of these suggestions (including some really obvious ommissions to my original list) and building a fuller list which I hope to keep adding to in the coming months. Again, additional suggestions are most welcome.
Books/Essays
- Adams, Marilyn McCord. Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology, Current Issues in Theology. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
- Adams, Marilyn McCord. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
- Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics III.3. Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and R.J. Ehrlich. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960, pp. 289–368.
- Bauckham, Richard. ‘“Only the Suffering God can Help”: Divine Passibility in Modern Theology’. Themelios 9, no. 3 (1984): 6–12.
- Bauckham, Richard. ‘Divine Suffering’, Pages 47–69 in The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995.
- Bauckham, Richard. ‘Theodicy’, Pages 71–98 in The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995.
- Beker, J. Christiaan. Suffering and Hope: The Biblical Vision of the Human Predicament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.
- Berdyaev, Nicolas. The Meaning of History. Translated by George Reavey. London: Bles, 1936.
- Blocher, Henri. Evil and the Cross: Christian Thought and the Problem of Evil. Translated by David G. Preston. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
- Cairns, Scott. The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain. Brewster: Paraclete Press, 2009.
- Camus, Albert. The Plague. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
- Cicovacki, Predrag. ‘Searching for the Abandoned Soul: Dostoyevsky on the Suffering of Humanity’, Pages 367-98 in The Enigma of Good and Evil: The Moral Sentiment in Literature. Edited by A.-T. Tymieniecka. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.
- Carson, Don A. How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
- Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Book of Job. With an introduction by G.K. Chesterton. London: Wellwood Books, 1907.
- Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Twentieth Century Classics. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Davies, Brian. The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil. London: Continuum, 2006.
- Davis, Stephen T., ed. Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981.
- de Gruchy, John W. Theology and Ministry in Context and Crisis: A South African Perspective. London: Collins, 1987, pp. 96–124.
- Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by C. McDuff. London: Penguin, 1993.
- Fabricius, Kim. Propositions on Christian Theology: A Pilgrim Walks the Plank. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2008, pp. 43–8.
- Farley, Edward. Good and Evil: Interpreting a Human Condition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
- Ferré, Nels. Evil and the Christian Faith. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
- Fiddes, Paul S. The Creative Suffering of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
- Fiddes, Paul S. ‘The Vulnerable God and the Problem of Suffering’, Pages 152–90 in Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity. London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2000.
- Forsyth, Peter T. The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy. London: Independent Press, 1957.
- Gavrilyuk, Paul L. The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Gutiérrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1987.
- Hardy, Thomas. ‘Hap’, Pages 1–2 in Thomas Hardy. Edited by Samuel Hynes. The Oxford Authors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
- Hardy, Thomas. ‘Nature’s Questioning’, Pages 23–4 in Thomas Hardy. Edited by Samuel Hynes. The Oxford Authors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
- Hardy, Thomas. ‘To an Unborn Pauper Child’, Pages 56–7 in Thomas Hardy. Edited by Samuel Hynes. The Oxford Authors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
- Hart, David Bentley. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005.
- Hart, David Bentley. ‘No Shadow of Turning: On Divine Impassibility’. Pro Ecclesia 11, no. 2 (2002): 184–206.
- Hart, David Bentley, Revolutionary Christianity and its alternatives (Video, 2010).
- Hasker, William. Providence, Evil, and the Openness of God, Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. London/New York: Routledge, 2004.
- Hauerwas, Stanley. God, Medicine, and Suffering. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994.
- Hauerwas, Stanley. ‘Should Suffering Be Eliminated? What the Retarded Have to Teach Us (1984)’, Pages 556–76 in The Hauerwas Reader. Edited by John Berkman and Michael G. Cartwright. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
- Hewetson, David. Why Does a Good God Allow Suffering? Sutherland: Albatross Books, 1992.
- Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. London/New York: Macmillan & Co./Harper & Row, 1966.
- Inwagen, Peter Van, ed. Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004.
- Kitamori, Kazō. Theology of the Pain of God. London: SCM Press, 1966.
- Kolitz, Zvi. Yosl Rakover Talks to God. New York: Vintage, 2000.
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil. Translated by 1875–90 E.M. Huggard from C.J. Gerhardt’s edition of the Collected Philosophical Works. La Salle: Open Court, 1985.
- Leow, Theng Huat. ‘The Theodicy of Peter Taylor Forsyth: A “Crucial” Justification of the Ways of God to Man’. PhD, University of St Andrews, 2009.
- Levenson, Jǒn Douglas. Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
- Lewis, Alan E. Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001.
- Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. London: Collins, 1966.
- Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
- MacKinnon, Donald M. ‘Order and Evil in the Gospel’, Pages 90–96 in Borderlands of Theology and Other Essays. Edited by George W. Roberts and Donovan E. Smucker. Philadelphia/New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968.
- MacKinnon, Donald M. ‘Atonement and Tragedy’, Pages 97–104 in Borderlands of Theology and Other Essays. Edited by George W. Roberts and Donovan E. Smucker. Philadelphia/New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968.
- McGill, Arthur. Suffering: A Test of Theological Method. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1982.
- McGrath, Alistair E. Suffering. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
- McKenna, John E. ‘God and The Nothingness’. Quodlibet Journal 2, no. 3 (2000). Online: http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/mckenna-nothingness.shtml.
- Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. Translated by R.A. Wilson and John Bowden. London: SCM, 1974.
- Moltmann, Jürgen. Godless Theology. Online: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2007.
- Neiman, Susan. Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
- Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom and Evil. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977.
- Rahner, Karl. ‘Why Does God Allow Us to Suffer?’ Pages 194–208 in Theological Investigations, Volume XIX: Faith and Ministry. Translated by Edward Quinn. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
- Richmond, Kent D. Preaching to Sufferers: God and the Problem of Pain. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988.
- Ricœur, Paul. Evil: A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology. Translated by John Bowden. New York: Continuum, 2007.
- Rodin, R. Scott. Evil and Theodicy in the Theology of Karl Barth. Bern: Peter Lang, 1997.
- Rowe, William L., ed. God and the Problem of Evil. Malden: Blackwell, 2001.
- Sarot, Marcel. God, Passibility and Corporeality, Studies in Philosophical Theology. Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1992.
- Sölle, Dorothee. Suffering. Translated by E. Kalin. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975.
- Stringfellow, William. A Simplicity of Faith: My Experience in Mourning. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2005.
- Surin, Kenneth. ‘The Impassibility of God and the Problem of Evil’. Scottish Journal of Theology 35, no. 2 (1982): 97–115.
- Surin, Kenneth. Theology and the Problem of Evil, Signposts in Theology. Oxford/New York: Blackwell, 1986.
- Tilley, Terrence W. The Evils of Theodicy. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2000.
- Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
- Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. London: Harper Perennial, 2001.
- Weinandy, Thomas. Does God Suffer? Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
- Wenham, John W. The Enigma of Evil: Can We Believe in the Goodness of God? Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985.
- Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Stella Rodway. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1960.
- Wolterstorff, Nicholas P. Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1987.
- Wright, N.T. Evil and the Justice of God. Leicester: IVP, 2006.
Film
[Updated: 26 April 2010]
jasongoroncy.com 
A fine piece on suffering is Simone Weil’s essay, “The Love of God and Affliction,” found I believe in The Simone Weil Reader. An abridged version is found in Waiting on God. She argues from experience that intense suffering can be a way to Christ, an unwelcome way, but a way nevertheless.
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This is a fantastic bibliography. I’m doing a MTh thesis on Paul Fiddes’ Doctrine of God and this list has given me some new titles I hadn’t heard of – thank you.
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Another possible late addition – Jungel’s “God as the Mystery of the World”.
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I find that the best textbook for a course on theodicy is still John Hick’s Evil and the God of Love (2nd ed.) (1977). It needs, of course, to be accompanied by more recent literature for the students to have a holistic feel of the subject. However, for a basic introduction, it remains, in my view, unsurpassed. A key article summarising the state of theodicy in the West after the Holocaust is Richard Bauckham’s “Theodicy” in his The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann (1995). In it he mentions some key modern texts – in addition to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Wiesel’s Night, there are Camus’ The Rebel and Wiesel’s other book Twilight. Moltmann’s The Trinity and the Kingdom (1981) has important statements on theodicy in addition to his The Crucified God. Karl Rahner’s article “Why Does God allow us to Suffer” is his Theological Investigations, Vol. 19 (1983) might also be worth looking at. You might also want to introduce some readings on Open Theism’s response to evil (e.g. books by Gregory Boyd, Clark Pinnock etc.) They can be painful to read, but Open Theism seems a popular movement (at least in the States), and it might be good to make some mention of it in a course on theodicy. And finally, how can we leave out the person who coined the term “theodicy” itself – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil.
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No DMM? It is probably best to approach his material after reading say CD III/3 and some von Balthasar (who is also missing). Two pieces that might be worth looking at are: “Evil and the Vulnerability of God”. Philosophy 62 (Jan., 1987), 102 and “Eternal Loss”. New Blackfriars (Nov., 1988), 472-478, which I can send to you if you want. And of course there are the essays on tragedy and theology. There is a very good book by Anthony Cane comparing Barth’s treatment of Judas with MacKinnon’s, called The Place of Judas Iscariot in Christology (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2005). One further thing: if you are reading Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, you might find DMM’s review in The Oxford Magazine 59 (May 8, 1941), 286 (which I also have a copy of) interesting. He contends (rightly I think) that Lewis has mis-located the theological problem.
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oh yes… and Lord Sutherland’s book on D’s Brother’s Karamazov. or you could just get your students to listen to bach’s b-minor mass, mozart’s requiem, and the entire coltrane catalogue.
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Andre, thanks heaps for those suggestions. Did you not notice the MacKinnon piece – ‘Atonement and Tragedy’ – that I included? I’d be delighted to have copies of the other reading you mentioned. Thanks for the heads up too about Anthony Cane’s book. Sounds fascinating and very check-out-able. BTW, I’m hoping to hit your work this weekend.
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ah, i see you do mention it. The essays DMM mentions in footnote to that paper – “Subjective and Objective Conceptions of Atonement” (in F. G. Healey (ed.), Prospects for Theology (London: Nisbet, 1966), and “Theology and Tragedy”, Religious Studies 2 (April, 1967), 163-169, reprinted in MacKinnon’s The Stripping of the Altars), are also worth looking at. The three essays form a kind of trilogy. The book by the Jewish philosopher, D. Daiches Raphael (who, interestingly, spent some time teaching philosophy in Dunedin), The Paradox of Tragedy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1960) is worth reading, because there you find a quite strong argument that tragedy is in the end incommensurable with the commitments of Christian faith. I’ll send you copies of the articles I mentioned earlier. One more thing (sorry I’m going on and on…), but some of Iris Murdoch’s work might be relevant too. Do you remember that quote of hers mentioned by John Webster, I think in one of his books on Barth? Something to the effect that we needed quite concrete accounts of sin. Which reminds me… you get that sort of thing in Butler’s sermons don’t you? They ought to be mandatory in any course dealing with topic related to Christian ethics, and I guess a course in theodicy is somewhere on the borderlands between theology, ethics, and metaphysics. Oh, and you absolutely MUST include Gillian Rose’s Love’s Work.
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Has Christopher Southgate’s “Groaning of Creation” been mentioned? It’s an interesting look into evolution and the problem of evil.
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Hello Jason, thanks so much for this diversification of sources on theodicy. I was working on the syllabus for my class on theodicy and saw that most of what I would’ve included (in the bibliography) you already had. Thx so much as I am going to use your outline in my bibliography. Hope this finds you as a compliment. :) Brian McKenzie
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You’re welcome Brian. I’m delighted that it can be of some use. Hope that the teaching goes well. Always happy to share notes too ;-)
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Hey man, no worries and thx again Jason. I’m a professor and Th.D. candidate at Beth Rapha Christian College and Theological Seminary in NY, USA. My Church is reformed in its theology but Pentecostal in its worship experience (lol). What a mix huh??? Well at any rate it is so good to have made this contact and I am so greatful that you reached back to me so soon. My research project is on ascetic theology and modern therapeutic approaches to healing addiction. What are you currently working on???
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@Brian: I’m currently completing a couple of books on PT Forsyth, preparing lectures on Calvin, and on models of pastoral care.
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