The Relational Dimension of the Problem of Evil, and the Mystical Theodicy

Abstract

In this article, the author examines the problem of evil from the perspective of the antitheodicy, which is based on a critique of traditional approaches to the problem of evil. The article demonstrates the foundations of the antitheodicy and offers identification of the existential dimension of the problem of evil within the framework of religious life, expressed in the concept of “theological relational trauma”. From this perspective, the existential root of the problem of evil within the religious life consists in the discovery of the inability of an individual to love God. The author demonstrates how theoretical reflection on the problem of evil depends on the existential experience. The article also offers two solutions to the problem of evil, which are based on what can be characterized, under certain assumptions, as mystical experience. The author highlights the phenomenological properties of this mystical experience and demonstrates that it provides a solution to the existential problem of evil in the spirit of antitheodicy.