Theodicy and Hope in Hans Frei's Theology

Abstract

Susan Neiman has argued that the problem of evil in modern European philosophy concerns the absence of intelligibility, meaning and justice that threatens the trust in the world we need to understand it and act in it. In light of Frei's reading of H. Richard Niebuhr's theology as theodicy in similar terms, we may read Frei’s own Christological understanding of providence as a kind of theodicy, at once sombre, hopeful and restrained, with a practical, political force.