Theodicy, Theopathy and Theorevolt: for a cartography of evil in times of coronavirus

ABSTRACT

The current context raises different theological interpretations about the presence of God in the midst of the suffering caused by the pandemic cycle that we are experiencing. Such interpretations include concepts related to God, suffering, evil, judgment, sin and salvation. Theodicy has been the predominant interpretative paradigm of these metaphysically apathetic, omnipotent relationships and divine goodness amid suffering. A theopathy represents a second form of theological interpretation of this relationship with a proportion of radical questions about metaphysical statements about divine impassibility and omnipotence and God's approach to the suffering and death of the innocent. We propose that the inversion of omnipotence operated by theopathy, in the form of the omnipotence of love, still operates in the logic of theodicy and points to a theorevolt as a possibility of overcoming theodicy and transfiguring the theopathy to think about the theological experience of God and evil in times of Covid-19.