Davenport, Kierkegaard, Hough, and the Problem of Evil

Abstract: This essay responds to ideas in a later portion of Sheridan Hough’s book, Kierkegaard's Dancing Tax Collector. It reviews the difficulty of discerning Kierkegaard's position on the theological problem of evil in its tradiional forms. As a way into this tangle, I focus on the theme of “good and perfect gifts” that Hough develops. I then review several approaches to theodicy that respond to the existential aspect of the problem of evil, looking for resonances with Kierkegaard’s themes. This analysis rules out simple “soul-making” approaches and any theodicy that implies a divine fine-tailoring of evils that human beings and animals experience. Instead, I conclude that a Kierkegaardian approach that takes the existential problem seriously should focus on free will and what is nomologically possible in a law-governed universe.