Theodicy is a big theological word. It is theology-speak for blaming god. Blaming god used to be standard but it is happily receding from human discourse.
Instead of blaming, god the way ahead is to acknowledge fallibility as par for the course. Fallibility means being subject to error or even wrongdoing. It is the result of errant choices and erroneous thinking.
Freedom is the origin of our salvation and our destruction. Dostoevsky understood that freedom made everything possible. It frightened him to the core. The only antidote to unwarranted human fallibility is a healthy dose of self-control.
Continuity
The world runs on Continuity. There’s a lot of speculation about time but no one has contradicted the fact that things generally move on. The clock keeps ticking.
Continuity means more philosophically than unfolding time. It is a way of expressing the progressive nature of things. Continuity if the forgiver of fallibility.
By that I mean, continuity literally grants absolution via the truism that time heals wounds. Time does not heal every wound, but it allows for improvements, discoveries, and growth.
Fallibility
The deepest fallibility is our continuing free choice of the worst of evils. The most atrocious form of evil is conscious killing. We are only at the start of applying this to more than the human species.
Conscious inflicting of hurt, cruelty, and death is not merely the problem of ganging up or of individuals going beserk. It is the MO of nation states that insist that war remains an option for the resolution of conflict. It never was.
To confront fallibility, we must begin by seeing our own violence as something that is within our control. When people sit around a table and decide to create lethal weapons they are no less violent than persons who let bombs loose or trigger mayhem.
We need to give the same attention to controlling violence that we do to diet or sports or entertainment.
The program
Getting with the program is a way of suggesting we need to be aware of what the program of life is about. Triadic philosophy says it is about slowly but surely moving in the direction universal wellbeing. That is not being fat and happy.
It’s being creative and active. Above all, it’s understanding and accepting continuity and fallibility. This is why we insist that forgiveness belongs at the center of everyone’s to-do list.
There is no progress without forgiveness. Most people are better than their mistakes. Even if they are not, forgiveness is the only way forward.
