Theodicies of the COVID-19 catastrophe

In this chapter, I consider COVID-19 as a global catastrophe that will, in all likelihood, produce a new generational consciousness and possibly new meaning systems. To grasp these potential developments, we need a historical understanding of responses to catastrophe. Before the modern period of growing secularism, responses to disasters were couched in terms of theodicy, namely attempts to explain disasters involving vindications of God’s will. I briefly trace the history of theodicies from the Axial Age to secular modernity. The actual concept of theodicy came originally from the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who claimed that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Leibnizian optimism came to an end with the Lisbon earthquake of 1756. Early theodicies were addressed to these natural disasters, but what about disasters that are directly caused by human agency such as the rise of fascism and the Holocaust? I consider religious responses that attempt to make sense of the Devastation. Jewish responses to the Holocaust raised in an acute form the question of God’s presence at Auschwitz and what might be a meaningful human response, if any. I call these responses theodicies of rage. I conclude by looking at the possibility of secular political theodicies of the COVID-19 catastrophe specifically from the Far Right. Populism is an important seedbed of secular theodicies. While religious responses to the pandemic have been somewhat muted, through populism and President Trump’s appeal to evangelical Protestantism in the United States, religious themes have been combined with the politics of protest. In response to the pandemic, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is an important component of an emerging “White political theology.” Whereas traditional theodicies offered meaning and hope in the face of disaster, responses to COVID-19 have emerged as modern theodicies of rage.