"University Meets Class": Theodicy in World Religions

On the last weekend in June, 17 students of Catholic religion with five teachers, in cooperation with the Pedagogical Center of the dioceses of Fulda, Mainz and Limburg, held a weekend seminar on the topic of "Theodicy in the world religions". The participants were welcomed and guided through the seminar by the lecturers Erik Müller-Zähringer and Manuel Raabe at the YMCA University in Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe.

Before the participants could deal concretely with the question of suffering in the individual religions, a good foundation of knowledge was laid with Augustine's attempts at theodicy. In group work, students and the practice-oriented teachers mutually enriched each other through constant exchange between theory and the concrete implementation in practice. In doing so, the teachers in particular always kept the current questions of their students in mind and brought them into the discussions and work phases.

Divided into different groups, the students prepared the theodicy trials in Islam and Judaism. The participants followed the different interpretations in both religions with interest and linked them to the Christian concept.

One is familiar with many things from one's own religion, including the question of suffering in the world and different approaches to explaining how God can allow suffering. The attempts at explanation in Islam and Judaism were new to most of the participants. All the more excited and intensively they devoted themselves to the elaboration of the problem of theodicy. They found the theodicy in Judaism particularly exciting, where after the Shoah the question of suffering and God's possible intervention is all the more urgent.

The seminar was concluded by Manuel Raabe. He gave an insight into the so-called Free-Will-Defense and the theology of Johann Baptist Metz.

The participants, students as well as teachers, agreed that this form of learning together is very helpful for everyone to acquire new topics theoretically, but also for practice.

Tobias Summer