God Otherwise Than Sovereign
Infinite Responsibility and Systemic Evil
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24238409 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alma Espartinez (0000-0002-4620-1305), Aldino Gonzales (0009-0002-0848-0427) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1057-1090 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-24 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Millah Journal of Religious Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1412-0992 • E-ISSN: 2527-922X |
| Publisher | Universitas Islam Indonesia (Islamic University of Indonesia) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.20885/millah.vol25.iss2.art11 |
| OpenAlex | W7222895119 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 32 |
Systemic evil does not merely strain theodicy; it destroys the conditions under which justification is possible. This paper develops structural lateness as an analytical framework to name that destruction, distinguishing three modes through which systemic evil defeats theodicy: temporal lateness, when harm unfolds faster than moral response, as in Hiroshima’s instantaneous obliteration; epistemic lateness, when the structures of recognition are corrupted, as in Rwanda’s ideological effacement of the face; and ontological lateness, when present actions foreclose futures before those futures can assert claims, as in climate collapse. These are structural features of systemic evil; we are always already too late. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas, the paper moves from diagnosis to constructive theology. While theodicy seeks to justify God as sovereign, Levinasian ethics discloses God as trace – the infinite ethical demand that persists precisely where justification collapses. The paper situates this argument within the anti-theodicy tradition, engaging Tilley, Pihlström, Betenson, and Poston, while identifying a dimension their accounts leave unnamed: the destruction of theodicy’s enabling conditions by the specific structure of systemic evil. What remains is negative eschatology: responsibility without resolution, hope without guarantee, fidelity grounded not in prospects of success but in refusal to abandon the Other. This framework has direct implications for post-Holocaust theology, climate ethics, and intergenerational justice – contexts where theodicy has not only failed to console but has actively normalized irreparable harm.
climate collapse · climate ethics · Emmanuel Levinas · Hiroshima · infinite responsibility · intergenerational justice · post-Holocaust theology · Rwandan genocide · Theodicy · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Theology and Philosophy of Evil
Divine Lament and the Problem of Systemic Evil
Providence and the Problem of Evil
Ibn Taymiyya's Theological Ethics
Contemporary Issues in Islam
The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology
The significance of Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of responsibility for medical judgment
On the incompatibility of God's knowledge of particulars and the doctrine of divine immutability
The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam
The Future of Ethics
Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence
Ethics after Humanity
The Higher Education Dilemma
Reading the Rwandan Genocide
Living on This Earth as in Heaven
The Anthropocene
Reflecting on Evil and the Devil in Pentecostal Theodicy
Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene
Anti-Theodicy
Levinas and Responsibility in the Face of Violence
The triple problem displacement
| Highly cited | No |
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