Of Religion, Theodicy, and Monsters

"Like his far more eloquent counterpart in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, [James] Whale's god-forsaken, posthumous [1935 movie The Bride of Frankenstein] monster is something of a theologian. Not a theologian with all the answers but one who raises profound questions, questions that survive their answers. By playing God, does one inadvertently end up playing monster? Who is more monstrous, the creatures who must live through this vale of tears, or the creator who put them here? What does it mean to be 'monstrous' anyway? Are we not all rendered monstrous under God? Is our monstrosity in the image of God? Where is God in all this?
          Very quickly we find ourselves in deeply unsettling theological territory, a territory traditionally called theodicy. Theodicy concerns divine justice in the face of unjustifiable suffering. Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? In a world such as ours, how can we possibly conceive of a just God? Indeed, Shelley's novel begins with an epigraph from the quintessential English theodicy, Paradise Lost by John Milton, whose explicit although inevitably unrealized aim is to 'justify the ways of God to men.' Shelley's epigraph draws us to the theodic question, which echoes far beyond any answer, and which will be posed again and again by the monster to Victor Frankenstein throughout the novel:

          Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
          To mold Me man, Did I solicit thee
          From darkness to promote me?
                                                         --Paradise Lost X.743-5

The voice of the monster is the audacious voice of theodicy. It is addressed not only to the creator Frankenstein but also to the creator God. Why did you make me? Why did you put me here? What were you thinking? What kind of a world is this? What kind of divine justice is this? What kind of God are you? The monster in Shelley's novel, as in Whale's movie, stands for these questions and terrifying religious uncertainties. His questions pry at cracks in the world's foundations that open onto abysses of unknowing."

Timothy K. Beal, 2002, 3

Religion and its Monsters