Dr. Medi Volpe explores God's response to the problem of evil by contrasting modern theodicy against the approach of early Christians, emphasizing the Incarnation and human action as integral to God's response.

This lecture was given on October 24th, 2024, at University of Edinburgh.

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About the Speaker:

Medi Ann Volpe is a Catholic moral theologian and mother of four children, including a daughter with Down Syndrome. She is the Director of Research at Wesley House, Cambridge and teaches theology and ethics at Durham University (UK) . Her first book, Rethinking Christian Identity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), brings contemporary theological themes into conversation with voices from the classical Christian tradition. More recently, her work has explored the intersection of ecclesiology and spiritual formation, with a special interest in discipleship and Christian identity of children as well as people with intellectual disabilities. She has published in journals and handbooks, including the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Modern Theology, and the Oxford Handbook of Catholic Theology (which she co-edited with Lewis Ayres). She also serves on the board of the Journal of Disability and Religion. For the last several years, Volpe has been writing and speaking about the kind of Church we must be if we are truly to honour the weaker members. Her current book project (Living as the Body of Christ) considers ecclesiology from the perspective of disability.

Keywords: Augustine, Evil, Gustavo Gutierrez, Hume, James Cone, Incarnation, Irenaeus, Problem of Evil, Tolkien, Theodicy, Theology