In his classic essay on fictional narrative and Biblical revelation, “On Fairy Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien famously states: “The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories … Because this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified.” C. S. Lewis concurs with this sentiment, writing in his own landmark article, “Myth Became Fact,” that just “as myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth.” If Tolkien and Lewis are correct, that in the Gospel accounts one finds the fairy story behind all fairy stories and the myth behind all myths, then the Christian theodicist might possibly leverage such fictional works for the broader task of theodicy.
More plainly stated, this paper maintains that, by uniting the insights of Tolkien and Lewis to the narrative-based deliverances of Eleonore Stump’s Thomistic Theodicy, the Christian theist might possibly utilize the power of fictional narrative to address the problem of evil. Given the typological connections between these fictional accounts and the Christian eschatological metanarrative—between the stories that really matter and the story that matters most—sufferers are therein presented with an echo of the voice of God; one offering a practical theodicy capable of addressing the variety and intensity of particular instances of suffering.