Problem of Evil

There is a close systematic relationship between panentheism, as a metaphysical theory about the relation between God and the world, and transhumanism, the ethical demand to use the means of the applied sciences to enhance both human nature and the environment. This relationship between panentheism and transhumanism provides a ‘cosmic’ solution to the problem of evil: on panentheistic premises, the history of the world is the one infinite life of God, and we are part of the one infinite divine being. We ourselves are therefore responsible for the future development of the life of the divine being. We should therefore use the means provided by the natural sciences to develop the history of the world in such a way that the existence of evil shall be overcome and shall no longer be part of the divine being in whom we move and live and have our being. The metaphysics of panentheism leads to the ethics of transhumanism.

This document (accepted by the Board of Ordained Ministry in 2020) includes some revisions, making it more accessible to the laity. In addition, it may provide some direction for certified candidates in the UMC seeking to be commissioned and ordained.

I grew up in Mexico and I have been a Christian for 22 years. I have frequent interactions with skeptics and Christian Spanish-speakers alike in the United States. Sooner or later the question of the eternal destiny of the unevangelized Aztecs comes up: if Christ is the only way to God, what happened to the Aztecs? If God is just, did he provide a way for them to be saved? Why did God allow the conquistadors to commit genocide on such a rich culture?
These are poignant questions that deserve fair answers. In this document I will argue that in fact God provided a way for the Aztecs, and other pre-Columbian cultures to be saved, but it is unlikely that they responded favorably to God’s natural revelation given the similarity of their sin with that of the ancient Canaanites.

Il tema della libertà costituisce nel pensiero ricoeuriano un elemento sorgivo della sua riflessione, che progressivamente diventa un fiume carsico: un che di sommerso che tuttavia riemerge di tanto in tanto nella sua scrittura. Alla luce di questa idea il presente saggio intende sondare la presenza di un pensiero della libertà nell’ampio orizzonte dell’opera ricoeuriana, al fine di evidenziare alcune dinamiche proprie del pensatore francese nell’orizzonte di una riflessione sempre unitaria, anche se mai totalizzante. Il tema della libertà nella sua realizzazione personale diviene così il centro dell’argomentazione a partire dal quale si irradiano le tematiche più care a Ricoeur: dal tema del linguaggio e della metafora, a quello del tempo e della narrazione, fino a giungere alla dimensione etica, legata al tema della volontà e del male e da ultimo sfociante nella questione del riconoscimento, tra giustizia e amore. Il tentativo di questo lavoro è propriamente quello di ricercare nella dimensione della libertà quella tessitura profonda e costante che tiene insieme il vasto orizzonte delle ricerche ricoeuriane.

This collection of essays originates from the 2014 Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity conference hosted by the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary's University, Twickenham. Featuring an international collection of senior and junior scholars, it represents the cutting edge of scholarship on portrayals of evil in the Second Temple period and the earliest centuries of Christianity. The individual essays consider the significance of “evil” as it relates to a diverse set of topics, including Qumran and its texts, images of disability in 2 Maccabees, dissociations of Jesus from evil in early Christian manuscripts, the “apocalyptic Paul,” Jesus' exorcisms, Gospel cosmologies, the epistle of James, 4 Ezra, the Ascension of Isaiah, Marcion, John Chrysostom, and the Acts of the Martyrs. Contents Christopher A. Rollston: An Ur-History of the New Testament Devil: The Celestial שׂטן (śāṭān) in Zechariah and Job – Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer: Evil at Qumran – Benjamin Wold: Demonizing Sin? The Evil Inclination in 4QInstruction – Louise J. Lawrence: Evil and the Body of Antiochus IV Epiphanes: Disability, Disgust and Tropes of Monstrosity in 2 Maccabees 9:1–12 – Tommy Wasserman: Variants of Evil: The Disassociation of Jesus from Evil in the Text of the New Testament – James G. Crossley: Jesus, Healings and Mark 2:1–12: Forgiveness, a Release, or Bound Again to the Great Satan? – Christopher W. Skinner: Overcoming Satan, Overcoming the World: Exploring the Cosmologies of Mark and John – Jonathan A. Draper: Darkness as Non-Being and the Origin of Evil in John's Gospel – Loren T. Stuckenbruck: How Much Evil Does the Christ Event Solve? Jesus and Paul in Relation to Jewish “Apocalyptic” Thought – James P. Davies: Evil's Aetiology and False Dichotomies in Jewish Apocalyptic and Paul – Chris Tilling: Paul, Evil, and Justification Debates – Steve Walton: Evil in Ephesus: Acts 19:8–40 – Lloyd K. Pietersen: Artemis, Demons, Mammon and Satan: The Construal of Evil in First Timothy – Susanne Luther: The Evil of the Tongue: Evil and the Ethics of Speech in the Letter of James – Nicholas J. Ellis: A Theology of Evil in the Epistle of James: Cosmic Trials and the Dramatis Personae of Evil – Robbie Griggs: Apocalyptic Experience in the Theodicy of 4 Ezra – Jonathan Knight: The Portrayal of Evil in the Ascension of Isaiah – Chris Keith: “The Scriptures are Divine Charms”: Evil, Books, and Textuality in Early Christianity – Dieter T. Roth: Evil in Marcion's Conception of the Old Testament God – Paul Middleton: Overcoming the Devil in the Acts of the Martyrs

Tesis doctoral sobre el mal en Platón. ¿Qué es el mal para Platón? ¿Cuántos tipos de mal existen? ¿Cómo podemos remediar los males que acontecen? ¿Será posible evitarlos? Platón sugiere que mediante la música, la matemática y la gimnasia podemos encontrar el camino hacia el bien.

The problem of evil is not only a logical problem about God’s goodness but also an existential problem about the sense of God’s presence, which the Biblical book of Job conceives as a problem of aesthetic experience. Thus, just as theism can be grounded in religious experience, atheism can be grounded in experience of evil. This phenomenon is illustrated by two contrasting literary descriptions of aesthetic experience by Jean-Paul Sartre and Annie Dillard. I illuminate both of these literary texts with a discussion of the 18th Century philosopher Lord Shaftesbury’s concept of ‘enthusiasm’.

Over the course of years, and as of more recently, many followers-friends of the author have been asking questions with reference to the Melchizedeks and their role in humanity-Earth Ascension. Below, you will find a sample of such questions posted to the author as of more recently, and the response to some of these questions, which were also later posted as slides for the benefit of the all. Herein, via the publication of this paper, you will find a more detailed response to such questions and concerns pertaining to the coerced role of fallen Melchizedeks with reference to cooperating with the negative aliens.

The issue of evil is one of the serious arguments cited by the atheist movement to prove the non-existence of God. Philosophers and theologians have tried to give an answer to this question throughout the ages. Western philosophy used to adopt apologetic and theodistic answer that proved divine justice, whereas Islamic philosophy had its own way between proving and denying the existence of evil through evidences and arguments. Moral Perceptions Theory is one of the important theories that did not discuss the existence or non-existence of evil, but rather, the theory discussed the origin of evil and showed its reality and nature. Although the theory proves the morality of a number of concepts, these concepts have many implications in reality. As this theory paves the way for a new perspective and a new answer to the question of evil and its existence in the world, the moral existence of evil does not contradict the logical question of evil or the divine existence. The article discusses the problem of evil through showing it in Western and Islamic philosophy, and then discusses the theory of moral perceptions, defining its origins, pillars and mechanism. Then, through the descriptive, analytical approach, the article explans of how to give an answer to the problem of evil through the theory of moral perceptions.

One of the curious “properties” of the contemporary Anglo-American discussion of the problem of evil—where by the “problem of evil” I mean the claim that there is something contradictory about the co-existence of God and evil—is its approach to evil itself. Evil, in this discussion, seems to be the only constant in what is otherwise a jungle of variable terms. This is a mistake.

Recent feminists have critiqued G.W. Leibniz’s Theodicy for its effort to justify God’s role in undeserved human suffering over natural and moral evil. These critiques suggest that theodicies which focus on evil as suffering alone obfuscate how to thematize evil, and so they conclude that theodicies should be rejected and replaced with a secularized notion of evil that is inextricably tied to the experiences of the victim. This paper argues that the political philosophy found in the writings of Catherine Macaulay (1731–1791) can serve as a support to Leibniz’s larger claims and can also offer a more concrete, situated notion of evil that escapes the contemporary feminist critique. Macaulay’s work on natural and moral political evil, especially, will be presented as an early modern precursor to feminism, which defends divine perfection and a pre-established harmony in the face of political evil. I then identify three unique theodicical arguments in Macaulay’s work: the pragmatically beneficial defense, the eschatalogical defense, and the redemptive defense.

مطمعن نیستم که موجودات نامیرا  وجود داشته باشند. و همچنین فکر می‌کنم این موضوع محل بحث و پرسش است که آیا امکان دارد کسی مانند آدم‌هایِ بد یا قاتلینِ سریالیِ درون فیلم‌های ترسناک فرا-طبیعی شرور باشد یا خیر. با این حال معتقدم این مسأله که نامیرایان دائماً به عنوان "شرّ" به تصویر کشیده می‌شوند، موضوعی مبهم و پیچیده است. من دوست دارم اینطور فکر کنم که اگر اتفاقاً یک موجود نامیرا سرِ راهمان سبز می‌شد، این احتمال وجود داشت که سایر انسان‌ها و موجودات زنده از اون شرورتر باشد. این حرف را به مثابه‌ی نقطه‌ی شروعی برای فهمِ بهترِ نامیرایان در نظر بگیرید.

Kann das Böse Gründe haben? Oder geschieht das Böse nicht vielmehr grundlos? Ist das Böse das gänzlich Unvernünftige? Oder besitzt es gar eine rationale Struktur, die sich weiter verständlich machen lässt? Diesen Fragen geht das Buch im Ausgang von Kant, de Sade und Arendt nach – drei Denkern, die der Untersuchung als historisch-systematische Koordinaten dienen. Der Autor argumentiert dafür, dass böse Handlungen aus Willensakten entspringen, die sich rational weiter beschreiben lassen und in unserer individuellen Freiheit gründen. Aufschlussreich dafür ist Kants Begriff des „Vernünftelns“, der eine weit verbreitete Aktivität bezeichnet, in der sich das Subjekt durch Missbrauch der Vernunft eine Gedankenordnung konstruiert, in der individuelle Zwecksetzungen als gerechtfertigt erscheinen. Bei de Sade begegnen wir dann einer Vernunft, die im Gegensatz zu Kant nicht das Gute will, sondern das Böse kategorisch befiehlt. Inwiefern aber lässt sich ein solches böses System der Vernunft konsequent denken und leben? Hannah Arendt schließlich prägt den provokativen Begriff einer „Banalität des Bösen“. Inwiefern kann aber das Böse banal sein, wo es uns doch irritiert und verletzt? Der Autor entwickelt im Ausgang von Kant, de Sade und Arendt eine Theorie des Bösen und analysiert die Gründe, die uns trotz aller Aufklärung immer noch böse handeln lassen.
Das Böse geschieht nicht grundlos, sondern hat seine eigenen Gründe. Diese Gründe entziehen sich nicht unserer Vernunft, sondern beziehen sich auf sie. Das Buch geht diesen Bezügen auf den Grund.

O objetivo deste artigo, que se insere no âmbito da filosofia da religião, é tratar o problema lógico do mal e mais concretamente a teoria da defesa do livre-arbítrio de Alvin Plantinga. Quero examinar se esta é uma teoria plausível e se resiste a algumas objeções. Pretendo defender que esta teoria parece resistir a certas objeções.

Da sich in den letzten Jahren das Paradigma einer von der analytischen
Philosophie inspirierten analytischen Theologie zu einem
leistungsfähigen theoretischen Ansatz zur Diskussion religionsphilosophischer
und theologischer Fragestellungen entwickelt hat,
wird im Folgenden zunächst der Versuch unternommen, die Struktur
einer analytischen Theologie der Geschichte zu erarbeiten.
Dazu wird der Begriff der analytischen Theologie skizziert, um darauf
basierend zu argumentieren, dass eine analytische Theologie
der Geschichte unter Zuhilfenahme offenbarungstheologischer,
naturwissenschaftlicher und philosophischer Erkenntnisse Theorien
über das Ganze der Geschichte der Welt als Geschichte der
Welt sub specie deitatis entwickelt und sich dabei wesentlich auf
die anhand möglicher Welten definierten Begriffe temporaler Möglichkeit
und Notwendigkeit stützt. Im Anschluss daran werden
zentrale Grundpfeiler einer analytischen Geschichtstheologie gerechtfertigt
bevor in einem letzten Schritt argumentiert wird, dass
die zentrale Herausforderung einer metaphysisch allumfassenden
Geschichtstheologie neben der Rechtfertigung der Möglichkeit des
Bösen in der Geschichte der Welt darin besteht, ontologischen Zufall
und menschliche Freiheit mit göttlicher Allwissenheit und Vorsehung
zu vermitteln.

This study aims to systematize St. Basil the Great's view of the evil and set it into the larger framework covering similar concerns within the field of religious studies. The permanent reference to the broader scope of this research subject matter has the advantage of highlighting more suitably the merits of Basil's thinking pattern. The metaphysical, personal and moral aspects of the evil are dwelt upon, and projected on the background of the intellectual tensions of the time, while their benchmark value for the Eastern Christianity is emphasized up until today. From the point of view of the history of religions, understanding Basils's view of the evil is an endeavour that is both necessary and useful to its own inherent academic discourse.

Whilst the condition of a damaged ethical life has received due scholarly attention to date, only rarely is resistance to it conceived as an actual possibility with the potential of real effects on a macro-social scale. This is not just a curious lacuna in the literature. To ignore or miss concrete possibilities or even instances of resistance is to reinforce the apparent naturalness and inevitability of structures of injustice. The aim of this edited collection is to help address this epistemological neglect, exploring the multiplicity of motives, presuppositions, sites, ways, and consequences of acts of resistance. As shown in the ensuing contributions, resistance can be recalcitrant or transformative in its aims, discursive or physical in its means, and local or generalised in its loci. If there is a single argument that can be distilled, it is that the emergence of progressive resistance entails the incessant rational critique of so-styled ‘common sense’ and prevalent ethical claims–a process which could be called ‘the banality of good’. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Leonidas K. Cheliotis, Lilie Chouliaraki, Spiros Gangas, Richard Kearney, Alison Liebling, John O’Neill, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Justice Tankebe, Ezra Tessler, Sappho Xenakis.


Contents

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Roots, Rites, and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good: An Introduction
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

2. Values, Crisis, and Resistance: Prospects for Freedom Reconsidered
Spiros Gangas

3. Narcissism, Humanism, and the Revolutionary Character in Erich Fromm’s Work
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

4. Thinking after Terror: An Interreligious Challenge
Richard Kearney

5. Ecce Homo: The Political Theology of Good and Evil
John O’Neill

6. Resistance as Transformation
Andrea Mubi Brighenti

7. Acting on Vulnerable Others: Ethical Agency in Media Discourse
Lilie Chouliaraki

8. Sites of Resistance: Death Row Homepages and the Politics of Compassion
Ezra Tessler

9. Face to Face with Abidoral Queiroz: Death Squads and Democracy in Northeast Brazil
Nancy Scheper-Hughes

10. Resisting Submission? The Obstinacy of ‘Balkan’ Characteristics in Greece as Dissidence against ‘The West’
Sappho Xenakis

11. Legitimation and Resistance: Police Reform in the (Un)Making
Justice Tankebe

12. ‘Governmentality’ and Governing Corrections: Do Senior Managers Resist?
Alison Liebling

While many versions of the problem of evil aim to show that the existence of horrendous or gratuitous evils make atheism more likely than not or render belief in God’s existence unreasonable, this paper will focus on how experiences of supposedly horrendous or gratuitous evils can give an individual grounds to abandon trust in God or to initially refuse to trust God. While an actually gratuitous or horrendous evil is one that an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being could prevent without sacrificing anything of greater moral worth or without failing to prevent something equally bad or worse, an instance of evil would be supposedly or apparently horrendous if upon consideration, we have no reason to think that a being like God could not have prevented it without sacrificing anything of greater moral worth or without failing to prevent something equally bad or worse. So, the existence of supposedly gratuitous or horrendous evil is perfectly consistent with there being no actual instances of such evil. Even if the skeptical theist is right about the fact human beings may not have the right kind of capacities to be aware of how apparently horrendous evils are not actually horrendous, that in itself does not make the instances of evil themselves any less apparently gratuitous or horrendous.
Whether or not an individual is warranted in trusting another will depend upon certain conditions being met; in particular, the individual being trusted needs to have the relevant properties that render them trustworthy and the individual exercising trust needs to have some occasion or opportunity for thinking that the individual being trusted actually has those properties. With respect to trusting God, one could say that to trust God is to have some confidence that God is a being that is capable of acting on their behalf in relevant ways and that God is a being of moral character that has that individual’s best interest in mind. So, the individual trusts that God loves her; that God will sovereignly protect her; that God has her best interests in mind and that God can be a source of strength and comfort in times of trouble. Furthermore, to trust God involves some confidence that God will favorably respond to one’s trust. It is that type of confidence that is undermined in the face of supposedly gratuitous or horrendous evil. If God allows such evils to occur knowing full well that 1) such instances of evil will strike individuals as apparently gratuitous or horrendous; 2) individuals lack the appropriate epistemic capacities to see that such instances of evil are not actually gratuitous or horrendous and 3) allowing such instances of evil will erode the individuals’ confidence that God can be trusted and may even be seen as an instance of God betraying individuals’ trust, God’s allowing such evils to occur under those circumstances does not bode well for those individuals continuing to trust in God or initially placing their trust in God. As such, even if experiences of supposedly horrendous or gratuitous evils may not justify one in being an atheist, they may justify one in being an apostate.

In this article, two of Theodore Drange's atheological arguments against the God of Christianity are refuted by what I call the "Expectations Defense." By means of this defense, it is shown that, despite what Drange argues, the existence of evil and unbelief cannot be used as evidence against the existence of the God of the Bible. The fact that biblical history describes God as allowing there to be vast amounts of evil and unbelief prevents us from citing the existence of those things as evidence against the existence of the biblical God. Quite simply, we should expect there to be great amounts of suffering and doubt if the God of the Bible exists. As a result of this, it follows that Drange's arguments are unsound, and should be rejected by rational people. Theodore Drange's book, Nonbelief and Evil, has been positively received by many naturalists and I will argue that, at least in respect of Drange's two arguments I address in this paper, naturalists are not justified in their positive evaluation of his reasoning. In Nonbelief and Evil, Drange expounds two atheological arguments for the non-existence of the God of evangelical Christianity (henceforth abbreviated GC). The first argument he adduces is a reformulation of the Argument from Evil (henceforth abbreviated AE), and the second is dubbed the Argument from Nonbelief(henceforth abbreviated ANB). This paper is an attempt to conclusively show that both of Drange's arguments attack strawmen, and therefore cannot be used as evidence against the existence of GC.

Dans le récit Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān d’Avicenne, les compagnons du narrateur qui ne le quittent jamais sont qualifiés par le sage de « mauvais compagnons ». Le premier, qui marche devant, représente l’imagination qui « enjolive le faux et forge les mensonges ». Les deux autres désignent l’âme irascible et l’âme concupiscente. Pourtant, la suite du récit confère un caractère ambivalent à l’imagination. Car d’une part elle trompe l’homme en l’incitant à s’imaginer ce qui n’est pas, mais d’autre part, elle peut aussi « servir l’âme en ce qu’elle a de plus élevé ». Et c’est notamment elle qui est déterminante dans les processus prophétique et poétique. Décrivant les étranges formes composées que voit le narrateur, le récit conclut que l’on « dirait que les figures composites dessinées par les peintres ont été transférées de cette région ». Le récit, poétique lui-même, procède ainsi à une mise en abime qui nous permet de prendre pleinement la mesure de sa portée esthétique.

Il nous semble que cette dimension poétique mûe par l’imagination active pourrait fournir les moyens d’arbitrer la divergence d’interprétation du récit – et de la figure du mal – entre Goichon et Corbin. D’autant que leurs deux lectures correspondent à ce que Ricoeur nomme – en les critiquant – lecture allégorique d’une part et lecture gnostique d’autre part. Pour Ricoeur, la symbolique du mal offre un paradigme pour réussir à penser les symboles en général précisément parce qu’elle représente ce qui ne peut jamais être pleinement rationalisé, retranscrit. Ricoeur se demande « comment peut-on penser à partir du symbole, sans retourner à la vieille interprétation allégorisante, ni tomber dans le piège de la gnose ? » (Le conflit des interprétations, p. 296). La piste de réponse qu’il expérimentera se situe dans le pouvoir de transformation de soi que possède précisément l’imagination. Or, si dans le fond du récit avicénien, l’imagination peut séduire l’âme et la tourner vers le sensible, dans la forme, elle est aussi imagination poétique qui rend possible d’autre modes d’être, montrant la voie de l’intelligible.

The Problem of Evil, the bane of theists’ existence for so long, is solvable using Roy Clouser’s formulation. By invalidating the initial premise of the perfection of God using the Cappadocian view, the rest of the problem falls apart. But the resulting deity, one who allows unjust suffering to occur, undermines the general essence of Christianity, which states to love God. There is little reason to love a God who threatens humanity with eternal damnation for non-compliance, and then allows unjust suffering to occur with no reason cited. Clouser cleverly avoids the Problem of Evil, and convincingly solves its challenge to the existence of God, but he may perhaps create more problems than it is worth in the implications of such a solution.

Appel à contributions pour un dossier de la revue Implications philosophiques qui entend mettre en parallèle et croiser les réflexions anthropologiques, de philosophie morale, juridique et sociale avec les réflexions esthétiques sur les fictions

A number of Christian theologians and philosophers have been critical of overly moralizing approaches to the doctrine of sin, but nearly all Christian thinkers maintain that moral fault is necessary or sufficient for sin to obtain. Call this the “Moral Consensus.” I begin by clarifying the relevance of impurities to the biblical cataloguing of sins. I then present four extensional problems for the Moral Consensus on sin, based on the biblical catalogue of sins: (1) moral over-demandingness, (2) agential unfairness, (3) moral repugnance, and (4) moral atrocity. Next, I survey several partial solutions to these problems, suggested by the recent philosophical literature. Then I evaluate two largely unexplored solutions: (a) genuine sin dilemmas and (b) defeasible sinfulness. I argue that (a) creates more problems than it solves and that, while (b) is well-motivated and solves or eases each of the above problems, (b) leaves many biblical ordinances about sin morally misleading, creating (5) a pedagogical problem of evil. I conclude by arguing that (5) places hefty explanatory burdens on those who would appeal to (b) to resolve the four extensional problems discussed in this paper. So Christian thinkers may need to consider a more radical separation of sin and moral fault.

The problem of horrendous evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of horrendous evils with the existence of a God that is nevertheless good to individuals. A solution to the problem along the lines of that proposed by Marilyn McCord Adams resolves the problem by appeal to various sorts of intimacy with God on the part of the participants in horrendous evils. One half of the problem concerns the victims of horrendous evils. A second half of the problem of horrendous evil is the same problem for those perpetrators of horrendous evils who also potentially have their lives defeated. The present paper argues not only that the intimacy such an overall strategy appeals to fails to solve the first half of the problem, but also that it makes no progress at all on the second half.

Resumen: Partiendo de la pregunta clásica por el origen del mal y sus determinaciones, se trataría aquí de analizar las representaciones del mal en la obra de aquellos escritores (Littell, Amis, Sebald) que, en nuestros días, mucho después de Adorno, recurren a la categoría filosófica del mal ya cierta estética del horror como motivos genuinos del impulso literario.

The "problem of evil" is a highly topical subject within all world religions, and Hinduism in particular offers an interesting account for the existence of evil. Hindus believe evil does not exist, at least in the same terms as the Abrahamic family of religions. From a Hindu point of view, evil is a manifestation of our ignorance and our desire for fullness. This paper will explore the religious values and beliefs of Hinduism, and will analyse the Hindu perspective on the problem of evil.

While philosophy and religion were never sharply distinguished in China, what we now call Chinese philosophy incorporated, theorized, and sometimes opposed practices and views that can reasonably be called religious. These included questions about cosmogony, the problem of evil, and the relationship between human beings and the divine. Philosophers were also concerned with common aspects of religion that are now often neglected in philosophy, such as ritual and divination. Finally, the disagreements between different ways and different philosophies led to reflection on pluralism and its value. All of these fit generally into the category of philosophy of religion.

In this paper, I will present and argue for what I take to be the theodicy of Jonathan Edwards, which is rooted in the Edwardsian doctrine which I am calling Divine Egoism. I will begin by utilizing one of Edwards’ works to define and motivate the doctrine of Divine Egoism before exploring how it provides a unique framework for a comprehensive theodicy. By “comprehensive,” I mean that this theodicy intends to do the following: (i) satisfy the standard outweighing conditions, both for “cosmic goods” as well as the “person-constrained goods” introduced by Eleonore Stump and Marilyn McCord Adams; and (ii) address all of the various “types” of evil, including the particularly difficult cases of animal and infant suffering. One of the unique features of this theodicy is that it bypasses the common reliance on libertarian free will. Throughout, I will interact with major thinkers on the subject of the problem of evil––including Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Eleonore Stump, and Marilyn McCord Adams––to demonstrate how this Edwardsian theodicy might utilize and even supplement work being done in the contemporary literature.

Jewish and Christian theologies of suffering respond to human pain in multiple ways. The most popular ones defend God’s goodness and power by ascribing value to the human experience of suffering. Less popular, but equally traditional, responses invite sufferers to protest against God for their suffering and allow for the possibility that God will respond with mercy. More modern responses explain the existence of human suffering in spite of a loving god by postulating that while God cannot end human suffering unilaterally, God is eager to work with humans to eliminate it. I explore texts from Judaism and Christianity exemplifying each of these theological responses to suffering. I argue throughout that because people’s experiences of suffering differ, someone who wants to minister effectively to many sufferers must be fluent in multiple ways of responding to suffering. The Jewish and Christian responses to suffering most popular in our society today will tend to compound the pain of people who are already least able to cope. For them, one or more of the less popular responses to suffering may be more healing and empowering.

Like lovers hiding their forbidden secret, we meet mostly in the night; darkness dominates. We emerged briefly on Good Friday, but even then, at midday, darkness fell for hours " over all the land " (Luke 23.44). As a child I was satisfied only with a grey Good Friday, feeling that it was wrong for the sun to show her face. So, here we are together again, in the dark middle of the night. Thank goodness we are developing night vision. Just as Silence speaks hiddenly in many modes for the attentive, Darkness, too, shines brilliantly (Dionysius, Mystical Theology1) for those who have cultivated their night vision. She has many forms. I wish I could begin with the " nigra sum et formosa " (" I am black and beautiful ") of the Song of Songs (1.5), especially as set by Monteverdi—and yes, Paul, I also want the Big Bang from Haydn's Creation at the right moment in this sermon—but, her coming to the Bridegroom in the middle of the night must be delayed for a few minutes. We have first to remember the darkness into which we walked " on the night in which he was betrayed. " That was the darkness of sin, limited only by the real weakness of its self-deceived imagination of power and by the providence of the Good. 1

For night vision, we must not falsely identify darkness with sin and evil: black is beautiful, " nigra sum et formosa. " The second darkness fell when the sun hid her face, unable to look upon the death of the Son of God and Mary. The " sun's light failed. " That awe-filled reverence is not sin. In that respectful darkness, our Beloved delivered his spirit into the hands of the Father, and descended into the darkness of death. Were we not all relieved by that blessed " It is finished " ? The tortures are over. Darkness is also peace. What of tonight's darkness? What quality do you perceive? The Scripture and hymns awaiting us gather in the prior darknesses and even add to them, but there is a fundamental difference. The darkness of sin recurs with the Israelites lost in the dessert and terrifyingly trapped between the Red Sea before them and the army of Pharaoh behind. There is the sin of Adam, the father of us all, but here strangely, it is called " blessed, " O felix culpa. Death's darkness is present, both as the destructive chains of death for those imprisoned in Hell, and as the Passover plague sent on Egypt, killing all her first born, man and beast. Above all, and archetypically, giving the key which unlocks the mystery of this night, is the darkness of creation. " Darkness covered the face of the deep…And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. " (Genesis 1.2-3). That the dark mystery of this night might shine out brilliantly for us, we must recollect and unite two fundamentals: one, a truth about religion generally, and, the other, the Scriptural origination of what we celebrate tonight, Resurrection. We begin with the Bible—with a book written in Greek but not in the New Testament. In the Second Book of Maccabees, recording the guerrilla war and victory of faithful Jews against idolatrous tyrants and Jewish collaborators, two doctrines new to the Bible appear together, the resurrection of the dead, and the creation of the world from nothing. Significantly they appear in the context of martyrdom. The connection of the three was made by a Jewish mother urging her youngest son to martyrdom (the other six had already been tortured to death before her eyes), she pleaded: 1 If Proclus, De subsistentia malorum and Dionysius, De divinis nominibus are to be believed, as they ought.

I argue from Buddhist premises that:
1. evil can be interpreted in terms of dukkha
2. the presence of dukkha is necessarily inevitable for finite beings
3. therefore it is impossible for God to create a world with finite beings but without dukkha or suffering
4. this affects our concepts of an afterlife without suffering and sheds a new light on the question why God created anything at all.

The concept of evil has been an unpopular one in much political and ethical thought of the twentieth century.  There are undoubtedly a number of historical reasons for this.  However, there has been of late an ever increasing number of articles and books that have once again taken the concept of evil seriously. Is this movement to be applauded or abandoned? One way to justify and argue for the abandonment of such projects is by pointing to the many problems with the concept of evil. It was surely because of some of these problems that the concept of evil fell out of favour in the first place. The standard grievances brought against the very concept of evil include: that it has no proper place in secular political and ethical discourses; that it is too overloaded with metaphysical, cultural and theological baggage to be of any use; that it is a demonising term of hatred that leads to violence; that it is necessarily linked with outdated notions related to body and sexuality; that it only hinders rather than aids our ability to understand; and that it is an ‘irrational’ concept which only ‘mystifies’ and ‘obscures’ discussions of political and ethical issues. In other words, it is either unethical, unpolitical, imprudent, or no longer relevant to use the concept of evil. I shall seek to argue in defence of the concept of evil against these charges. The upshot of this argument is that the language and concept of evil has a justified and important role to play in political and ethical discourses.