Download or read book Pathways in Theodicy written by Mark S. M. Scott and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does God permit evil and suffering? This question, known as the problem of evil in theological and philosophical circles, has perennially vexed Christian theology. Academic studies on the problem of evil, however, have failed to move the conversation forward in recent years. In this volume, designed for students and scholars alike, Mark S. M. Scott traces the major models and motifs in Christian explanations for evil (called theodicies) and argues for a thorough rethinking of the problem of evil and theodicy based on distinctly Christian theological criteria and resources.
Download or read book Theodicy written by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-11-13 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Theodicy" is a book of philosophy by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz published in 1710, whose optimistic approach to the problem of evil is thought to have inspired Voltaire's "Candide". Much of the work consists of a response to the ideas of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, with whom Leibniz carried on a debate for many years. The "Theodicy" tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist. In effect, apparent flaws that can be identified in this world must exist in every possible world, because otherwise God would have chosen to create the world that excluded those flaws. Leibniz distinguishes three forms of evil: moral, physical, and metaphysical. Moral evil is sin, physical evil is pain, and metaphysical evil is limitation. God permits moral and physical evil for the sake of greater goods, and metaphysical evil is unavoidable since any created universe must necessarily fall short of God's absolute perfection.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil written by Chad Meister and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-09 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion offers a state-of-the-art contribution by providing critical analyses of and creative insights on the problem of evil.
Download or read book Theodicy and Antitheodicy written by Zachary Braiterman and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My thesis--Theodicy and Anti-Theodicy: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Theology--examines the collapse of theodicy by critically engaging the writings of Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackenheim. These three Jewish theologians testify to how modern religious sensibilities irrevocably shift after Auschwitz. They illustrate in unique (even exaggerated) form how contemporary Jewish thinkers strategically reinvent theological and literary traditions in response to historical change. My research indicates that modern scholarship on religion needs to be radically rethought under the impact of non-Protestant religious cultures. I have found (based on readings of biblical, rabbinic and post-Holocaust Jewish texts) that religious life and thought are neither as theocentric nor as exercised by theodicy as western scholars have heretofore assumed. The methodological focus of my research is two-fold, both theological and literary. Theologically, I examine how Rubenstein, Berkovits, and Fackenheim displace theodicies found in rabbinic and modern philosophical strands of Jewish tradition. Instead, they engage a mode of discourse that I call anti-theodicy--by which I mean religious responses to catastrophic suffering that do not justify, explain, or accept the relation between God and evil. Instead of vindicating God, anti-theodicies defend afflicted human persons even against God and providence. My dissertation's second focus concerns the use of traditional texts. Rubenstein, Berkovits and Fackenheim reinvent tradition by sifting through a broad corpus of classical tropes and texts. They jettison time-honored theodicies and adopt a heretofore marginalized anti-theodic stance. Their revisions, I argue, reflect a powerful and distinctively "post-Holocaust" shift in the theological and readerly canons of modern Judaism.
Download or read book The Problem of Job and the Problem of Evil written by Espen Dahl and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of evil takes the Book of Job as its guide. The Book of Job considers physical pain, social bereavement, the origin of evil, theodicy, justice, divine violence, and reward. Such problems are explored by consulting ancient and modern accounts from the fields of theology and philosophy, broadly conceived. Some of the literature on evil - especially the philosophical literature - is inclined toward the abstract treatment of such problems. Bringing along the suffering Job will serve as a reminder of the concrete, lived experience in which the problem of evil has its roots.
Download or read book The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil written by Justin P. McBrayer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil presents a collection of original essays providing both overview and insight, clarifying and evaluating the philosophical and theological “problem of evil” in its various contexts and manifestations. Features all original essays that explore the various forms of the problems of evil, offering theistic responses that attempt to explain evil as well as discussion of the challenges facing such explanations Includes section introductions with a historical essay that traces the developments of the issues explored Acknowledges the fact that there are many problems of evil, some of which apply only to those who believe in concepts such as hell and some of which apply to non-theists Represents views from the various religious traditions, including Hindu, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
Download or read book The Problem of Evil written by Nick Trakakis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight leading philosophers of religion debate 'the problem of evil' - the problem of reconciling the existence of a perfectly good and loving God with the existence of sin and suffering in the world. Their dialogues explore a range of imaginative and innovative approaches to the nature of divinity and its relationship to evil.
Download or read book God After Auschwitz written by Zachary Braiterman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-23 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of technology-enhanced mass death in the twentieth century, argues Zachary Braiterman, has profoundly affected the future shape of religious thought. In his provocative book, the author shows how key Jewish theologians faced the memory of Auschwitz by rejecting traditional theodicy, abandoning any attempt to justify and vindicate the relationship between God and catastrophic suffering. The author terms this rejection "Antitheodicy," the refusal to accept that relationship. It finds voice in the writings of three particular theologians: Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackenheim. This book is the first to bring postmodern philosophical and literary approaches into conversation with post-Holocaust Jewish thought. Drawing on the work of Mieke Bal, Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, and others, Braiterman assesses how Jewish intellectuals reinterpret Bible and Midrash to re-create religious thought for the age after Auschwitz. In this process, he provides a model for reconstructing Jewish life and philosophy in the wake of the Holocaust. His work contributes to the postmodern turn in contemporary Jewish studies and today's creative theology.
Download or read book Thomism and the Problem of Animal Suffering written by B. Kyle Keltz and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-06-12 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of animal suffering is the atheistic argument that an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God would not use millions of years of animal suffering, disease, and death to form a planet for human beings. This argument has not received as much attention in the philosophical literature as other forms of the problem of evil, yet it has been increasingly touted by atheists since Charles Darwin. While several theists have attempted to provide answers to the problem, they disagree with each other as to which answer is correct. Also, some of these theists have given in to the problem and believe it entails that God is limited in certain ways. B. Kyle Keltz seeks to provide a classical answer to the problem of animal suffering inspired by the medieval philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas. In doing so, Keltz not only utilizes the wisdom of Aquinas, but also contemporary insights into non-human animal minds from contemporary philosophy and science. Keltz provides a compelling neo-Thomistic answer to the problem of animal suffering and explains why the classical God of theism would create a world that includes animal death.
Download or read book Kant and Theodicy written by George Huxford and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Kant and Theodicy: A Search for an Answer to the Problem of Evil, George Huxford proves that Kant’s engagement with theodicy was career-long and not confined to his short 1791 treatise that dealt explicitly with the subject. Huxford treats Kant’s developing thought on theodicy in three periods: pre-Critical (exploration), early-Critical (transition), and late-Critical (conclusion). Illustrating the advantage of approaching Kant through this framework, Huxford argues that Kant’s stance developed through his career into his own unique authentic theodicy; Kant rejected philosophical theodicies based on theoretical/speculative reason but advanced authentic theodicy grounded in practical reason, finding a middle ground between philosophical theodicy and fideism, both of which he rejected. Nevertheless, Huxford concludes that Kant’s authentic theodicy fails because it fails to meet his own definition of a theodicy.
Download or read book Pragmatic Realism Religious Truth and Antitheodicy written by Sami Pihlström and published by Helsinki University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-03 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a traditional theological issue and in its broader secular varieties, theodicy remains a problem in the philosophy of religion. In this remarkable book, Sami Pihlström provides a novel critical reassessment of the theodicy discourse addressing the problem of evil and suffering. He develops and defends an antitheodicist view, arguing that theodicies seeking to render apparently meaningless suffering meaningful or justified from a ‘God’s-Eye-View’ ultimately rely on metaphysical realism failing to recognize the individual perspective of the sufferer. Pihlström thus shows that a pragmatist approach to the realism issue in the philosophy of religion is a vital starting point for a re-evaluation of the problem of theodicy. With its strong positions and precise arguments, the volume provides a new approach which is likely to stimulate discussion in the wider academic world of philosophy of religion.
Download or read book Satan and the Problem of Evil written by Gregory A. Boyd and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2001-10-08 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Boyd seeks to defend his scripturally grounded trinitarian warfare theod-icy with rigorous philosophical reflection and insights from human experience and scientific discovery.
Download or read book The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God written by Dewi Zephaniah Phillips and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is D.Z. Phillips' systematic attempt to discuss the problem of evil. He argues that the problem is inextricably linked to our conception of God. In an effort to distinguish between logical and existential problems of evil, that inheritance offers us distorted accounts of God's omnipotence and will. In his interlude, Phillips argues that, as a result, God is ridiculed out of existence, and found unfit to plead before the bar of decency. However, Phillips elucidates a neglected tradition in which we reach a different understanding of God's presence amidst suffering, and addresses the ultimate question of how God can be said to be with those who are crushed by life's afflictions." "An ideal text for students of philosophy, religious studies and theology, but also for anyone who reflects seriously on the danger of adding to human evils by the way in which we write and think about them."--Jacket
Download or read book Nietzsche s Life Sentence written by Lawrence Hatab and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Lawrence Hatab provides an accessible and provocative exploration of one of the best-known and still most puzzling aspects of Nietzsche's thought: eternal recurrence, the claim that life endlessly repeats itself identically in every detail. Hatab argues that eternal recurrence can and should be read literally, in just the way Nietzsche described it in the texts. The book offers a readable treatment of most of the core topics in Nietzsche's philosophy, all discussed in the light of the consummating effect of eternal recurrence. Although Nietzsche called eternal recurrence his most fundamental idea, most interpreters have found it problematic or needful of redescription in other terms. For this reason Hatab's book is an important and challenging contribution to Nietzsche scholarship.
Download or read book Leibniz written by Maria Rosa Antognazza and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Very Short Introduction considers who Leibniz was and introduces his overarching intellectual vision. It follows his pursuit of the systematic reform and advancement of all the sciences, to be undertaken as a collaborative enterprise supported by an enlightened ruler, and his ultimate goal of the improvement of the human condition.
Download or read book Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil written by Safaruk Chowdhury and published by American University in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous study of the problem of evil in Islamic theology Like their Jewish and Christian co-religionists, Muslims have grappled with how God, who is perfectly good, compassionate, merciful, powerful, and wise permits intense and profuse evil and suffering in the world. At its core, Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil explores four different problems of evil: human disability, animal suffering, evolutionary natural selection, and Hell. Each study argues in favor of a particular kind of explanation or justification (theodicy) for the respective evil. Safaruk Chowdhury unpacks the notion of evil and its conceptualization within the mainstream Sunni theological tradition, and the various ways in which theologians and philosophers within that tradition have advanced different types of theodicies. He not only builds on previous works on the topic, but also looks at kinds of theodicies previously unexplored within Islamic theology, such as an evolutionary theodicy. Distinguished by its application of an analytic-theology approach to the subject and drawing on insights from works of both medieval Muslim theologians and philosophers and contemporary philosophers of religion, this novel and highly systematic study will appeal to students and scholars, not only of theology but of philosophy as well.
Download or read book Sartre on Sin written by Kate Kirkpatrick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sartre on Sin: Between Being and Nothingness argues that Jean-Paul Sartre's early, anti-humanist philosophy is indebted to the Christian doctrine of original sin. On the standard reading, Sartre's most fundamental and attractive idea is freedom: he wished to demonstrate the existence of human freedom, and did so by connecting consciousness with nothingness. Focusing on Being and Nothingness, Kate Kirkpatrick demonstrates that Sartre's concept of nothingness (le néant) has a Christian genealogy which has been overlooked in philosophical and theological discussions of his work. Previous scholars have noted the resemblance between Sartre's and Augustine's ontologies: to name but one shared theme, both thinkers describe the human as the being through which nothingness enters the world. However, there has been no previous in-depth examination of this 'resemblance'. Using historical, exegetical, and conceptual methods, Kirkpatrick demonstrates that Sartre's intellectual formation prior to his discovery of phenomenology included theological elements-especially concerning the compatibility of freedom with sin and grace. After outlining the French Augustinianisms by which Sartre's account of the human as 'between being and nothingness' was informed, Kirkpatrick offers a close reading of Being and Nothingness which shows that the psychological, epistemological, and ethical consequences of Sartre's le néant closely resemble the consequences of its theological predecessor; and that his account of freedom can be read as an anti-theodicy. Sartre on Sin illustrates that Sartre' s insights are valuable resources for contemporary hamartiology.
