Coping with Evil in Religion and Culture : Case Studies /
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The various Christian, Muslim, traditional (African), and secular (Western) ways of imagining and coping with evil collected in this volume have several things in common. The most crucial perhaps and certainly the most striking aspect is the problem of defining the nature or characteristics of evil as such. Some argue that evil has an essence that remains constant, whereas others say its interpretation depends on time and place. However much religious and secular interpretations of evil may have changed, the human search for sense and meaning never ends. Questions of whom to blame and whom to address-God, the devil, fate, bad luck, or humans-remain at the center of our explanations and our strategies to comprehend, define, counter, or process the evil we do and the evil done to us by people, God, nature, or accident. Using approaches from cultural anthropology, religious studies, theology, philosophy, psychology, and history, the contributors to this volume analyze how several religious and secular traditions imagine and cope with evil.
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"This volume is part of the project on The problem of evil in religious traditions: origins, forms and coping, organized in cooperation with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Royal Tropical Institute at Amsterdam on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Vrije Universiteit and the exhibition "Religion & evil" in the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam Museum of Tropical Ethnology)"--Title page verso. :
1 online resource (266 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401205375 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Love, freedom and evil : does authentic love require free will? /
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The defining premise of the Relational Free Will Defense is the claim that authentic love requires free will. Many scholars, including Gregory Boyd and Vincent Brümmer, champion this claim. Best-selling books, such as Rob Bell's Love Wins , echo that love "cannot be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide." The claim that love requires free will has even found expression in mainstream Hollywood films, including Frailty , Bruce Almighty , and The Adjustment Bureau . The analysis shows convincingly that the claim that authentic love requires free will, does not meet the criteria of consistency, compatibility with Scriptural sources, and the demands of concrete encounter with problems of moral evil.
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1 online resource (203 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-198) and index. :
9789401200585 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Probing the depths of evil and good : multireligious views and case studies /
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In the few years since the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, evil has become a central theme in the media and human consciousness: the evil of terrorism, the evil of secular culture, concern for poverty, and climate change... Yet different cultures and religious traditions have different ideas of what evil is and what its root causes are. Although there is no massive clash of cultures, many disagreements and also conflicts in the world arise from the deep differences in views of evil. This volume explores religious views of evil. Scholars from different religions and from various parts of the world describe how people probe the depths of evil-and by necessity that of good-from their own background in various worldviews. In their explorations, almost all address the need to go beyond morality, and beyond legalistic definitions of evil and of good. They point to the radical depths of evil in the world and in human society and reinforce our intuition that there is no easy solution. But if we can gain a better understanding of what people from other worldview traditions and cultures consider evil, we are that much closer to a more peaceful world.
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1 online resource (377 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789401204620 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Fall of the Angels /
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The fall of the angels is one of the biblical narratives which, above all in the history of the bible's reception, have developed an extraordinary effect: In the biblical canon they appear just as hints (Gen. 6; Isaiah 14; Apocalypse 12). Little concern for the text as well as a tradition and reception not covered by the canon makes the narrative grow and change considerably, as well as freely negotiate in the popular media of iconography, liturgy and theatre. As a completed narrative the fall of the angels appears only in the literature of the apocalyptic movement. The so-called Henoch tradition provides revelations about the cosmos and the secrets of Heaven and Earth. Through this mystery our present world is coded as a battle between good and evil.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047404330
9789004126688
Evil--freedom--and the road to perfection in Clement of Alexandria /
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This study deals with Clement of Alexandria's interpretation of evil and free will in the context of the rising Christianity, the influence of Near Eastern and Greek thought on him, his differences from St. Augustine, and how his interpretation affected the rise of the Eastern Christian thought. The book also treats briefly the subject of man's personal aim in life perceived by Clement as the supersession of his nature. Failure to realize this personal aim in life leads to alienation from God, and death. The moral dilemma of Clement's interpretation of evil as failure of life's aim is not a conventional explanation of good and evil but something much more: the option between real life and death. Consequently, Clement's idea of evil refers to existential problems and ontological realities.
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1 online resource (xii, 192 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-186) and index. :
9789004313101 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Wrestling with God and with evil : philosophical reflections /
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The fact of evil continues to raises questions - questions about the relationship between God and evil but also questions about human involvement in it. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is now time to see the existence of evil not just as a problem for belief in God; it is a problem for belief in humanity itself as well. For human involvement in evil is not simply a matter of coping with evil but also concerns the fact that humans themselves often seem to do wrong and evil inevitably. Human finitude, ignorance and the unforeseeable consequences of good intentions as well as of neglect can often lead to tragedy. This volume contains contributions from an equal number of male and female scholars in Western Europe and America. It contains discussions of thinkers like Kant, Kierkegaard, Barth, Weil, Levinas, Naber, Caputo and Johnson. It deals with issues like tragedy, finitude, critiques of Western culture, violence and God, and the question of whether theodicies are needed or are even honest. This volume offers an interesting survey of 'wrestling with God and evil' from a variety of perspectives in the philosophy of religion on both sides of the Atlantic.
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International conference proceedings.
This volume is part of the project on The problem of evil in religious traditions: origins, forms and coping, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Vrije Universiteit and the exhibition "Religion & Evil" in the Tropenmuseum. :
1 online resource (240 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401204019 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy of perpetual optimism /
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The Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) is famous for polemic against Islamic philosophy, theology and rationalizing mysticism, but his positive theological contribution has not been well understood. This comprehensive study of Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy helps to rectify this lack. Exposition and analysis of Ibn Taymiyya's writings on God's justice and wise purpose, divine determination and human agency, the problem of evil, and juristic method in theological doctrine show that he articulates a theodicy of optimism in which God in His essence perpetually wills the best possible world from eternity. This sets Ibn Taymiyya's theodicy apart from Ashʿarī divine voluntarism, the free-will theodicy of the Muʿtazilīs, and the essentially timeless God of other optimists like Ibn Sīnā and Ibn ʿArabī.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Birmingham, 2002) under the title: An Islamic theodicy : Ibn Taymiyya on the wise purpose of God, human agency, and problems of evil and justice. :
1 online resource (xii, 270 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047420194 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Evil and Intelligibility : A Grammatical Metacritique of the Problem of Evil /
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This book develops a grammatical method for our underlying presuppositions which can help us unravel the problem of evil. The problem essentially rests on a dualism between fact and meaning. Evil and Intelligibility provides an examination of the grammar of being and of the intelligibility of the world, culminating in a philosophical grammar in which God, meaning, and evil can coexist.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004524781
9789004524798