Ex-Voto Publishing
In Evil and the God of Love, English academic and philosopher of religion John Hick (1922–2012) differentiates between two problems of evil—the “mystery” of evil that is “encountered and lived through” by sufferers, and the intellectual problem of evil: “It is true that the intellectual problem, which invites rational reflection, is distinct from the experienced […]
John Hick, “The ‘Vale of Soul-Making’ Theodicy” Read More »
Karl Barth was preoccupied with the question of theodicy, probably more so than is readily apparent in his works. Among other things, his concern shows in the fact that he dedicated a highly idiosyncratic treatise to the problem of evil that deviates significantly from the theological tradition and is still worth contemplating today. The treatise
Karl Barth, “God and Nothingness” Read More »
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) is regarded as the founder of analytical psychology. In his 1951 book, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, Jung employs the methodology of analytical psychology to give insight into the possible psychological bases of one of the oldest and most well-known responses to the problem of evil:
Simone Weil (1909–1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Her essay “The Love of God and Affliction” is in essence a meditation on the cross. The “affliction” of which Weil writes (malheur in French) is suffering characterized by doom, horror, and a sense of inescapability and powerlessness. This form of suffering, moreover, is often
Simone Weil, “The Love of God and Affliction” Read More »
Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was an English medievalist and Anglican lay theologian whose religious writings drew heavily from Augustinian thought. Though a devout believer in Christ, in The Problem of Pain Lewis flatly rejected orthodox Christian doctrine concerning the origin of suffering in the natural world: “The origin of animal suffering could be traced, by earlier
C. S. Lewis, “Animal Pain” Read More »
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is most famous for founding psychoanalysis, but he also took a keen interest in religion, particularly as it relates to man’s experience of suffering. For Freud, however, the problem of pain was a distraction from the more important “problem of religion,” as he referred to it. In the selection below, the famed
Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion Read More »
Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism (published in 1919) is regarded by many as the most important work in Jewish religious and philosophical thought since Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed. In the excerpt below, Cohen examines the pantheistic response to the problem of pain, then contrasts it against the religious response to the
Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason… Read More »
American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842–1910) is regarded as one of the founders of functional psychology, which evaluates mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to a person’s environment. Together with Charles Sanders Peirce, James also established the philosophical school known as pragmatism, which holds that most philosophical topics should be judged according to
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience Read More »