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The Enigma of Evil

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Nature's logic makes no qualitative judgements: earthquakes, disease, fire, and flood destroy human beings just as they also destroy irrational animals - without distinction. Decay, pain, panic, and death constitute the same conditions of existence for both Aristotle and his dog. Why? How is this irrationality compatible - how does it coexist - with the wonderful rationality (the wisdom and beauty) of nature? Why is the only consciousness in the universe, the creative uniqueness of each human being, a provocatively negligible given in nature's mechanistic functionality? And why do hatred, blind cupidity, sadism, and criminality spring from nature - why do they have roots in humanity's biostructure? Can we perhaps bring some logical order, some principles of understanding, to questions concerning the nature of evil? This book attempts to respond to the challenge.

Contents

Preface

p. ix

Abbreviations

p. xi

1. Attempts at Conceptual Definition

p. 1

2. Definitions through Images

p. 5

3. The Analgesic Effect of “Natural Evil”

p. 14

4. Attempts at Interpreting Evil

p. 18

5. Existence as Relation and Nonrelation

p. 23

6. The Serpent and the Woman

p. 29

7. How God Knows Good and Evil, and How We Know It

p. 38

8. The Established Interpretation of the First Pages of Genesis

p. 47

9. The Logic of Identifying the Noncreated with the Nongood 

p. 55

10. The Language of Legal/Juridical Approaches to Identifying Evil

p. 66

11. Change in the Historical Coordinates of the Problematics of Evil

p. 75

12. Georges Florovsky’s Observations on the Causality of Evil

p. 80

13. The Interpretation of the Christian Gospel in Relation to the Participation in the Fact of the Church

p. 88

14. Angels and Demons in the Judeo-Christian Tradition

p. 96

15. The Absurdity of Speaking of “Natural Evil”

p. 114

16. Pain As the Experience of Evil

p. 120

17. Is Death the End of Existence?

p. 127

Notes

p. 143

Bibliography

p. 155

Index

p. 160


Product Description

Paperback:

164 Pages

Publisher:

Holy Cross Orthodox Press

ISBN:

978-1-935317-28-9

Product Dimensions:

6 x 9 x 0.6 inches

Author:

Christos Yannaras

Publication Year:

2012
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