The Question of Evil in Post-War British Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Eaglestone
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Muriel Spark ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
William Golding ◽  
British Fiction ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Post War

This chapter argues that Iris Murdoch’s view that the fiction of the 1950s and early 1960s could not address evil is narrow and hence incorrect. Several important writers, such as William Golding, Muriel Spark, J. R. R. Tolkien, were precisely imagining evil in a range of different ways. Indeed, it was exactly as a response to the question of evil that they chose different forms (fantasy, fable, allegory). Importantly, for each of these writers, evil was not simply an abstract thing: the abstract was bound ineluctably into the historical reality of the Holocaust. It also raises the issue of the problem of evil as the fundamental question of post-war Europe. Each of these writers thus addressed this fundamental problem in different ways.

Muriel Spark and Evil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Hepburn
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Psychological Issue ◽  
Memento Mori ◽  
Personal Gain ◽  
Muriel Spark ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

Muriel Spark gave sustained attention to the problem of evil. In her view, people committed evil acts gratuitously, merely for the sake of causing suffering. By the same token, novels are virtually unthinkable without some degree of evil—or evil in its lesser forms, such as mischief, wickedness, or wanton cruelty. Using previously untapped archival materials, this chapter focuses on manifestations of evil in two of Spark’s novels: The Comforters, in which evil is an intrusion on privacy, and Memento Mori, in which the evil characters, Mabel Pettigrew and Eric Colston, manipulate, blackmail, and threaten others for personal gain. Spark’s speculations on evil must be understood in terms of philosophical and theological discussions at mid-century. For Spark, evil was not a psychological issue so much as a moral one. In this regard, her novels can be profitably read alongside works about evil by C. E. M. Joad, Jean Nabert, and Hannah Arendt.

scholarly journals God Below: A Faith Born in Hell—Life and Fate and the Otherwise Than Being

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Karl Shankar SenGupta
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Other ◽  
French Army ◽  
Holy Fool ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Utopian Thought ◽  
Primary Focus

This essay examines the idea of kenosis and holy folly in the years before, during, and after the Holocaust. The primary focus will be Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, though it also will touch upon Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons and the ethics of the Lithuanian-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, speaking to their intersecting ideas. Dostoevsky, true enough, predates the Shoah, whereas Grossman was a Soviet Jew who served as a journalist (most famously at the Battle of Stalingrad), and Levinas was a soldier in the French army, captured by the Nazis and placed in a POW camp. Each of these writers wrestles with the problem of evil in various ways, Dostoevsky and Levinas as theists—one Christian, the other Jewish—and Grossman as an atheist; yet, despite their differences, there are ever deeper resonances in that all are drawn to the idea of kenosis and the holy fool, and each writer employs variations of this idea in their respective answers to the problem of evil. Each argues, more or less, that evil arises in totalizing utopian thought which reifies individual humans to abstractions—to The Human, and goodness to The Good. Each looks to kenosis as the “antidote” to this utopian reification.

scholarly journals Kritik terhadap Teologi Proses dan Pembelaan terhadap Pandangan “Greater Good” dalam Menanggapi Masalah Kejahatan

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Jessica Novia Layantara
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Process Theology ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
Free Will Defense ◽  
The Church

Selama berabad-abad, para teolog Kristen mencoba menanggapi pergumulan filosofis mengenai masalah kejahatan. Bapa-bapa Gereja dan tokoh-tokoh reformasi di masa lalu telah mencoba menanggapi permasalahan ini dengan argumen kebaikan yang lebih tinggi (greater good). Tetapi solusi-solusi semacam itu ditolak mentah-mentah setelah peristiwa Holocaust (Auschwitz), yang merupakan peristiwa kejahatan sangat dahsyat dan mengakibatkan penderitaan banyak sekali orang. Solusi tradisional dianggap sudah tidak relevan dalam menanggapi masalah kejahatan. Teologi proses kemudian mencoba menanggapi masalah ini dengan cara mereduksi atribut-atribut Allah. Tujuan karya tulis ini adalah untuk mengkritik pandangan kontemporer khususnya teologi proses dalam menanggapi masalah kejahatan, dan juga membela pandangan greater good sebagai solusi yang masih tetap dapat dipertahankan walaupun dengan beberapa penyesuaian. Kata-kata kunci: Teodisi, Soft-determinism, Kompatibilisme, Kedaulatan Allah, Masalah Kejahatan, Holocaust, Auschwitz, Teologi Proses, Pembelaan Kehendak Bebas, Teodisi Pembentukan Jiwa, Greater Good Theodicy, John Calvin, John Feinberg   English: Throughout the ages Christian theologians have attempted to understand, from a philosophical vantagepoint, the problem of evil. The Church Fathers as well as theologians during the era of the Reformation have offered a solution that argues from the basis of the greater good. However, solutions of that nature seem to ring hollow when one considers the magnitude and scope of the Holocaust (Auschwitz). In light of that historical reality traditional solutions to the problem of evil seem inadequate. Process theology attempts to overcome the impasse by restricting the attributes of God. The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate contemporary solutions to the problem of evil, especially process theology, as inadequate solutions. Further, to argue for the traditional positional argument of the greater good as offering a tenable solution. Keywords: Theodicy, Soft-determinism, Compatibilism, Sovereignty of God, Problem of Evil, Holocaust, Auschwitz, Process Theology, Free Will Defense, Soul-shaping Theodicy, Greater Good Theodicy, John Calvin, John Feinberg

scholarly journals Evil, Feminism, and a Philosophy of Transformation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Clack
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Suffering ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Muriel Spark ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Way

Rather than offering another ‘solution’ to the problem of evil, in the form of, say, a theodicy, the discussion of this chapter is situated within an ethical framework concerned with unmasking the enactment and perpetuation of ‘structural evils’ on the political and social levels. Indebted to the insights of feminist philosophers such as Michèle Le Doeuff, but also Hannah Arendt’s analysis of evil, the novelist Muriel Spark, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work on social suffering, the chapter seeks, not to justify the ways of God, but to critique and transform unjust structures, and to pave the way for alternatives that might best support human flourishing. This necessitates attempting to identify and understand the sources of human wickedness—social and individual—while contending that, ultimately, the only appropriate response to evil and suffering is to commit to a reorientation of the self towards others and the world.

scholarly journals Good grief: Lord of the Flies as a post-war rewriting of salvation history

Literator ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Van Vuuren
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Lord Of The Flies ◽  
Post War

Golding’s Lord of the Flies, first published in 1954, reflects a bleak sense of post-war pessimism. But with undue attention focused on its portrayal of original sin and the problem of evil, readings have often remained reductive. In this article it is argued that the novel’s symbolic narrative is polysemic and, when it is read as anagogic myth, may be seen to span Judaeo-Christian Heilsgeschichte or salvation history, rewriting its chapters of creation, Fall, the problem of evil, the failure of law, the hope of salvation, the mission of a messianic figure, and – in the clearest departure from the Biblical narrative – an ambiguous representation of his return. This study examines the novel’s often paradoxical symbolism using Frye’s phases of anagogic myth, with its poles of apocalyptic and demonic imagery. It traces the relation of symbols to their counterparts in Biblical narratives, drawn in particular from the symbolic writings of the origin and end of humanity, to elucidate Golding’s bleak but certainly not hopeless rewriting of the salvation story for a post-faith readership.

Reconfiguring the Theodicy–Antitheodicy Boundary between Responses to the Holocaust

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-292
Author(s):  
David Tollerton
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
New Model ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Divine Perfection

Abstract Responding to Zachary Braiterman’s and Daniel Garner’s ideas on post-Holocaust religious thought, the author proposes a new model of relationships between theodicy and antitheodicy in which divine perfection is no longer privileged as the single key factor. Building on Peter Berger’s and Clifford Geertz’s treatments of the problem of evil, it is suggested that focusing on meaning-making and tradition can result in a stratified view of theodicy–antitheodicy more able to engage with the dynamics of several well-known thinkers associated with religious responses to the Holocaust.

Evil Is More Than Banal: Situationism and the Concept of Evil

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Obedience To Authority

Social psychology as a discipline has given relatively little attention to the problem of evil in society, and those discussions in this field that do exist typically regard evil actions as only varieties of aggression without any characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of intentional mistreatment of others. Because of the field's situationistic perspective emphasizing the individual's susceptibility to the power of the immediate situation, social psychologists generally view the fairly high levels of obedience to authority displayed in Milgram's (1963, 1974) classic experiment as the paradigmatic example of evil behavior. For them, much evil is, in Arendt's (1963) well-known phrase, only “banal,” and Milgram's findings are often viewed as illustrating the “central dynamic” involved in the slaughter of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” in the Holocaust. This article holds that Milgram's (1974) obedience research does not represent significant features of the Holocaust, especially the sadism that occurred not infrequently, and disregards the vital difference between those who initiated the murderous policy and the others who followed their orders. Building on Darley's (1992) earlier conjectures about the features that ordinary people might consider in judging whether any given action is evil, I suggest that many persons have a prototypic conception of evil and speculate about the dimensions that could be involved in this prototype.

Hume's Fundamental Problem of Evil

Philosophy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Tarrant
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
History Of

AbstractThe problem of evil for theists was how to reconcile suffering with a benevolent God. Hume solved the problem of evil by claiming that the divine was amoral but not by denying God's existence which he needed in order to advocate his favoured notion of a general providence. Indeed, Hume's treatment of the problem of evil showed that his quarrel in the Natural History of Religion1and the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,2Section XI, was with a particular providence rather than the possibility of a divine orderer. The fundamental problem of evil for Hume, was evil's potential to drive people to the notion of a particular providence with its attendant damaging passions. In considering his alternative of the general providence Hume is shown to be closer to theism than has often been thought.

scholarly journals THE PRIEST, THE PSYCHIATRIST AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-140
Keyword(s):  
Depth Psychology ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Ultimate Question ◽  
Post War

This paper clusters around the problem of evil within the framework of depth psychology. The first part briefly introduces the narrative of the Book of Job as an example to contextualise how the ultimate question of God’s relation to evil remained unanswered and was left open-ended in Christian theology. The second part offers a historical reconstruction of the unresolved polemic over the nature of evil between Carl Jung and the English Dominican scholar and theologian Victor White (1902-1960). It explores their different speculations and formulations concerning evil and its psychological implications, until their final fall-out following White’s harshly critical review of Jung’s most controversial work on religion, Answer to Job. The final section of this paper introduces further reflections on a challenging theme that is no less resonant and relevant in today’s world of terrorism in the name of religion than it was in a post-war Europe struggling to recover from totalitarianism and genocide.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document