scholarly journals Fomes Pecatti y sindéresis en Santo Tomás de Aquino / Fomes pecatti and Synderesis in Saint Thomas Aquinas

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Fabio MORANDÍN AHUERMA
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Saint Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Individual

This paper addresses the problem of evil from the perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas. It argues that, for Aquinas, the nature of moral evil is in the individual who, due to a disordered reason, departs from the pursuit of the good that is inherent to being. Synderesis is the only indissoluble bridge that man has with natural law and even with the eternal. Will converted into noluntas guides man intrinsically to evil acts, but synderesis, as a power with a natural habit, is the best guide for the contingent decision-making under the rubric of the first practical principles from the transcendent.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus on the Problem of Evil: Insights from their Commentaries on the Book of Job

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
Franklin T. Harkins
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

Abstract This article broadly considers the commentaries on Job of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great as offering a helpful theological alternative to some modern philosophical approaches to the ‘problem of evil’. We seek to show that whereas some modern philosophers understand evil as a problem for the very existence of God, whether and how God can coexist with evil was never a question that evil seriously raised in the minds of Aquinas and Albert. In fact, although the suffering of the just in particular led our medieval Dominicans to wonder about divine providence and our ability to know God in this life, they understood the reality of evil as compelling evidence for the existence of God.

Aquinas and the Ontological Flexibility of Law

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-386
Author(s):  
Matthew Schaeffer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Saint Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
The Law

When Saint Thomas Aquinas makes claims such as “that which is not just seems to be no law at all” it is a bit difficult to discern what he means. Some think that Aquinas is defending what is now called the Strong Natural Law Thesis: for all X, X is a law only if X is just. Others think that Aquinas is defending what is now called the Weak Natural Law Thesis: for all X, X is a non-defective law only if X is just. In this paper, focusing on Aquinas’s metaphysics, I argue that both of these interpretations are mistaken. Aquinas is primarily defending what we can call The Metaphysical Natural Law Thesis: since being and goodness are convertible, legal validity (i.e., the existence or being of a law) comes in degrees—and this entails that the justice of a law literally increases the amount of being a law possesses, while the injustice of a law literally decreases the amount of being a law possesses. On this interpretation, then, the injustice of a law entails an ontological attenuation of the law without entailing an ontological annihilation of the law.

The Holy One of Israel

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenn E. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Artistic Creativity ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

Holy, holy, holy! The Lord of hosts! The fill of all the earth is His glory. In these few ecstatic words the prophet Isaiah captured the core of Jewish thinking about God, humanity and nature. If the idea of holiness points toward God’s transcendence, Isaiah’s balancing half-line comes down to earth, recognizing God’s presence throughout the world. This book is a philosophical exploration of that remarkable and distinctively Jewish idea—that God is everywhere, yet not in space. Here the author, long recognized as one of Judaism’s foremost living philosophers, explores what can be meant by God’s uniqueness, presence and perfection. In a text richly resonant with the classic Jewish sources and in dialogue with the great philosophers, Goodman probes the ideas of revelation, natural law, the problem of evil, the challenges and limits of the idea of God’s transcendence and God’s actions in and through nature, including human nature. The Holy One of Israel is must reading for anyone seriously interested in how our ideas about God can inform our lives and our thinking about individual and social responsibility and intellectual and artistic creativity and spiritual growth.

Belief and Practice

MOVE ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Richard Kent Evans
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
World System ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Active Force ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Site

This chapter is a study of The Guidelines of John Africa, MOVE’s sacred text. John Africa dictated The Guidelines over a span of six years. Several different people helped him create the manuscript. The Guidelines of John Africa are an explanation for, and solution to, the problem of evil. John Africa called these forces of evil the “reformed world system,” or, more frequently, “the System.” John Africa’s worldview was dualistic; it understood the cosmos as a site of conflict that pitted forces of good against forces of evil. The force of good went by many names: the Law of Mama, the Law of Nature, God, Natural Law, and most frequently, Life. Natural processes, according to MOVE, are “coordinated” by this active force.

scholarly journals Ibi: An Examination of the Yoruba Traditional-Existentialist Conception of Evil

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-73
Author(s):  
B B Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Personal View ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Individual

The problem of evil is of universal concern to humankind. Various attempts have been made to account for it in Western philosophy as well as in world religions such as Christianity, Islam and African traditional religion. This article examines the Yoruba existentialist attitude to the problem of evil. Using the Yoruba oral tradition, it posits that for the Yoruba evil is the creation of each individual, so that God cannot be blamed for its existence. I conclude the article with my own personal view that given the individual as a carrier of evil seed, the best existential outlook is to be ready to face, with stoic courage, whatever life brings one’s way. Key Words Ibi, Yoruba, Traditional-Existentialist, Evil 

scholarly journals Bonum est causa mali

1970 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-116
Author(s):  
Terrance Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Hans Blumenberg ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
Metaphysical Tradition ◽  
Traditional Approaches

How to explain the existence of evil if being by its very nature is good? My paper examines an interesting and perhaps significant parallel between two exponents of the metaphysical tradition usually thought to stand widely apart, Thomas Aquinas and Hegel. I argue that Hegel's system shares certain features of Aquinas' convertibility thesis (S.T. 1, 5, 1), that upon closer inspection will yield a set of interesting reflections not only about the problem of evil, but also about the limits and possibilities of metaphysical method. I discuss Aquinas' thesis of the convertibility of being and good and how it determines his treatment of evil. I then construct a Hegelian version of convertibility and argue that Hegel's system fails for similar reasons to provide a satisfactory account of the problem of evil. This leads to my central question: should the inadequacy of traditional approaches to evil call for a reversal or abandonment of metaphysics, or invite a deeper reflection about reality that would not subsume the world's darkness under what Hans Blumenberg once called "metaphysics of light"?

scholarly journals El mal sufrido como vía de acceso a la trascendencia: una revisión del problema del mal en Paul Ricoeur. Suffered Evil as a Path to Transcendence: a Review of the Problem of Evil in Paul Ricoeur

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Martínez Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

A lo largo de la historia de la filosofía, el problema del mal ha sido enfocado o desde un punto de vista moralizante o desde un punto de vista metafísico, que difícilmente puede dar respuesta a la pregunta por el origen del mal radical en el hombre. Partiendo de la distinción entre mal sufrido y mal cometido o mal moral —que establece Paul Ricoeur—, se tratará de mostrar que el mal sufrido realmente no es un mal. Por su parte, la experiencia genuina del mal sufrido que se concreta en la pregunta al aire del justo sufriente nos permitirá, por un lado, deslindar las concepciones de sufrimiento y mal mediante el uso del concepto dolor, y por otro lado, una revisión antropológica del problema del mal, que cuadra perfectamente con la línea de propuesta de Paul Ricoeur, cuya teoría acerca de la experiencia del mal será comentada y ampliada desde un antropología trascendental, no desde una metafísica, ni desde la perspectiva simbólica de Ricoeur.Throughout the history of philosophy the problem of evil has been examined either from a moral or a metaphysical point of view, neither of which can answer the question of the radical origin of evil in human life. By distinguishing between suffered evil and committed or moral evil —a distinction that Paul Ricoeur established— we will try to show that suffered evil is not really an evil. On the one hand, the genuine experience of suffered evil, which takes form in the questions of the just man who suffers, will allow us to make a distinction between suffering and evil through the concept of pain. On the other hand, it will also help us to conduct an anthropologic review of the problem of evil. This approach fits perfectly with Paul Ricoeur’s line of thought, since his theory about the experience of evil will be studied and delved into through a transcendental anthropology, not from a metaphysical approach, and not from Ricoeur’s symbolic perspective.

scholarly journals Understanding the Phenomenon of Evil in Christianity and Islam: An Experience of Historical and Philosophical Comparison of the Concepts of Al-Farabi, Anselm and Thomas Aquinas

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-85
Author(s):  
A.A. Kovalev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Anselm Of Canterbury ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

The treatment of the phenomenon of evil in Christianity and Islam on the example of philosophical heritage of Muslim theologian Al-Farabi and the pillars of Christian philosophy of Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas is compared. It is proved that medieval philosophers sought to understand the problem of evil and how man should reconcile the existence of God with the existence of evil.

5. The problem of evil

2018 ◽  
pp. 64-78
Author(s):  
Tim Bayne
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Good Strategy ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
Almost All

Evil represents the most serious challenge to belief in God. Philosophers of religion typically distinguish between two versions of the problem of evil: the logical and the evidential problem. ‘The problem of evil’ focuses on theists who provide two types of response to the problem without modifying the classical theistic conception of God: defences and theodicies. Almost all responses involve an appeal to the ‘greater good strategy’, including soul-making, natural law, and free will. A very different approach to the problem of evil is the sceptical response, which aims only to make plausible the idea that we can’t tell whether or not the evils of the world are absorbed.

Egoism or the problem of evil: a dilemma for sceptical theism

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-325
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN T. RANCOURT
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Sceptical Theism

AbstractSceptical theists undermine the argument from evil by claiming that our ability to distinguish between justified and unjustified evil is weak enough that we must take seriously the possibility that all evil is justified. However, I argue that this claim leads to a dilemma: either our judgements regarding unjustified evil are reliable enough that the problem of evil remains a problem, or our judgements regarding unjustified evil are so unreliable that it would be misguided to use them in our decision-making. The first horn undermines theism, while the second undermines our moral decision-making. Thus, sceptical theism is problematic.

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