The question of evil presents a profound challenge to humanity - why do we do what we know to be wrong? This is especially a challenge to religious believers. Why doesn't an al-good and omnipotent God step in and put an end to evil? The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition examines how Western thinkers have dealt with the problem of evil, starting in ancient Israel and tracing the question through post-biblical Judaism, Early Christianity (especially in Africa), the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and to the twenty-first century when science has raised new and important issues.
Joseph Kelly covers the book of Job, the book of Revelation, Augustine of Hippo, Aquinas, Luther, Maslow, Milton, Voltaire, Hume, Mary Shelley, Darwin, Jung, Flannery O'Connor, Karl Rahner, Teilhard de Chardin, and modern geneticists.
Editorial Review(s)
"Kelly (religious studies, John Carroll Univ.; The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity) provides a "good run around the bases": a view of the problem of evil in a range of Western religious and quasireligious literature, including Blake and Milton, concluding with a prospectus on how our perspective of sin is likely to change in the face of the altered and multicultural world in which we live. For most collections." --Library Journal
About the Author
Joseph F. Kelly, Ph.D., is professor of religious studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of The World of the Early Christians, published by The Liturgical Press."
