The many faces of evil: philosophical and theological conversations on the experience of evil

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, a way of analysing the pluriformity and mutability of the experience of evil is developed. Against the background of a relational account of the possibility and the actuality of evil, it is argued that evil cannot be accounted for in a decontextualized manner, but can only be interpreted in the context of a particular (religious) understanding of reality. In the context of Christian faith and practice, a suggestion for understanding evil as contradiction against God’s creative agency, as rejection of God’s transforming agency in Christ and resistance to God’s perfecting agency in the Holy Spirit is put forward. The thesis that evil in its many forms can only be understood from the perspective of its overcoming is developed with reference to Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will.