Western Philosophy Of Religion Research Articles

Why the Problem of Evil Might not be a Problem after all in African Philosophy of Religion

For decades, the problem of evil has occupied a centre stage in the Western philosophical discourse of the existence of God. The problem centres on the unlikelihood to reconcile the existence of an absolute and morally perfect God with the evidence of evil in the universe. This is the evidential problem of evil that has been a source of dispute among theists, atheists, agnostics, and sceptics. There seems to be no end to this dispute, making the problem of evil a perennial one in Western Philosophy of Religion. In this essay, I will contribute to this discourse from an African perspective. This essay, therefore, explores the evidential problem of evil within the African philosophy of religion. I argue that it is unlikely for the evidential problem of evil to be a problem in African philosophy of religion. I invoke an Ejima-based argument to support this claim. I conceptualize the Igbo word Ejima to metaphysically mean the inevitable coexistence of two opposite variables as complements to argue that God could be both good and evil within the African Traditional Religion, which explains why good and evil exist in the universe.

The nature and significance of the Hindu Divine Mother in embodied thealogical perspective

AbstractThe Hindu Divine Mother is revered by millions of religious practitioners in India and elsewhere, yet this goddess rarely receives attention in Western philosophy of religion. Focusing especially (though not exclusively) on her form as Kālī, this article utilizes sources from Hindu goddess traditions to explicate her contrasting characteristics, which include benign maternality and martial aggression. By adapting an embodied theological (or thealogical) approach derived from feminist discourse, the intelligibility of worshipping such a goddess is expounded; connections are delineated between the conceptualizing of divinity as radically ambivalent or multivalent and the lived experience of inhabiting an often hostile world.

Philosophy of religion in Ukrainian and Western science

Philosophy of religion is one of the most popular philosophical disciplines at Western and American universities. The concept “philosophy of religion” is also presented in Ukrainian educational system. Nevertheless the essence of the concept in Ukrainian and Western scientific environment is not identical. The exploration of the differences constitutes the relevance of the issue. The main research method is comparative analysis: the work is based on textbooks’ analysis from philosophy of religion written in the West in comparison to the national works of religious studies. The main pioneering result reached in the issue is to highlight the conceptual differences of “philosophy of religion” in Ukrainian and Western scientific traditions. In Ukraine philosophy of religion is a philosophic discipline that studies a phenomenon of religion, as in Western and American scientific environment the subject of philosophy of religion is God. The presented difference in approaches depends on the difference of ideological bases. Soviet science of religious studies which dominated in Ukraine for the decades and has still remained impact on the most part of scientific environment was built on Marxist atheism and considered religion not according to human interrelationships with the Highest Being, but as a result of social relationships. In other words religion is a social phenomenon for Marxist religious studies, namely social generated reality. In the West, where philosophy of religion has never been in service to totalitarian ideology, God has remained a subject of the discipline. Western philosophy of religion is close to theology owing to the subject of study which is also explores God. The difference between them is in the research method: philosophy of religion explores God via intelligence, and theology via revelation. Western challenges of philosophy of religion are to explore God via human intelligence. The European tradition endeavors to separate knowledge about God that can be explored by human mind from the knowledge which is presented to human via revelation.

Accounting for Evil—Justification or Explanation?: A Response to Eliot Deutsch

Accounting for Evil—Justification or Explanation?A Response to Eliot Deutsch Gwen Griffith-Dickson, DirectorVisiting Professor I am both grateful and gratified that Professor Deutsch has taken the time not only to read what was intended as an undergraduate teaching text, but also to comment on it with characteristic thoughtfulness and perspicacity. Deutsch has put his finger unerringly on a muddled point in contemporary discussions of the problem of evil. As in everyday discourse, there is potential ambiguity about the seemingly innocuous English word 'understand,' which in colloquial speech is equivocal, indicating either cognitive mastery or an empathy verging on implicit agreement or consent: 'It's all right, I understand.' Intending the one provokes reactions directed at the other; comprehending the significance of evil and suffering in our existence is treated as if it somehow 'justifies' evil states of affairs. For example, Mesle has written that if good comes from evil, that means evil is really good, and to say, as many religious people do, that all things ultimately work toward the good is to say that nothing is really evil.1 More subtly, a commentator such as Terence Tilley can argue that the act of theodicy, understood as 'justifying evil,' is in fact evil itself.2 Deutsch is unusual in teasing apart these senses in his neatly framed dichotomy: evil needs to be understood, but it cannot be justified. Let me immediately and briefly answer Deutsch's question on my own view about 'understanding' and 'justifying' evil. Any evil act can be understood—yes, any, if we have the courage, the wisdom, and the empathetic imagination—even the most unspeakable atrocity. But none of it, perhaps, is or ever should be justifiable. Not even the smallest act of petty spite. Contemporary writing on the problem of evil in Western philosophy of religion is full of good impulses; but it is like walking on a narrow mountain trail: one slip and you've overbalanced in a way that can take everything down with you. Here is my attempt to clarify some of the issues that form the foundation for Deutsch's question and our shared response. We also share a commitment to seeing the contributions of Eastern philosophy recognized and taken up in Western seminar rooms, to the profit of reflection on the issues themselves. Some suffering or 'evil' is not evil in an absolute sense, as signifying moral viciousness. It causes real distress, but is bound up in the nature of things, a universe [End Page 578] in which it is not possible for every desire of every individual to be granted, not least because our respective needs and desires conflict with others'. In that sense, it can be important to acknowledge that not all that we bemoan—or which in a polemical context can be taken as a 'disproof ' of the existence of God, for example—is morally evil and incompatible with the reality of religious beliefs. This is something that Western students can learn from Indian reflections on maya, for example, and the role played by our perception. Nevertheless there is (I submit) 'evil' found in human action that is not reducible to purely subjective stances. In no way is genocide or any other atrocity merely a matter of personal taste and perspective. It is no contradiction that in the relevant Indian systems, belief in the subjectivity of perceptions of evil as embodied in the concept of maya is held simultaneously with sufficient belief in the objectivity of merit and demerit that makes karma operationally possible. The way is open, then, to the believer in an omnibenevolent deity or ultimate reality to see all things, good and evil, as an 'offering,' or an opportunity. What I mean is this: it challenges us for our response. And how we respond, what we do, both reveals who we are and makes us who we are, who we become. However, if the believer, or the theodicizing philosopher, wants to maintain that 'good comes from evil,' this concept must be understood correctly if it is not to fall apart into morally uncomfortable corollaries. For my own taste, any assertion that good can come from evil must never be decoupled from...