Ingolf U. Dalferth, Dr. Dr. h. c.

Project

Inescapable Evil and the Christian Hope in God

1. Evil is a problem for everyone, regardless of philosophical and theological orientation. We all have a natural inclination to avoid evil aimed at ourselves, and a moral obligation to fend it off from others. But we cannot overcome all present evil or undo any past injustice and suffering. Evil is inescapable for us, both as victims and as agents of evil.
2. Evil that we cannot avoid we must suffer. But some evil we cannot avoid without inflicting suffering on others, and some suffering occurs without anyone being accountable for it.
3. This creates moral problems for all of us. But believers are faced with the further difficulty of making sense of their belief in God's goodness in the light of horrendous evil and unjustified suffering. The Platonic rule that everything good has to be explained as being caused by God whereas all evil must have a cause that is different from God appears to be incompatible with important strands in the Biblical tradition. God not only allows evil to happen but (sometimes) causes it. He fights evil but also suffers from it. But then what warrants Christian hope in God's final victory over evil, not only for the living but also for the dead?
4. These and similar problems call for a critical reconstruction and discussion of the content, reasons, and scope of the Christian hope in God's goodness. Believers do not normally start from the idea of a perfectly good God and then engage with the intricacies of theodicy. Rather they start from the undeniable reality of evil and turn to God for help and salvation. Hope in God's goodness is the result, not the starting-point of their attempts to come to grips with evil. Theological and philosophical reflection that does not pay attention to this fact will create theoretical aporias and fail to address the real issues in human life and religious practice.

Recommended Reading
Dalferth, Ingolf U. Der auferweckte Gekreuzigte: zur Grammatik der Christologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994.
-. Gedeutete Gegenwart: zur Wahrnehmung Gottes in den Erfahrungen der Zeit. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997.
-. Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen: hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003.
Dalferth, Ingolf U. and Philipp Stoellger, eds. Vernunft, Kontingenz und Gott: Konstellationen eines offenen Problems. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. (Religion in Philosophy and Theology 1.)

Colloquium, 09.05.2006

Problems of Evil Theodicy, Theology, and Hermeneutics

Evil, in a broad sense, is everything without which the world would be a better place. People differ as to what falls into this category. Those who suffer evil have a different view of what a better world would be like than those who profit from the suffering of others. There are many problematic and disputed cases. But there are also uncontested ones. Human beings suffer from disease, death and disasters as well as from the horrors and atrocities which they inflict on each other in both exceptional circumstances and in their daily affairs. Horrifying things happen every day, and the human ingenuity with regard to inflicting harm on each other seems to be unlimited. There are large-scale horrors such as the Holocaust, the Gulags, genocides and mass murders. There are nightmare people such as terrorists, serial killers, tyrants, cannibals and rapists. But there are also the small-scale evils with which we are all familiar: the many ways in which humans harm or humiliate other humans, themselves or other creatures, the wickedness, nastiness, malice and viciousness that we encounter in our daily affairs in often unexpected ways. Thus, we must not restrict the category of evil to extreme cases. If we concentrate only on exceptional or even unique large-scale evils we are in danger of overlooking the fact "that most evil acts are performed by people disturbingly like you and me." (A. Morton) We must avoid the trap of believing that perpetrators of even large-scale evils have a motivation totally different from the human norm. The "fallacy of limited imagination" may be widespread, but it is a fallacy nonetheless.

Having just finished a study on suffering and evil, I have now begun to focus on the ways in which (monotheist) religions cope with problems of evil. My approach is hermeneutical, and I shall begin by briefly outlining what I mean by this (I Hermeneutics of Evil). I shall then comment on some aspects of contemporary discussions of the (logical) problem of evil in Anglo-American philosophy of religion (II Contemporary Discussions) and contrast it with theological approaches in the Christian tradition (III Theological Problems).


PROBLEMS OF EVIL
Theodicy, Theology, and Hermeneutics


I Hermeneutics of Evil

1. Large-Scale Horrors and Everyday Evils
2. Explanation and Orientation
3. Understanding Evil
4. The Analysis of Evil
5. The Art of Hermeneutics
6. Religious Understanding
7. Reference to God


II Contemporary Discussions

1. Hume's Problem and the Epicurean Legacy
2. Theological and Skeptical Problems of Evil
3. The Standard Argument
4. The Extended Argument
5. Apologetic Rebuttals
6. Criticisms


III Theological Problems

1. The Epicurean Argument
2. Problems for Monotheism
3. Possible Solutions
4. Hope in God
5. Disambiguating the Notion of God
6. Senses of Evil
7. Christian Accounts of Evil
8. The Argument from Finitude: Evil as Absence of Good (privatio boni)
9. The Argument from Freedom: Evil as Evildoing (male velle et bene nolle)
10. Varieties of God's Goodness
11. Conclusion

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (2018)

Religion, morality and being human : the controversial status of human dignity

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Freiburg, 2011)

Das Böse : drei Annäherungen

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (2010)

Self-sacrifice : from the act of violence to the passion of love

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Tübingen, 2008)

Malum : theologische Hermeneutik des Bösen

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (2006)

Mehr als Zwei : von der Logik der Relation zur Hermeneutik des Dritten

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Tübingen, 2006)

Das Böse : Essay über die kulturelle Denkform des Unbegreiflichen

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Leipzig, 2006)

Leiden und Böses : vom schwierigen Umgang mit Widersinnigem

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Leuven [u.a.], 2006)

Becoming present : an inquiry into the Christian sense of the presence of God Studies in philosophical theology ; 30

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Tübingen, 2005)

Krisen der Subjektivität : Problemfelder eines strittigen Paradigmas Religion in philosophy and theology ; 18

Dalferth, Ingolf U. (Leipzig, 2004)

Evangelische Theologie als Interpretationspraxis : eine systematische Orientierung Forum theologische Literaturzeitung ; 11/12