RELI 285 - Christianity and the Problem of Evil

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This course explores the concept of evil in Christian thought by addressing the following questions: How does the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God square with human experiences of senseless misery and injustice? If God is just and active in human history, why do innocent people suffer? In addition to approaching this theological problem, we also ask important questions about the history of evil in the Christian tradition. What are its intellectual and cultural sources and how has the idea of evil evolved through different moments and locations in history? Why are certain personifications of evil (demons, the Devil, heretics, monsters, sexual deviants, secret societies, conspirators) most visible at a given time and what do these ideas of evil say about the values, ambitions, and fears of a given culture or civilization? In this course we investigate the different stories that get told about evil in the Christianity and Christian-influenced societies from antiquity to the present in order to de-familiarize, contextualize, and re-interpret this persistent and mysterious moral concept. Klaus Yoder.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS