RELI 181 - Radical Evil: The History of Wickedness in the West

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course explores the concept of evil in Christian thought by starting with a recurring theological problem: if God is just and omnipotent, why do innocent people suffer? In order to answer this question, we trace the history of evil in the Christian thought and proximate cultural milieus. What are the intellectual and cultural sources of the idea of evil and how has it evolved through different moments and locations in history? Why are certain personifications of evil (demons, the Devil, heretics, monsters, sexual deviants, secret societies, criminals) most visible at a given time and what do these ideas of evil say about the values and anxieties of a given culture or civilization? In this course we investigate the different stories that get told about evil in 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.

Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS