Evil and the mystics' god : towards a mystical theodicy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Evil and the mystics' god : towards a mystical theodicy
（Library of philosophy and religion）
Macmillan, 1992
Available at 1 libraries
Note
Revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D), University of Toronto
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-221) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Certain mystics provocatively respond to the challenges which evil poses to their religious beliefs. This book develops the structure of the mystical response to evil together, drawing upon the work of Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Sankara, Aurobindo Ghose and Evelyn Underhill. The problem of evil is given an effective religious explanation only by arguing that evil is necessary in fulfilling some divine telos or purpose. But the best non-mystical teleological responses possess serious defects, difficulties which are overcome in theology that proposes a mystical telos. This teleology involves evidence which justifies theodicy, as well as a strong pastoral thrust. Moreover, it explains the impulse to evil in human nature in terms of a divine theogonic process which distances God from evil, and accounts for evils which do not serve the mystical telos through the doctrine of soul-making rebirth. So mystical theodicy provides a coherent and cogent response to the problem of evil.
Table of Contents
- Part 1 Non-mystical theodicy: defining theodicy
- Dostoevsky's critique of theodocy
- John Hick's "soul-making" theodicy
- problems and issues in traditional theodicy. Part 2 Mystical theodicy: defining teleological mysticism
- theodical evidence in Meister Eckhart
- the consolatory power of mystical experience
- the origin of evil in human nature - Jacob Boehme's "Ungrund"
- dystelological evil and rebirth.
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