Aquinas and Maritain on Evil : Mystery and Metaphysics

Exploring the problem of evil comes near the heart of the Christian philosopher’s vocation to seek a fuller understanding of the faith. The contributors to this volume offer reflections that probe the experience of both good and evil and try to understand something of their nature. In doing so they search out the origin of the evil that we ourselves bring about and from which we all suffer.

While creatively drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain made the problem of evil a life-long philosophical inquiry. Indeed, Maritain tells us in his God and the Permission of Evil (1966) that ""If philosophers lived up to their calling in the new age into which we have entered, the crucial work for them would be to renew the theory of evil . . . By examining it more profoundly."" Exploring the problem of evil, indeed, its profound mystery, comes near the heart of the Christian philosopher’s vocation to seek a fuller understanding of the faith. To join in that endeavour, is to struggle within a constricting web of near paradoxes. That struggle will soon enough put us in mind of Job. With Job we will come to reflect on God’s providence and the folly of conventional ""wisdom."" The contributors to this volume offer reflections that probe the experience of both good and evil and try to understand something of their nature. In doing so they search out the origin of the evil that we ourselves bring about and from which we all suffer.

Contributors to the volume are John Conley, SJ, Bryan R. Cross, Laura L. Garcia, Andrew Jaspers, John F. X. Knasas, Eric Manchester, John F. Morris, Siobahn Nash-Marshall, Bernadette E. O’Connor, Jonathan J. Sanford, James V. Schall, SJ, Denis A. Scrandis, Mary Catherine Sommers, Federico Tedesco, Michael D. Torre, Robert Vigliotti, and Nicolaj Zunic.