Deliver Us From Evil Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion

Evil is a problem that will not go away. For some it is an inescapable fact of the human condition. For others "evil" is a term that should only be used to name the most horrible of crimes. Still others think that the worst problem lies with the abuse of the term: using it to vilify a misunderstood enemy. No matter how we approach it, "evil" is a concept that continues to call out for critical reflection. This volume collects the results of a two-year deliberation within the Boston University Institute for Philosophy of Religion lecture series, bringing together scholars of religion, literature, and philosophy. Its essays provide a thoughtful, sensitive, and wide-ranging consideration of this challenging problemand of ways that we might be delivered from it.

Introduction, M. David Eckel (Boston University, USA) and Bradley L. Herling (Marymount Manhattan College, USA)

Part I: Imagining Evil Religiously: East and West

1. Bottom of the Universe: Dante and Evil, Peter Hawkins (Boston University, USA)

2. The Three Faces of Satan in Islam, Eric Ormsby (McGill University, Canada)

3. Evil, Motherhood, and the Hindu Goddess Kali, Rachel Fell McDermott (Barnard College, USA)

4. The Predicament of Evil: The Case of Dorje Shukden, Georges Dreyfus (Williams College, USA)

5. Awakening to Satanic Conspiracy: Rosemary's Baby and the Cult Next Door, David Frankfurter (University of New Hampshire, USA)

Part II: Contemporary Philosophical Responses to Evil

6. Paul Ricoeur on Evil and Fault, Alan Olson (Boston University, USA)

7. The Abuse of Evil, Richard Bernstein (New School University, USA)

8. Evil, Reciprocity, and Rights, Edwin Delattre (Boston University, USA)

9. How Banal Is Evil? Manfred Kuehn (Boston University, USA)

10. Seeing Darkness, Hearing Silence, Mark Larrimore (New School University)

Part III: Deliver Us From Evil?

11. For Your Own Good: Suffering and Evil in God's Plan According to One Hindu Theologian, Francis X. Clooney (Harvard University, USA)

12. Can Evil Be Redeemed? Unorthodox Tensions in Eastern Orthodox Theology, Kimberley Patton (Harvard University, USA)

13. Desire: Between Good and Evil, Richard Kearney (Boston College, USA)

14. Evil: Reflections of a Psychoanalyst, Ana-María Rizzuto (Psychoanalyst)