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On Evil

  • St. Brendan the Navigator Episcopal Church PO Box 305, 627 North Deer Isle Road Deer Isle, ME 04627 United States (map)

During the Bible Study time in June, we will have discussions on evil. It's not hard to find examples of humans suffering from harms and injustices committed by others. Under what circumstances would we call these harms and injustices "evil"? Many such cases would seem better described in terms of "garden variety" selfishness, ignorance, ineptitude, insouciance, etc. For example, when one child greedily eats another's M&M's, we probably wouldn't call this an instance of evil, would we? In fact, we might even wonder whether all cases of harms and injustices can be understood in similar terms, for aren't features like selfishness, ignorance, and indifference present in all cases of injustice? And this might lead us to ask: Do we need a concept of "evil" at all? 

This four session workshop will explore these questions: Is there evil? If so, just what actions count as evil, i.e., what is evil? Where does evil come from? Each session will focus around one tradition of thought about evil: 1) Ancient Greek (in Plato and Aristotle), 2) Early Christian (St. Augustine & The Bible), 3) Modern Christian (Kierkegaard), and 4) 20th Century (Hannah Arendt). Lead by Dr. Peter A. Antich

Earlier Event: June 27
Bone-Builders
Later Event: June 29
Bone-Builders