An overview of findings from an in-depth inductive study of ‘the lexical, exegetical, conceptual, and theological study of evil from the Hebrew text of Genesis’ provides key insights into the broad use of the primary lexeme(s) for evil (ra as an adjective, raa as a verb, and raah as a noun). The use of evil is followed sequentially through each occurrence in Genesis to assess its meaning and concept contextually. The plot conflict of good and evil is observed from the beginning to its bookend. Evil is never called good nor found to be the absence of good, but rather, the corruption of creational and covenantal goodness. God is found to work in and through flawed and dysfunctional humans to overturn evil and accomplish his good creational and covenantal purposes.

In the first part of this paper I draw on some reflections offered by Descartes and Malebranche on the dangers of anthropomorphic conceptions of God, in order to suggest that there is something misguided about the way in which the so-called problem of evil is commonly framed. In the second part, I ask whether the problem of evil becomes easier to deal with if we adopt a non-personalist account of God, of the kind found in Aquinas. I consider the sense in which God is termed ‘good’ on this latter conception, and while not proposing that it can justify or explain the evil and suffering in the world, I suggest that the world’s manifest imperfections are compatible with the existence of a loving creator who is the source of the existence of the world and of the goodness found in created things.

Religious protest, such as the protest that Job expresses, reveals the manners in which believers experience the absurd while hanging on to God. The purpose of this article is to explore the “grammar” of this paradoxical faith stance by bringing Kierkegaard and Camus to bear upon it, and thereby to show the “family resemblance” between Job, Camus’s “absurd man,” and the Kierkegaardian believer. I begin with a discussion of experiences of the absurd that give rise to religious protest. I then turn to Kierkegaard to explore the manners in which “faith’s thought” renders the “experience of the absurd” a religious one, while pushing the believer further into the absurd. I end with a discussion of Job as an absurd rebel in Camus’s sense.

The Quran contains numerous references to evil and some of these indicate that the responsibility of some instances of evil, which I call self-inflicted evil, lies with human beings rather than God. This idea of evil leads to an exploration of two interconnected issues in philosophical and theological discussions, moral responsibility and desert, along with the related tension between freedom of action and divine determinism. The article delves into this tension as it appears from the Quran and prevailing standpoints in Islamic theology. I propose that the tension between freedom of action and divine determinism resists a satisfactory reconciliation, which ultimately affects the plausibility of the idea of evil as self-inflicted. I further propose that embracing the contradictions arising from verses expressing freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and those indicating divine determinism, on the other, could be a viable approach for the theologian.

If you believe in the existence of an infinitely good, all-knowing, and all-powerful deity (‘God’), how do you explain the reality of evil – including the inexpressible suffering and death of innocents? Wouldn't God be forced to vanquish such suffering due to God's very nature? Alvin Plantinga has argued, convincingly, that if the possibility of ultimate goodness somehow necessarily required that evil be allowed to exist, God, being omnibenevolent, would have to allow it. But as John Hick has noted, the mere logical possibility of such a situation might not be enough to console the doubting theist. We need a positive reason to believe that evil as we know it is compatible with God's existence. So, Hick offers a ‘soul-making’ theodicy – or vindication – of God, suggesting that the human soul cannot fully progress to spiritual maturity (a kind of ultimate good on his account) without grappling with evil. In this short piece I argue that, if we accept Hick's premises about souls and soul-making, we can indeed make sense of evil to some extent. But, I suggest, his account cannot justify the type or amount of evil we see in the world, so his theodicy does not succeed

Our focus in this article concerns Leibniz's views on evil. Our goal is to examine which are the consequences of his conception of moral agency for the moral psychology of the genuinely evil person. For Leibniz, moral failure is an epistemic error since it involves some false practical judgement. Moral maxims may be represented in blind or symbolic cognitions, but then moral agents can misrepresent the evil consequences of their behaviour. Finally, we discuss Leibniz's view on habits that may help virtuous persons strive for perfection but also enable evil persons to continue sinning.

I examine Kant’s claim in part one of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that moral reform requires both a ‘change of heart’ and gradual reformation of one’s sense (R, 6: 47). I argue that Kant’s conception of moral reform is neither fundamentally obscure nor is it as vulnerable to serious objections as several commentators have suggested. I defend Kant by explaining how he can maintain both that we can choose our moral disposition via an intelligible choice and that we become good through a continuous struggle. I then provide an interpretation of how moral reform occurs in the phenomenal realm.

In ‘Evil is Still Evidence: Comments on Almeida’ Robert Bass presents three objections to the central argument (ENE) in my ‘Evil is Not Evidence’. The first objection is that ENE is invalid. According to the second objection, it is a consequence of ENE that there can be no evidence for or against a posteriori necessities. The third objection is that, contrary to ENE, the likelihood of certain necessary identities varies with the evidence we have for them. In this reply I explain why ENE has exactly none of the implications described by Bass. I argue in the concluding section that there is a modal solution to the epistemological problems presented by ENE.