Date of Award

1998

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Religious Studies

Keywords

Theology.

Supervisor

Mehta, M.,

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

This paper attempts to trace how evil has been understood in the traditions of Thomism, and Hinduism. The Thomist tradition (having its foundation in the Greek fathers of Plato and Aristotle), built on the thought of Augustine. A school of Christian thought that has been largely ignored (or overlooked), that clearly characterizes the Greek Fathers (as distinct from the Latin), is the Irenaean. It, however, was not carried beyond the "relatively inchoate beginnings" of the Church in the third to the fourth centuries. 1 This examination of the problem of evil and human suffering then turns to examine answers offered from the Hindu perspective. In this section, the traditional thinkers (Shankara and Ramanuja) have been studied. The contemporary thinker (Sri Aurobindo) presents the idea of viewing suffering as a necessary step in the maturation of the human person. Due to the interesting convergence (with striking shared similarity) shown in the thoughts of Irenaeus and Aurobindo, new ways of envisioning reasons for the existence of evil and the purpose of suffering are brought forth. 1John Hick, Evil and the God of love, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1977), 217. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 39-02, page: 0369. Adviser: M. Mehta. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1998.

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