| Affiliations: | The Thomistic Institute at Texas A&M |
| Project Leader: | Benjamin Helyer benjaminhelyer@tamu.edu Philosophy |
| Faculty Mentor: | Dr. Michael Hand, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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TBD |
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Team Size:
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8
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| Open Spots: | 4 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Participants will be invited to attend two talks by renowned speakers and scholars of Aquinas |
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Team Needs:
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Participants do not need to belong to any particular religion or hold any particular religious or nonreligious beliefs. Participants must be willing to read through at least one book by or about the philosopher Thomas Aquinas (books TBD and provided by the Thomistic Institute at Texas A&M) and attend (either virtually or physically) a weekly discussion meeting on the text. |
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Description:
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“Theodicy” is a philosophical, theological, or apologetic attempt to vindicate God’s justice in the face of human and non-human suffering and moral evil. While theodicies have been proposed since as early as the 6th century BCE (e.g. the Biblical Book of Job), according to the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) “Every previous theodicy has not performed what it promised” (Kant 1996[1791]:30). Moreover, in the face of such severe and gratuitous evils such as the Holocaust and other genocides, some philosophers actively oppose the project of trying to justify God’s (in)actions as morally repugnant (see e.g. Phillips 2005). One possible problem is that many defenders of theodicy in contemporary philosophy of religion have implicitly endorsed consequentialism (the view that ends justify means) and written from primarily Protestant Christian perspectives (Schönbaumsfeld 2018:93-112). Our Aggie Research project, in collaboration with the Thomistic Institute at Texas A&M, takes the form of a reading/working group in which we aim to probe the perspectives of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as well as other medieval and contemporary Roman Catholic philosophers (e.g. Zagzebski 2004:304-339) on the so-called Problem(s) of Evil (whether natural, moral, or epistemic). Above all, our research intensive community of inquiry aims to put different perspectives in contact with one another and prompt serious discussion in a mutually respectful environment of the existential and epistemic problems of suffering that face each of us whether we are religious or not. |