Out of Eden
Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil
Chapter One
A PRELIMINARY MEDITATION ON OEDIPUS AND ADAM
Evil terrorizes, but not all that terrorizes is evil. We may be terrorized by
illness, but we do not describe it as evil. Evil characterizes an actor, a
group, or a regime; it is not simply a bad or frightful experience. Without a
perception of agency, there can be terror but not evil. When the collapse of
the sun replaced the Last Judgment in our imaginations, cosmology replaced
eschatology. Imagining the end of the universe, we lose our moral bearings. We
may feel terror, but there is no one to blame-whether ourselves or
others-and so there is no demand that we do anything. With that, a
subject of intense moral significance was replaced by one of scientific
interest.
Evil is connected to death but not just as an expression of the scale of
injury. The morally bad actor does not become evil when he moves from maiming
to killing. Moreover, whatever the connection of evil and death not all that is
evil arises out of a literal killing. Conversely, not e ... read full excerpt from Out of Eden: Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil ebook
