The Enigma of Evil

by Christos Yannaras

Nature's logic makes no qualitative earthquakes, disease, fire, and flood destroy human beings just as they also destroy irrational animals - without distinction. Decay, pain, panic, and death constitute the same conditions of existence for both Aristotle and his dog. Why? How is this irrationality compatible - how does it coexist - with the wonderful rationality (the wisdom and beauty) of nature? Why is the only consciousness in the universe, the creative uniqueness of each human being, a provocatively negligible given in nature's mechanistic functionality? And why do hatred, blind cupidity, sadism, and criminality spring from nature - why do they have roots in humanity's biostructure? Can we perhaps bring some logical order, some principles of understanding, to questions concerning the nature of evil? This book attempts to respond to the challenge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theology, Religion

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Christos Yannaras (Greek: Χρήστος Γιανναράς) was a Greek philosopher, Eastern Orthodox theologian and author of more than 50 books which have been translated into many languages. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This.

Don't get me wrong - sometimes I think the sentence structure and wording is a little heavy-handed, and in parts it makes it difficult to read. I suppose that was a result of translating a nuanced language into a less nuanced English. That's probably not an easy thing to do.

Still, if I had pom-poms (I don't, really) I'd be waving them around for this. Very good read, and extremely rewarding.

[Christian Proano · Rating 5 out of 5]

As most of his writings, this is not a fast reading book, the great thing about this author is that he not only gives you the premises but also the hermeneutics behind it. If you survived to finish chapter 10 you may claim you read the book as far as the "enigma" goes.

The following chapters are more of loose topics, some of those chapters try to respond to the "so what" of the book. You will also get some hermeneutical suggestions to approach certain biblical text of course the selected texts are examples of his perspective which are valid to some extend. However, chapter 14 on angels and demons is rather inconclusive, not an easy topic though. The rest are just short paragraph about diverse topics related to the experience of evil.

The last chapter is a mini "Person and Eros" and "Elements of Faith," with a conclusive call to update the poetic, liturgical expressions of the Church, good call, but one that is not easy assuming he is probably thinking about existentialism, quantum physics and poetry at the same time. However, this is not the only book he has expressed this need.

One of his valuable contributions is that he is able to extract the Church experience of the incarnated Christ, and update the language of this experience, thus not making an idol of the text whether biblical or patristic by recognizing the extends and limitations of this writing bound to their own age. As much as I personally enjoy this reading one must not isolate him from the Tradition of the Church nor absolutize his writing, that could bring people to the wrong extremes (which is not what the author seen to want),

Enjoy!

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't particularly enjoy reading philosophers, and Yannaras is a philosopher, even if he is also Greek and Orthodox. I find his style of writing to be very dense and he is using so many terms and ideas in very particular ways that I feel like a juggler with 12 balls that I'm trying to keep balanced to know what he is talking about. Yannaras does allow himself to enter into philosophical debates not immediately germaine to his topic, so one has to read a lot to come to the gems in his writing. But they are there, sometimes not even his main point. Yannaras points out that Genesis 1-3 is ancient narrative and should be read as such. It was not written in the modern era and so should not be read as history or science or dogma. It is an enigma. He is willing to criticize even Orthodoxy's path in history in which Orthodoxy sometimes has accepted huge assumptions which were very much a product of their own time. But not Orthodox have to learn how to read the scriptures while taking into account modern science and scientific discoveries. I thought at points in the book he really touches on significant issues in trying to understand evil, but in the end I was not sure if he tied it all together or even stayed with the same theme he began with.

[Vasilios Kats · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5*