A Journey towards a New Embodied Problem of Evil

Abstract

Traditionally, the problem of evil revolves around the issue of reconciling the coexistence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God and evil. In response to this threat, philosophers use a generalized and abstract concept of evil to build a stronger argument against it. In this article, I challenge this method and advocate a practical approach to the problem of evil, emphasizing the importance of studying the concept of evil through concrete examples of its manifestations. I propose studying the latest from an embodied (phenomenological) perspective. Evil becomes a case of lived embodied experience that religion can help deal with. Thus, by introducing the concept of the body in the middle of the traditional Trilemma, I shift the questions toward the coexistence and interrelation of three separate subjects: God, Evil, and Human Agency. Such an embodied perspective offers a new look at the concept of evil, taking it out of a strictly abstract intellectual problematic circle and opening a possibility of methodological expansion and further interdisciplinary studies of the question.