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Reason and the Problem of Suffering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

The problem of suffering is essentially a problem in philosophical theology. For many philosophical systems the phenomena of suffering set no special problem at all. The most influential philosophies of the present age, for example, have almost nothing to say on the subject—and there is no reason why, on their metaphysical; principles, they should say anything. The problem is a relevant one only for those philosophies which claim to be in at least general accord with the “religious interpretation of the universe.” But for them it is crucial. Given a Weltanschauung like that of Absolute Idealism, for which the ultimate principle from which all things derive their being is an Infinite and Perfect Spirit, and it becomes at once a clear obligation to offer some explanation of how we are to reconcile the Goodness of God with the existence in the world of so much suffering which is prima facie just bad. As we all know, the problem is an extraordinarily hard one to solve. But, inasmuch as the religious interpretation of the universe demands its solution as a condition of its own possibility, its importance is proportionate to its difficulty.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1935

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References

page 155 note1 I may perhaps be permitted to add, in order to forestall any suggestion of philosophical eclecticism, that my adoption of a supra-rationalist position in respect of the problem of suffering is only a particular application of the metaphysical principles which I have advocated at length in my Scepticism and Construction.

page 158 note 1 See Sorley's, , Moral Values and the Idea of God, 349.Google Scholar