악의 해석학을 향하여 - 리쾨르의 철학적 신정론 -

Abstract

In the first part of this study, I will trace the main outlines of history of philosophical theodicy before moving on, in our second part, to a discussion of Ricoeur's own hermeneutic response to the enigma of evil in terms of a hermeneutical symbol of evil. Theodicy signifies the justification of God. The term was introduced into philosophy by Leibniz, who, in 1710, published a work entitled: "Theodicic Essays on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil". The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, that, indeed, notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz himself traced its most famous claim—that this is "the best of all possible worlds"—back to Plato. The related idea that a perfect world is not possible because not all possible things are "compossible" with each other has a Stoic pedigree. Leibniz saw nothing incoherent in the maximal notion of “the most perfect being” and concluded that God existed. Kant criticized arguments for God's existence that departed from the premise that the concept of God is noncontradictory as fallacious hyperrationalism. He claimed there is a reason all possible theodicies must fail: evil is a personal challenge to every human being and can be overcome only by faith. Kant decided that, since the existence of God was unknowable, philosophical effort should be directed to the idea of God, especially the separate functions that the idea of God plays in regulating our moral conduct (judge concept) and our mode of address to the problems of form and function in the organic realm (creator concept.) In an essay entitled 'Evil, A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology'(1985), Ricoeur offers a hermeneutic critique of different discursive responses to evil: myth, wisdom and theodicy. According to Paul Ricoeur, to think through evil is to think through fallibility; because human freedom is summed up as existence prior to evil. The problem of evil was a question which dogged Paul Ricoeur throughout his reflection and his philosophical works. This is a man who has thought about vulnerability in moral evil with both an exemplary profundity and sensitivity.