By Charles Journet

The modern age is marked by a singular preoccupation with the problem of evil and its attendant implications for the Gospel message. In The Meaning of Evil, Charles Journet conducts a robust theological study of the Christian tradition and its response to this perennial question. Carefully and competently restating and elaborating upon the tradition, Journet lays out clearly the problem of evil in its nature and its forms; considers the relation of evil to an omnipotent and loving God; distinguishes natural evils from moral evils; establishes freedom as the condition for both good and evil; and, in closing, reflects upon evil in human history, suffering as “trial,” and the authentically human attitude toward suffering. 

Standing among the best scholarly treatments of its topic, The Meaning of Evil is notable also for its merciful concern for concrete human sufferings, a concern which manifests the full import of Léon Bloy’s famous formula: “Man has places in his poor heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, that they may have existence.”

Evil forces the mind to founder in contradiction or to rise to mystery. The contradiction lies in denying God or denying evil; the mystery affirms the coexistence of the two extremes, it does not seek to make one diminish the other, but uses each to produce a deeper knowledge of the other. (Charles Journet)

Charles Journet (1891–1975) was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and cardinal. In 1926, with his close friend Jacques Maritain, Journet founded the influential theological journal Nova et Vetera. His works in English include: The Dark Knowledge of God, The Church of the Word Incarnate, and The Meaning of Grace.

Paperback: 284pp.

ISBN: 978-1950970919