We have grappled with evil in our history. Theologians and philosophers divide evil into two different categories, evil caused by humans—like the Shoah, and evil in nature—like the flu pandemic of 1918, Covid pandemic, the Lisbon Earthquake of 1705, and typhoons. Over the past 120 years, with two World Wars, Genocide, natural disasters and the like, our world and the world of our grandparents has seen incalculable evil.  In our own time we have witnessed the horror of the Hamas attack of October 7, the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, the scourge of anti-Semitism in America and around the world, and the Balkan wars and other events of the 1990s.

The class will discuss what evil is. We will then focus on the writings of Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, which examines these issues in the context of the Holocaust.  We will look at German reactions after World War II. We will then turn to the Book of Job and writings about it by Rabbi Harold Kushner.  Other philosophers, like Bayle, will be considered. Robert Frost’s views will be taken into consideration as will Archibald MacLeish’s play JB.  The format of the class will be lecture and discussion.  Weekly preparation should be around one hour per week reviewing Power Point slides and reading or skimming suggested books and Power Point presentation.