Review of Paul Ricoeur's Evil: A Challenge To Philosophy and Theology

REVIEWS
For review in P rabuddha B harata,

publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications
Evil: A Challenge to
Philosophy and Theology
Paul Ricoeur
Bloomsbury Academic, 50 Bedford

Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK.
www.bloomsbury.com. 2007. 80 pp.
16.99 pb. isbn 9780826494764.
ierre Gisels Preface (2130) to Ricoeurs book

is dull, unoriginal and redundant. On the
other hand, Graham Wards Introduction (318)
is illuminating:
When R icoeur enters the theological
worldview he encounters world of myths
and metaphors [and Ricoeur] challenges
theological imagination Evil is the excess, the
disproportion, within being human that being
human cannot fathom Just when it seems
that all things can be brought together in a
grand synthesis, each belonging reciprocally
to the other, the question of evil arises like a
dark apocalyptic angel disturbing the waters.
The angel commands that Ricoeur think again,
which perhaps accounts for the exploratory and
essayistic character of his writing (101).
Wards is a necessary introduction.
Ricoeur understood the need for understanding myths, as distinct from religions, if we were
to begin understanding evil. Here is Ricoeur in
his own words:
Myth is certainly the first major transition [in
studying evil or theodicy] In saying that
the world had a beginning, myth relates how
the human condition was brought about in its
universally wretched form The comparative
history of religions and cultural anthropology
put in place typologies which distribute mythical
explanations between monism, dualism, mixed
solutions and so on, in order to master this
infinite variety. The abstract character of these
taxonomies must not mask the ambiguities
PB June 2016
and paradoxes, often shrewdly calculated, that

are cultivated by most myths at the precise
moment of explaining the origin of evil. These
abstract classifications must not mask the great
oscillations within the mythical realm itself,
between representation bordering down below
on legendary narrative and folklore and up
above on metaphysical speculation, of the kind
that we can see in the great treatises of Hindu
thought. Nevertheless, it is through its aspect as
folklore that myth contemplates the demonic
side of the experience of evil, articulating it in a
language (3941).
This quotation makes explicit Ricoeurs concern with Hinduismhe speaks both of monism
and of the great treatises of Hindu thought. Therefore, both Ward and Gisel do injustice to Ricoeur
by not mentioning even once Ricoeurs acquaintance with Hindu thought. Further, Ricoeurs mention of Hinduism as a religion distinct from other
religions calls the bluff of people who continue
to write books which make the point that there is
no such thing as Hinduism, nor is there anything
distinct about the Sanatana Dharma. Hinduism
is very much a religion, not a mish-mash of myths.
Ricoeur appreciates Immanuel Kants understanding of evil as inscrutable or unerforschbar (53)
since one should approach the problem of evil with
the sobriety of a thought which is always careful
not to transgress the limits of knowledge and to
preserve the distance between thinking and knowing by object (534). Ricoeur is distinctly Christian when he speaks at length on the demonic
depth of human freedom (53). This preoccupation with free will is a recurrent motif within Western philosophy; it began with the Greeks and later
was absorbed into the Epistles that St Paul wrote
to different nascent Christian Churches. In short,
Ricoeurs understanding of evil is not so much mediated by Kant, Hegel, Dilthey Blondel, Marcel,
Bloch and Braudel (4) as Graham Ward thinks but
529
Prabuddha Bharata
54
is more Pauline than Augustinian. The Pauline nature of Ricoeurs theology and theodicy is evident
from the last part of his book. He speaks of the
pastoral aspect of suffering and the consequences
of evil: The failure of the theory of retribution
at a speculative level must be integrated into the
work of mourning as a deliverance from the accusation which in some way exposes suffering as undeserved. [Ricoeur goes on to refer to rabbi Harold S
Kushners When Bad Things Happen to Good People,
(New York: Schocken, 1981)] A second stage of
the spiritualization of lament is to allow oneself
outbursts of complaint directed at God (69).
Ricoeurs thrust is toward the lived experience
of being amidst evil and surviving evil; thus his
theodicy is very much Pauline.
Neither Ward, nor Gisel mention the influence that Jrgen Moltmann had on Ricoeur. When
Moltmann experienced Nazi genocide; he wrote
how God suffered with the victims of Hitlers annihilating rage. Ricoeurs accusation against God
is the impatience of hope (70), which as Ricoeur
points out has its origins in the Psalms of the Bible
(ibid.). True theologian that he was, Ricoeurs ending shows his understanding of human nature, of
God, of Buddhism and of evil: since once violence
has been suppressed, the enigma of true suffering,
of irreducible suffering, will be laid bare (72).
Subhasis Chattopadhyay
Psychoanalyst
Assistant Professor of English
Ramananda College, Bishnupur
The Quintessence of
True Being
Nome
Society of Abidance in Truth (sat),

1834 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz, CA
95060, usa. www.satramana.org. 2011.
59 pp. $4.95 pb. isbn 9780981940946.
n this slim volume, Nome explains the question:

If the universe is unreal, why is it experienced as
if real? (27). It is the natural corollary to the central tenet of Advaita Vedanta that Brahman alone
is real. Nome situates the timeless Knowledge (3)
of Advaita Vedanta within the continuum of the
Upanishads, Acharya Shankara, the Ribhu Gita,
and so on. Nome explains the question: It may be
530
wondered, if all are one Self, or Brahman, why are

their experiences different and why, when one jiva
is liberated from illusion and realizes Brahman,
this is not the experience of all of them? (47).
The Realization of Brahman, the true Self, is
liberation from the individual, and need not be
considered as a new or different state for or of
the individual. The nature of such Liberation, or
Realization, being eternal, is ever existent. As
it is ever-existent, the ideas of loss or attainment
of it are inapplicable. (48)
There is nothing other than Brahman. Advaita
Vedanta forces us to review epistemology and we
will apply it to translation studies and hermeneutics.
Translation requires at least three loci: the translator, the original text, and the target language creation. There is an implied multiplicity involved in
the act of translation. But if we are to apply Advaita
Vedanta to the act of translation then we have to rethink this field. Who translates whom or what and
into what culture/jiva-aggregate? The differences
between languages, linguistic communities, or cultural milieus are illusory to the extent that there are
no differences between the translator, the text to
be translated, and the text to be created.
The telos of philosophical hermeneutics is to
find multiplicity within monads, texts, or structures. This is the opposite of what Advaita Vedanta stands for. Advaita Vedanta sees unity within
the apparent multiplicity of jivas, objects qua
texts. This is because: Any supposed aspect of the
jiva [the scholar of hermeneutics, the object or
text which is being scrutinised] that bears even
the least distinction from Brahman is unreal, for
there cannot be another existence apart from the
One Existence, regardless of whether such is imagined to be inside, outside, or alongside the One
without a second (37). Thus, Advaita Vedanta
demands a rethinking of the entire domain of
philosophical hermeneutics. As Nome repeatedly
points out, there is no second other than Brahman. Therefore, within Advaita Vedanta, there is
no temporal dimension. Nomes books including
this one can be used by scholars unacquainted
with Advaita Vedanta not only for understanding
this philosophy but to review their own stances
about other academic disciplines.
Subhasis Chattopadhyay
PB June 2016

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REVIEWS

For review in P rabuddha B harata,

Bloomsbury Academic, 50 Bedford

ierre Gisels Preface (2130) to Ricoeurs book

and paradoxes, often shrewdly calculated, that

Society of Abidance in Truth (sat),

n this slim volume, Nome explains the question:

wondered, if all are one Self, or Brahman, why are

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