A quandary first posed by the traditional Greek thinker Epicurus, the ‘downside of evil’ ponders how an omnipotent, all-loving god may enable for evil and struggling on this planet. The query has been endlessly deconstructed by philosophers and theologians within the millennia since, debating if this monotheistic view of a benevolent god held by many tens of millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims worldwide may be reconciled with the widespread and protracted anguish we see throughout. On this video from the interview collection Nearer to Fact, Eleonore Stump, professor of philosophy at Saint Louis College in Missouri and a religious Catholic, gives her view of the ‘downside’, setting up an argument that, whereas struggling can by no means be eradicated or ignored, it may be redeemed as a robust path towards shared religious progress.
