Abstract

The traditional approach to the problem of evil has been to conceive of evil as a privation of the Good. While the notion of privation allows for an intellectual consistency with regards to the problem of how evil can arise within a universe whose source is the Good , it is not consistent with our experience of evil. It is not the case that the more evil something is, the more we experience it as a lack or weakness; rather, the more evil something is, the more powerful its acts of destruction, and the more we realize that the evil before which we tremble is not nothing. ;Soren Kierkegaard developed an understanding of the self in which we can come to understand evil as a position, rather than a privation. For Kierkegaard, the self is not a substantial entity, but is rather a task to be taken up within a process of self-becoming. Guided by this understanding of the self, it is possible to understand how evil is potentiated as the self becomes more and more itself. In my dissertation I explore the movement of the self toward its authentic self, and show how the evil of defiance is possible within this authentic selfhood---what Kierkegaard calls "spirit."