Blogio problemos sprendimas šv. Tomo Akviniečio ir Antano Maceinos filosofijoje

ENThis article deals with the presentation of theodicy in the works of Thomas Aquinas and Antanas Maceina. According to the latter, Aquinas’ claim that evil is a mere lack of goodness opens the gap between Christian faith and scholastic philosophy, since it eliminates evil as a positive force, which confronts what is good and which finally has to be overcome. In Aquinas’ presentation, evil is reduced almost to nothing. It does not have its own force. If it acts, it acts by means of goodness. But, according to Maceina, these highly theoretical speculations fail to correspond to practical human experience. They cannot give satisfactory answers to questions on the origin, meaning and efficiency of evil. He thinks that evil is not a category of privation, but an existential category. On behalf of this claim he draws arguments from the Book of Job and comes to the conclusion that the problem of evil is personal and has to be solved by the person himself, not by some kind of philosophy. For within the realm of evil, philosophy is helpless.