“The notion that evil is non-rational is a more significant claim for Eagleton than at first appears, because he is (in this book [On Evil] as in others of his recent 'late period' prolific burst) anxious to rewrite theology: God (whom he elsewhere tells us is nonexistent, but this is no barrier to his being lots of other things for Eagleton too, among them Important) is not to be regarded as rational: with reference to the Book of Job Eagleton says, 'To ask after God's reasons for allowing evil, so [some theologians] claim, is to imagine him as some kind of rational or moral being, which is the last thing he is.' This is priceless: with one bound God is free of responsibility for 'natural evil'—childhood cancers, tsunamis that kill tens of thousands—and for moral evil also even though 'he' is CEO of the company that purposely manufactured its perpetrators; and 'he' is incidentally exculpated from blame for the hideous treatment meted out to Job.” GodEvilAtheismTheologyBook Of JobTerry Eagleton Author:A.C. Grayling
“For the liberal humanist legacy to which Ditchkins is in indebted, love can really be understood only in personal terms. It is not an item in his political lexicon, and would sound merely embarrassing were it to turn up there. For the liberal tradition, what seems to many men and women to lie at the core of human existence has a peripheral place in the affairs of the world, however vital a role it may play in the private life. The concept of political love, one imagines would make little sense to Ditchkins. Yet something like this is the ethical basis for socialism. It is just that it is hard to see what this might mean in a civilization where love has been almost wholly reduced to the erotic, romantic, or domestic. Ditchkins writes as he does partly because a legacy which offers an alternative to the liberal heritage on this question is today in danger of sinking without trace.” LoveHumanismLiberationLiberation TheologyTerry EagletonDitchkinsPolitical Love Book:Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate Source: Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate