Paul Ricoeur’s Practical Approach into the Problem of Evil

Paul Ricoeur dealt with the issue of evil through various works. Especially in this article, first, after suggesting three types oftheodicy, I examined how he understood evil in Fallible Man and inThe Symbolism of Evil. Second, I analyzed how he criticizedtheodicy and suggested new responses to the problems of evil in“Evil, a Challenge to Philosophy and Theology” and in “Memory ofSuffering.” In the Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil, heshowed that evil is an aporia which belongs to the realm of humanresponsibility and works beyond the boundary of human beings atthe same time. Evil is evidently a human phenomenon which isboth personal and communal, but the concrete experiences of evilwitnessed and attested in symbols and myths of evil clearly refer to‘already being there of evil’ and its cosmic structure. In the “Evil, aChallenge to Philosophy and Theology,” Ricoeur argued that in theWestern theodicies all the issues of evil are understood within the boundary of human history following Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. That is why they have not properly responded to nor outspoken the concrete experiences of the reality of evil. In this regard, he suggested action, wisdom, and catharsis through the synthesis of feeling and wisdom as alternatives of those theodicies. Furthermore, in the “Memory of Suffering,” he showed that we can have the capacity to act and resist against evil when the wisdom meets memory of suffering. Considering the practical approach into the problem of evil by Paul Ricoeur, we need to re-think the way how we deal with the issues of evil.