A Mea Culpa for The Felix Culpa? A Greater Goods Response to the Problems of Evil and Hell

In this paper I want to develop a particular kind of greater-good response to the problems of evil and hell, one which hence can serve as a backup plan should the free will defense not satisfy. Ultimately, this response will appear to belong to several traditions in theodicy. Like all greater-goods views, this one relies on explaining the existence of evil in terms of the greater goods that come out of it. Among these goods are the greater goods of Incarnation and Atonement, their respective goodness consisting in large part in the higher-order divine good of glorifying God through the display of divine virtue.

An Evening with Michael Eric Dyson, Best Selling Author, Scholar, and Cultural Critic

Dyson, an author and scholar, has been listed by Ebony magazine as one of the 150 most powerful African Americans. His works, including Reflecting Black: African American Cultural Criticism; Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster; and Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? have provoked national conversations on race and class. Written in 1994, Dyson's Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X is considered one of the most important African-American works of the 20th century, while his I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. is written to unveil the true radical nature of a man whom most remember or are taught was the ultimate peacemaker.