Evil and Christian Ethics (New Studies in Christian Ethics)

Genocide in Rwanda, multiple murder in Denver or Dunblane, the gruesome activities of serial killers--what makes these great evils, and why do they occur? In addressing such questions this book interconnects contemporary moral philosophy with recent work in New Testament scholarship. The conclusions to emerge are surprising. Gordon Graham argues that the inability of modernist thought to account satisfactorily for evil and its occurrence should not lead us to embrace an eclectic postmodernism, but to take seriously some unfashionable premodern conceptions--Satan, demonic possession, spiritual powers, cosmic battles. The book makes a powerful case for the rejection of humanism and naturalism, and for explaining the moral obligation to struggle against evil by reference to the New Testament's cosmic narrative.