From the Inside Flap:
God, Self, and Evil:
A Miracle Theodicy
By Robert J. Hellmann
The problem of evil is one of the most ancient and perplexing problems humankind has ever faced. It has both a practical and a theoretical dimension. The practical dimension is that we humans attack, suffer, and die. If this part of the problem were solved, we would be eternally loving and happy.
The theoretical dimension has been intellectually perplexing for centuries. For it involves paradox at best, and straight out contradiction at worst. It seems that the human mind is trying to hold diametrically opposed ideas, not only about itself, but about its Creator.
Simply stated the problem is this: if there is a God, and if we are His creations, then we could not attack, suffer and die.
This is true because God, our supposed Creator, is said to be a perfect being. And as a perfect being, God must be perfectly happy. In addition, He must be perfectly knowing, powerful, and loving.
But if God is perfectly loving, He wants his creations to be happy like Himself. And if He is perfectly powerful, His will is done and cannot be opposed. Therefore His creations are perfectly happy.
But it is clear that we humans are not perfectly happy. Rather we experience suffering in many forms, including loss, doubt, loneliness, fear, anger, sickness, pain, and death. This raises the question whether we as humans are the creations of a perfectly loving and powerful God.
In Part One of his book Mr. Hellmann offers a radically new solution to this problem. After setting forth a new approach to refuting the argument from evil, by denying a premise in the argument never before denied, he confronts three major questions that arise from this radically new refutation.
These three questions are answered respectively in Parts Two, Three, and Four of the book. The answers Mr. Hellmann offers to these questions can be described in terms nothing short of brilliant and enlightening.
From the Back Cover:
Learn, then, to see your brother sinless.For as you see him you will see yourself. Reading "God, Self, and Evil: A Miracle Theodicy" will benefit all those who have ever asked: "Why does God permit evil?" It gives a profoundly simple and disarming answer: "He doesn't." No one can read and understand this book without benefiting from it. For this book, in clarifying the issue of God and evil, makes perfectly clear why love and forgiveness have a sure foundation, and are always justified; and why fear, anger and attack have no foundation, and are therefore never justified. In this book, Robert Hellmann applies the teachings in "A Course in Miracles" to the age old problem of evil, and in doing so, not only offers a radically new Theodicy, but illuminates some of the deepest and most profound teachings of the Course itself. There is no doubt that this book will be of particular interest to those in the field of religious philosophy as well as to students and teachers of "A Course in Miracles". Reading this book will lift you to heights of thought and feeling you may never have believed possible. No one can read and understand this book and not be drawn closer to attaining the peace and joy, the love and happiness we all want and seek.
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