The article provides a brief outline of the genealogy of contemporary discussions of the problem of evil in analytical philosophy of religion. I argue that contemporary arguments from evil go back to the discussions of the origin of evil and its place in the general order of things, as well as to the dual classification of good and evil (good-evil-indifferent and soul-body-external good/evil) in Antiquity. However, a hallmark of the contemporary version of the problem of evil is that it is formulated exclusively as atheistic arguments (i.e. arguments against God’s existence). All these arguments are sound only within the context of Abrahamic religions so that they constitute argumentative problem only for theism. One of the main trends in the development of these debates is to overcome established theistic practices of theodicy and defences.

It is a common place in contemporary philosophy of religion to distinguish between logical and inductive formulations of the problem of evil. However, there is also a metaethical (or “axiological") formulation of the problem. The article considers the so-called privation theory of evil, one of the most ancient responses to the argument from evil. First, I consider the metaethical formulation of the problem. Secondly, I consider the privation theory of evil as it is presented in the writings of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. I show that the concept of “order" (ordo) is one of the main elements of their treatments of the privatio boni theory, and it is complemented by the common Western theological idea of two types of evil - sin (peccatum) and punishment for sin (poena peccati) in the case of Augustine, and evil of punishment (malum poenae) and evil of guilt (malum culpae) in the case of Aquinas. In the third part I turn to the metaethical presuppositions of the privatio boni theory. I argue that in moral ontology, this theory is most compatible with moral realism; in moral epistemology, it goes with cognitivism and epistemological foundationalism; and in moral psychology, it works with one of the versions of motivational internalism.

The naturalistic fallacy most obviously expresses the problem of conceptualizing the concepts of good and evil. The article proposes to consider this problem in the context of the history of philosophy. In particular, contrary to what George Edward Moore emphasized, his approach to the definition of “good” was not new, as similar issues had been already found in Plato and Aristotle. Nevertheless, the “naturalistic fallacy” implies the fact that there is a crisis of basic notions in modern culture. The task of this article is to consider the crisis and to try finding the way out. The author associates this solution with the theory of transcendentalia.

In the traditional sense, the existence of postmortem life in form of heaven and hell, seen as reward or punishment, seems to be a necessary condition of divine justice. Contemporary analytic theology and philosophy of religion question this account of posthumous retribution. A particular target of criticism is the doctrine of “eternal hell”, since for many people eternal torments appear to be incompatible with divine goodness. This article examines the arguments of the known analytic theologian Thomas Talbott against the compatibility of “eternal hell” with God’s unconditional love for all men. Talbott’s arguments are based on the concept of love, according to which love is deemed of as an individual attitude, while the understanding of love as a substance does not lead to a contradiction between the existence of eternal hell and the unconditional divine love for all people. The argument of David Lewis asserting the amorality of God’s creating the world that includes an eternal hell is also examined. It is shown that the response to this argument, given by the contemporary Thomist John Lamont, convincingly demonstrates that it is based on premises which supporters of the traditional doctrine of eternal hell are not obliged to accept.

This paper examines the problem of practical and social significance of the belief in free will on the example of Derk Pereboom's theory of hard incompatibilism. First, I present the general elements of hard in-compatibilism focusing on its positive aspects that involve a forward-looking approach to moral responsibility and a proposal to replace a number of allegedly destructive reactive attitudes with less damaging and more constructive ones. Second, I elaborate and discuss the general logic of moral justification that, as I argue, underlies Pereboom's approach. Ifurther argue that this logic entails the irrelevance of the belief in free will for moral justification of social practices. Third, I outline the main features of the problem of hell in order to show that hell could not be morally justified in Pereboom's logic of moral justification. Then I show that the idea of hell provides a unique example where the belief in libertarian free will plays a crucial role in the structure of moral justification. On this basis, I argue that while the belief in free will is mostly irrelevant for the justification of social practices, it might play a crucial role in the justifications of religious practices that involve the belief in hell.

The author considers the argument formulated by a number of modern philosophers (G. Oppy, P. Draper) that atheism has a certain heuristic advantage in explaining the phenomenon of evil, which in discussions between theism and naturalism allows us to justify the rational choice of a theoretical position in favor of naturalism. The author admits the peripheral nature of the problem of evil in non-the-istic thinking, while he shows a major trend in current philosophy to conceptualize the problem of evil within the framework of secular thinking. The author indicates a process underway of forming of a separate subject area, a kind of secular “evil studies,” the potential and productivity of which is too early to assess. The paper then explores the assumption that the description of the mechanics of work of evil can be identical with its explanation. The opinion that evil is exclusively problematized in theistic thinking is but a result of a certain inertia of the intellectual history. In fact, the problem of evil is one of the vulnerable points within atheistic (and, broadly, secular) discourse, which downplays the alleged heuristic advantage of atheism.

This article deals with the problem of morality in the ethical system of Kant and historical transformation of his ethical ideas. At the first stage, we show the prerequisites of the problem. At the second stage, we explore the place of this problem in Kant’s ethical system and the method of solving it. Kant’s assertion of religious postulates is thought of as a specific way of justifying morality. At the third stage, we propose a reconstruction of the historical fate of the doctrine of postulates, in particular, its refraction in the thought of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. The analysis allows to establish the significance of religious postulates as a necessary part of Kant’s ethical system that protects morality from devaluation; and to reconstruct the logic of the transition from Kant’s ethical system to the ideas of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Kantian religious postulates, on the one hand, ensure the unity and integrity of moral experience, but, on the other hand, they contradict to the logic of the modern thinking. The transition from Kant’s ethical absolutism to the radical doubt in morality in the thought of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche seem to have been inevitable. The author concludes that the solution of problem of the justification of morality cannot be found within the framework of the modern philosophical thought.

In this article, the author examines the problem of evil from the perspective of the antitheodicy, which is based on a critique of traditional approaches to the problem of evil. The article demonstrates the foundations of the antitheodicy and offers identification of the existential dimension of the problem of evil within the framework of religious life, expressed in the concept of “theological relational trauma”. From this perspective, the existential root of the problem of evil within the religious life consists in the discovery of the inability of an individual to love God. The author demonstrates how theoretical reflection on the problem of evil depends on the existential experience. The article also offers two solutions to the problem of evil, which are based on what can be characterized, under certain assumptions, as mystical experience. The author highlights the phenomenological properties of this mystical experience and demonstrates that it provides a solution to the existential problem of evil in the spirit of antitheodicy.

The article provides an extended critical review of the key arguments of the book “Righteous Mind" by Jonhatan Haidt and an analysis of the intellectual context in which his influential theory of moral foundations (MFT) had emerged. Authors reconstruct Haidt’s intention of reinterpreting and possibly overcoming the ever growing “culture wars" in American society - the difference between liberals and conservatives in their understanding of what constitutes the basic set of moral foundations. The opposition between intuitionist (Hume) and rationalistic (Kant) approaches to morality in social psychology is considered, followed by the discussion of the complex relationship between biological, evolutionist and sociocultural mechanisms according to Haidt, as well as his original revision of the theory of “homo duplex” by Emile Durkheim, who understood collective identity in terms of the sacred bonds. In the final part of the article authors show that the most vulnerable arguments of Haidt are not those related to the “biological reductionism” often erroneously attributed to the American thinker, but issues related to the insufficient elaboration of the criteria of the identification of the five or six specific foundations, and to self-contradictory character of the strategic move of the book: Haidt tries to extend the too narrow spectrum of the moral foundations of his liberal colleagues and compatriots by the force of his rational arguments, but at the same time he shows that moral reactions are rather intuitive and not rational by nature.

An increasing number of Orthodox Christians are turning to methods of assisted reproduction. However, the ambivalent position of the “Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church” (2000) does not give believers clear ethical guidelines as to which reproductive methods are acceptable. In addition, the one-sided interpretation of the “Basis” led to a complete rejection of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Church's commission “Intercouncil Presence” has developed a draft document that aims to clarify the ambiguous position of the “Basis” regarding reproductive technologies. In February 2021, the draft document, “Ethical issues related to in vitro fertilization,” was published on the Church’s official website. This paper analyzes the discussions that took place both before and after the publication. The author shows that IVF opponents do not understand the problem under discussion, using irrelevant, selective data that do not reflect the real state of medical practice to con firm their arguments. Analyzing the objections, the author shows that the death of embryos during IVF occurs due to natural causes, and therefore cannot be equated with murder. It is also argued that the level of congenital pathology in children remains at the level of a fraction of a percent and therefore cannot make IVF ethically unacceptable. Also, the article challenges concerns about the harm that IVF causes to pregnant women. Besides, the article reflects publications showing the possibility of the practical application of the published draft document.

The authors examine the tradition of appeals to foreign religious leaders, primarily to the Pope, by the believers, mostly Orthodox, from the Soviet Union. The practice of appealing to the Pope for help goes back to the time of Civil War and went on through the entire Soviet period. In the late 1910s-1920s, the authors of such appeals were mainly Orthodox hierarchs. In the early 1930s, this practice became more widespread, and after World War II it was mostly continued by the activists and dissident groups. The reason for this tradition was the belief that pressure from Western religious and political leaders could force the Soviet leadership to change its policy of persecuting believers. In 1923, this belief took shape in a kind of “Curzon Ultimatum syndrome”, since it was with the appearance of this memorandum of the British government that believers associated the release of Patriarch Tikhon from arrest. The tradition was grounded on the belief that pressure from Western religious and political leaders could force the Soviet authorities to change its policy of religious persecu tions. The effectiveness of such appeals to the Vatican for the pre-war period was highly questionable, while appeals by activists and dissident groups in the 196o-198os proved to be quite efficient. A number of circumstances contributed to the fact that the Pope became, in fact, the main (although not the only) recipient of such letters: the Pope was one of the main moral leaders of the Western religious world; the Soviet counter-propaganda campaign against Vatican made the Pope a recognizable image in Soviet mass consciousness. In the Cold War context, the appeal to such a significant figure became one of the ways for religious dissidents to make themselves and their concepts visible and to join the international campaign for the protection of human rights, in which the Vatican was actively involved.

The concept of duhovnoe (“spiritual”) is widely used in contemporary Russian socio-political discourse. Concepts like “spiritual values” and “spiritual culture” are used at the official level, even in legislative documents, while “being spiritual” for many Russians is associated with the richness of the inner world and personal potential. At the same time, the lexicon associated with the history of the Russian Orthodox Church has preserved a specific institutional understanding of “spiritual”, in such expressions as dukhovnaia seminaria (theological seminary), dukhovnoe soslovie (“ecclesiastical estate”) or dukhovenstvo (“clergy”). This article undertakes the reconstruction of the concept of “spiritual” as it developed in the early modern period, from the second half of the 17^th until the first half of the 19^th century. It shows the formation of an “institutional” understanding of the “spiritual,” initiated by the modern state. At the same time, the archaic category of the “spiritual” has being developed within the framework of the ascetic church discourse, where the “spiritual” is placed in opposition to the “secular”, in a response to the formation of secular culture. In turn, within the framework of secular culture as such, the spiritual was reformulated under the impact of the Western mystical tradition, meaning an individual relation to God. Finally, some members of the clergy forged their own idea of “truly spiritual,” paradoxically inspired by the secular discourse.

The paper aims to analyze a unique source - thirty-eight school essays written in Kineshma, a provincial Russian town, in 1964. The essays are entitled “Who is going to church now?" I intend to address the question whether Soviet atheist propaganda was in fact efficient and to what extent patterns provided by anti-clerical rhetoric reached out for young Soviet people in the provinces. The paper presents the Soviet students' perception of the Orthodox believers as well as religiosity itself: the opposition of believers to socialist modernity and progress, the victimization of female and child religiosity, as well as the social stigmatization of believers.

This article analyzes the role of Chilean Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in the building social capital, considering its form, and its effects on the socio-political development of civil society and the quality of democratic life. The diversity of the Evangelical field in Chile demands a thorough review of Evangelicals’ interaction with politics and society. Our results show that Evangelicals and Pentecostals, compared to the Catholic population, havehigher involvement in voluntary associations and lower interest in politics. Evangelicals expect their religious authorities to play an active role in the political field while overall, en masse, they are less involved in politics and less concerned in defining their political identity than their Catholic compatriots. This finding, to some extent, goes against the theory of social capital, which assumes that involvement in religious activities results in increased civic participation in general. Data for the study come from a national sample of Evangelicals (n=754).