An approach to the problem of evil in Schelling

Abstract

The idea of evil is discussed in Schelling’s late philosophy, starting from the understanding of the problem of God as the ultimate foundation of evil in man. Such conjecture, which is reached through a philosophical exegesis, focuses on the idea of the “fall” and the implications of the principle of freedom. Once confronted with the concept of a philosophy of revelation, it is suggested that the philosophy of religion in Schelling conceives of a God who appears to represent the original evil itself. From the Heideggerian interpretation perspective, it is stated, on the one hand, that the foundation originates evil in man as an expansion of his own will that tends towards himself, and, on the other, that this same mobility of the foundation is originated, in turn, by God’s metaphysical need to patent his omnipotence. In this way, Schelling’s philosophy of revelation would be part of the so-called analytical philosophies of religion, in which the central philosophical vocation of the theodicy is recovered. It concludes with the idea that evil is the original search and realization of the foundation of God.