"The Problem of Suffering:
A Thomistic Defense"

Eleonore Stump
Professor of Philosophy,
St. Louis University

January 17 / 5:30pm / Minor Hall Auditorium
If you missed this lecture, here's the video.

Why do bad things--evil, heartbreaking, devastating things--happen to good (and even not so good) persons? Is it possible to defend belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God in spite of the terrible human suffering in the world? For many, these questions have been great stumbling blocks, but philosopher Eleonore Stump draws upon contemporary psychological findings and the philosophical insights of Thomas Aquinas to argue that an extended Thomistic theodicy constitutes a cogent response to the problem of suffering.

 All are invited to attend what most certainly will be one of the most engaging public lectures offered at the University in the new year. 

The Corcoran Department of Philosophy is a cosponsor of this St. Anselm Institute public lecture.

Eleonore Stump is The Robert J. Henle Professor Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. She has published extensively in medieval philosophy, philosophical theology, and metaphysics. Among her books are Boethius's De topicis differentiis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978; second printing, 1989); The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, (with Norman Kretzmann) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Aquinas's Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, (with Scott MacDonald),  (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999); Aquinas, (in the series The Arguments of the Philosophers) (London and New York: Routledge, 2003); and Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). ). She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division.