Abstract

Gabriel Marcel makes an investigation that evil really exists and that it affects and challenges man's daily existence. To grasp its "concrete" meaning, Marcel uses a "method" that does not proceed by defining terms, but rather by a descriptive analysis of what exists. He first treats being that is present, its existence is neither empirical nor idealistic but rather mysterious. It can only be addressed in the way of secondary reflection as opposed to primary reflection. Its embodiment in a human being is open to itself, to others and to God, i.e., to intersubjectivity. ;In asserting that evil exists in many forms, Marcel proposes three methods of confronting its existence: "recognition," "encounter" and "dramatization." Beyond these, he affirms that evil is a mystery and not a problem and cannot be objectified. ;In the treatment of moral evil, we said that it is caused by the misuse of freedom. Marcel insists that freedom is the capacity to accept or reject the call to become a fulfill-self. He conceives that authentic freedom is not autonomous, a predicate or self-centered. Freedom is essentially oriented to the perfection of a man's being as existing with others in intersubjectivity. ;In explaining why certain evils do exist, Marcel tries first of all to explain the proper understanding of God. God cannot be demonstrated as an object. Moreover, he insists that the existence of God cannot be proved through causality, but only through one's daily experience involving faith, hope and love. Marcel goes on to acknowledge that the individual believer affected by or living in evil cannot but question how God and evil can be reconciled. In reconciling the two, Marcel suggests that evil is not caused by God and He allows it to be because of His infinite goodness, and He knows it because He knows all. Knowing that evil exists Marcel proposes hope as a practical solution to evil in all its forms. Hope amounts essentially to the availability of a person who has entered intimately into the experience of communion with others