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- Title
"LIKE MONSTERS OF THE DEEP": TRANSWORLD DEPRAVITY AND KING LEAR.
- Authors
BENSON, SEAN
- Abstract
Shakespeare's King Lear is routinely construed as a place without God: critics reason that no good god would allow the presence of grave moral evils such as the torturous blinding of Gloucester. Using Plantinga's free will defense, I argue that if Shakespeare's characters enjoy significant freedom in the moral choices they make, then claims that Lear represents Shakespeare's demonstration of God's nonexistence are false. Plantinga's concept of transworld depravity illustrates the vexing problem of moral evil, while it also opens the possihility of God's existence in a world actualized, for good or ill, by the free exercise of human freedom.
- Subjects
KING Lear (Play : Shakespeare); SHAKESPEARE, William, 1564-1616; PLANTINGA, Alvin; PROOF of God; FREE will &; determinism in literature
- Publication
Philosophy & Literature, 2013, Vol 37, Issue 2, p314
- ISSN
0190-0013
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/phl.2013.0021