No 4 (2015)

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Consolation – literary and religious perspectives

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Browsing No 4 (2015) by Subject "consolation"

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    A Quantum of Solace and Heap of Doubt
    (LIR. journal, 2015) Reinhold Bråkenhielm, Carl
    The article examines two lines of reasoning for consolation on the basis of a religious belief about life after death. The first line departs from the presumed consoling power of such a belief (summarized in the »factory-girl« argument of John Henry Newman). According to Richard Dawkins and John Stuart Mill, this pragmatic line of reasoning is wholly irrelevant when it comes to the question whether it is rational or not to entertain such a belief. The second line of reasoning has to do with epistemic arguments for beliefs in a life after death. John Stuart Mill has certain arguments for the claim that it is rational to entertain such a belief. One of them is based on his specific form of theism. But is it possible to believe that the theistic Creator desires our good? I argue that it is possible even in the face of horrendous evil providing that a certain comprehensive fundamental pattern is chosen. I call this pattern »a theology of waiting«. God is revealed in the world but only in an unpredictable and ambiguous way. Such a theology of waiting is beyond the objective canons of science and logic. In sum, religious belief provides consolation conjoined with an ineradicable quantum of doubt.
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    On the Deathbed: Margaret Cavendish on What to Say in Times of Grief
    (LIR. journal, 2015) Rosengren, Cecilia
    The article highlights a couple of fictitious speeches of dying persons, written by the 17th century philosopher, dramatist and author Margaret Cavendish. The speeches are included in her book Orations of Divers Sorts, Accomodated to Divers Places (1662), in which early modern society is displayed in various rhetorical situations. In the introduction Cavendish invites the reader on a tour through a metropolitan city, while eavesdropping on people talking. Her book is in a way a theatrical staging, which fits well with the Renaissance metaphor of »theatrum mundum«. Relating Cavendish’s intervention on this stage to early modern philosophical discussions on emotions and to the rhetorical genre as such, the article discusses how Cavendish conceived of the concepts of grief and comfort in her age.