Beall-Russell Lecture To Focus On Faith And Evil

Dr. Eleonore Stump, The Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, will deliver the Beall-Russell Lecture in the Humanities at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, at Jones Theater in the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center. Stump's lecture, "Faith and the Problem of Evil: Abraham, Isaac, Hagar, and Ishmael," is free and open to the public.
"The story of Abraham's offering of Isaac has proved fruitful for philosophical reflection, but if the story is read in a broader narrative context than that generally considered, it yields insights useful for thinking about the problem of suffering," Stump said. "Among other things, it focuses attention on one of the divine attributes frequently neglected in philosophical discussion of the problem, namely, divine goodness."
Stump, who is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, obtained her bachelor's degree from Grinnell College, her master's degrees from Harvard University and Cornell University and her doctorate from Cornell. She taught at Oberlin College, Virginia Tech and the University of Notre Dame before coming to St. Louis University in 1992.
She has published widely on the philosophy of religion, metaphysics and medieval philosophy and is the author or editor of 15 books and anthologies, including "Aquinas," the "Cambridge Companion to Augustine," "Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions" and "Reasoned Faith."
She is past president of both the Society of Christian Philosophers and the American Catholic Philosophical Association and presented the 2003 Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen, Scotland.
The Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities were established in 1982 with a financial gift from Virginia B. Ball of Muncie, Ind., and is named in honor of her mother, Mrs. John A. Beall, and Lily Russell, former dean of women at Baylor. Past lecturers have included journalist Bill Moyers, historian Shelby Foote and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Czeslaw Milosz.
For more information, contact the College of Arts and Sciences at 710-1399.