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This chapter explores the history and logic of the doctrine of predestination—that because of inherited (“original”) sin man needs divine grace to perform any righteous act. Since grace is a free gift of God, it was taken to follow that God, in withholding it from some and granting it to others, consigns some to everlasting perdition simply from the counsel of his own will, from all eternity. The chapter examines St. Augustine, chief originator of the doctrine, and his struggle with those who opposed it, especially the Pelagians. It goes on to examine Calvin's more severe concept of Double Predestination, and later developments, through the Council of Trent, disputes between Jansenists and Jesuits, up to the modern times. It examines critically whether belief in fundamental human depravity can have a rational basis.

The chief theological concern in Taylor's doctrine of original sin lay in avoiding the notion that sin resided as a property or component of humanity's natural constitution. While many Old Calvinists held to the belief that depravity passed to humans through natural procreation, Taylor argued that this made God the author of sin, an unacceptable conclusion. In opposition to the Exercisers, Tasters, and Tylerites, who put the majority of their emphasis on human inability, the Taylorites worked hard to maintain what they believed to be continuity with the Edwardsian tradition as it related to the doctrine of original sin. Taylor recognized that there was a delicate balance between the doctrines of natural ability and divine dependence that required constant redress. In the end, the difference between Taylor's emphasis on the human ability to obey God in spite of the fact that sin was certain to prevail prior to regeneration proved largely semantic; but even this semantic difference was significant for his relationships with fellow Edwardsians and his identity as a theologian.

Perhaps surprisingly, most readers saw the Book of Mormon as embodying – not contesting – doctrines of the Bible. Most distinctive beliefs associated with Mormonism are absent from the Book of Mormon. Mormons revere both the Book of Mormon and the Bible as scripture, but words of living prophets are also scripture. But some distinctions worth noting in the Mormon scripture are a more elaborate doctrine of atonement, Jehovah as the pre‐mortal Christ, denial of original sin and of human depravity, extensive pre‐Christian and non‐Judean knowledge of Christ, a “fortunate fall.”

This chapter probes deeper into the issues of depravity, sex, and violence through stories told to the Colchester borough magistrates in 1638. Lydia Downes gave a damning account of her sexual adventures and partnership in crime with the cunning man, abortionist, and poisoner, Richard Skeete. Corroborative testimony from witnesses, and evidence from the archdeaconry court, reveals a five-year spree of sexual depravity, infanticide, and murder, for which both Lydia and Richard were hanged.

This chapter discusses the Matthias affair, which became a scandal of unprecedented proportions. It provides details of the Matthias's Kingdom story, with its themes of religious delusion, sexual depravity, and (in time) of the alleged murder of Elijah Pierson. The chapter notes that during Matthias's arrest at his boarding house, the policemen found inside his bags some of the money that had been stolen from Benjamin Folgers, linen shirts from the finest clothiers, silk stockings and handkerchiefs, a gold watch, and frock coats embroidered in gold and silver. One of the officers pulled out the “Jesus Matthias” nightcap embroidered with the names of the 12 Apostles, and another cap nearly identical to the first, but with the names of the 12 tribes. The chapter also discusses Matthias's trial, which lasted for four days, and the sentencing of his jail term.

Part 3 (chs. 7–11) of this book shows how God has to allow the possibility of bad things if he is to provide the good things described in Part 2. First, he has to allow creatures to freely choose what is bad. Although it is implausible to suppose that all possible creatures would suffer from ‘transworld depravity’, as Plantinga supposes, creatures do need bad desires (temptations) if they are to have a choice between good and bad.

This chapter explores the way in which the poets of Old Comedy — Cratinus and Pherecrates as well as Aristophanes — required actors to impersonate literary abstractions that were gendered feminine, such as Poetry and Comedy. The world-stage relationship took on an extremely concrete, vivid, and self-conscious form in a theatrical genre where actors playing ‘real’ members of the community, such as dramatists and other poets, abused other actors playing anthropomorphic feminine symbols of art. Poetic and theatrical innovations are visibly figured as sexual depravity and sexual violence.

The best known response to the logical problem of evil is surely Alvin Plantinga's free will defense. But the free will defense is also the most frequently misunderstood and misconstrued arguments in the literature on the logical problem of evil. It is shown in this chapter that there are at least three cogent formulations of the logical problem of evil. The free will defense is given careful exposition and discussion. Its relationship to the logical problem of evil and precisely what the free will defense aims to establish are given explicit statement. It is shown that the possibility of universal transworld depravity is not sufficient to establish that the logical problem of evil is unsound.

This opening chapter provides a brief introduction to and exposition of Merold Westphal's “prophetic” philosophy of religion. It focuses primarily on the wisdom of humility that characterizes his thought and how that wisdom, expressed through the redemptive dynamic of doubt, may contribute to developing a postsecular “apologetic” for faith. With a prophetically critical voice, Westphal calls for humility and commitment, always confessing that human beings can encounter meaning and truth only as human beings, never as gods.

The imagining of Tantra seems to be something more complicated, much more messy, and yet also more interesting than the simple history of an indigenous Indian category or the simple imposition of a Western category onto the passive surface of the exotic Orient. By no means a predictable Saidian narrative of Orientalism, this genealogy of Tantra offers a real challenge to much of the contemporary scholarship in post-colonial and subaltern studies. Tantra lies at the nexus of a series of conflicting extremes—the archaic past and the modern age of darkness; sexual liberation and sexual depravity; political freedom and political violence—each of which is seized upon in different historical moments. Perhaps most importantly, we have found that the image of Tantra has progressively shifted from a tradition associated with secrecy, danger, and occult power to one associated primarily with sexual liberation and physical pleasure. This concluding chapter offers some constructive comments as to how we might begin to reimagine the category of Tantra in contemporary discourse.

This chapter examines how John Toland's books, particularly his Christianity not mysterious, worked in the public sphere, explaining that this book was criticised as the most arrogant and impudent treatment of God and the Holy Scriptures. It suggests that Christianity not mysterious was published in a context riven by orthodox disquiet about the connection between private immorality and public depravity, and that its presentation as a common nuisance was intended to act as a precedent for others to do the like.

In the second of two chapters connecting the management of sexuality to the fortunes of Augustus, his dynasty, and the empire it governs, Prince explores how the dynamics shaping Rome also inform the characterization and narrative arc of Cersei Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011-), another prestige cable series produced during the current golden age of television. She compares Cersei Lannister to Roman historiography’s portrayal of Agrippina the Younger: granddaughter of Augustus, sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, and mother of Nero, yet born into a patriarchal system in which she could only wield power by controlling men around her. In this strategy, both Agrippina and Cersei are challenged by another aspirant to power and competitor for influence, with deadly results. Such ambition led to Tacitus labeling Agrippina a dux femina (“woman commander”), among other imperial women whose “masculine” hunger for power was blamed for the catastrophic decline of their dynasty and of Rome itself – much as the coming of winter on Game of Thrones is correlated with the moral depravity, and dynastic collapse, in which Cersei is intimately implicated. These pessimistic narratives of decline invoke the myth of the iron age, the inverse of the golden age.

This paper is about Kant's view of the relation of belief in God to the moral life. It proceeds in three sections. The first examines the first sentence of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, and shows that it is consistent with Kant's statement, in the third paragraph, that morality inevitably leads to religion. The second section is about Kant's view of the role of God’s grace in accomplishing the revolution of the will. The third section discusses Kant’s account of moral depravity, and its connection with the views he attributes to the Stoics and the Epicureans.

This chapter which contains text from the Lienü zhuan presents biographies of fifteen women who are seen as exemplars of depravity and deception: Mo Xi of Jie of the Xia; Da Ji of Zhow of Yin; Bao Si of You of Zhou; Jiang of Duke Xuan of Wey; Wen Jiang of Duke Huan of Lu; Ai Jiang of Duke Zhuang of Lu; Li Ji of Duke Xian of Jin; Mu Jiang of Duke Xuan of Lu; Xia Ji, a woman of Chen; Sheng Ji of Duke Ling of Qi; Dongguo Jiang of Qi; the two depraved women of Wey; Ling of Zhao's Woman of the Wu family; Queen Li of King Kao of Chu; and the Songstress Queen of King Dao of Zhao. The alluring qualities of many of these women signify beauty's power to deceive. The narratives highlight the danger of unscrupulous women who gain the affection of a ruler or family head. In these accounts, murder, slander, and adultery feature prominently as favored methods for acquiring access to power and position.

This chapter explores how Jonathan Edwards developed the theological themes of humanity and sin in his engagement with the Psalms. Edwards used the Psalms to develop his doctrine of original sin in response to those like John Taylor who rejected the doctrine in his day. In Edwards’ reading of the Psalms, he saw humanity depicted primarily in its fallen state and identified sin as a serious barrier innate to the human heart as a result of the Fall. Edwards exhibited firm continuity with the Reformed exegetical tradition’s interpretation of the Psalms, though he differentiated himself by giving greater emphasis to the lowness of human nature and the depth of sin in humanity to elevate the glory of God and his redemption. In Edwards’ engagement with the Psalms, the focus on fallen human nature and sin functioned to call his listeners to the hope found in the history of redemption.

This chapter presents two cases of female sodomitical relationships to highlight how the “unnatural” female sodomy—though underreported and frequently dismissed by colonial authorities—was not entirely ignored by colonial society. The defendants in the two cases were denounced, investigated, and tried based on neighborhood and familial suspicions and gossips. Evidence for the allegations was completely circumstantial and broken into two categories: unnatural gender inversions and general moral turpitude. In addition, the two cases presented “penetrational ambiguities.” These factors led the magistrates to prove the defendants’ unnatural acts by examining their gendered behaviors as well as moral depravity.

This chapter traces the interminglings of Lockean with Protestant conceptions of child malleability and innateness and their implications for the mother-child nexus in the nineteenth century. It revisits the key question of predestination posed by sociologist Max Weber and examines changing notions of innate depravity through the lens of Christian motherhood as found in an early Evangelical mothers’ periodical written by women, many of whom were mothers. The experiences and concerns of mothers and the ever-present problem of child malleability combined to undergird a new kind of understanding of the child—one that considers and perhaps enables the privileging of the child’s subjectivity as consequential for this-worldly action in the form of mothering practices and ideologies. In the process, the duty of knowing, intuiting, and imputing the actions, motivations, and responses of and to children devolved to white, Christian mothers. The “Liberal Protestantism,” exemplified and brought forth in the writings of Horace Bushnell in mid-century, enacted something beyond a “feminization” of religion through sentiment and affect. It also indispensably assisted in ushering the “child” to the forefront of consideration in ways consequential to the subsequent rise and cultural predominance of a “modern,” consumerist child subjectivity.

Belief in a primordial fall is a fundamental mythos in the Christian tradition. Mormonism radically contests the conventional reading of Genesis. In both the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price, Mormon scripture suggests the fall was part of a divine plan, and intended to provide the necessary schooling for the eternities earth life offers. In recent years especially, Eve has been reconstructed into the heroine, rather than the villainess, of human history. Her choice was a transgression, but no sin. And it represented a courageous embrace of the mortal state. Original sin, and resultant human depravity, are both repudiated by Mormonism, while acknowledging the universal need for God’s mercy and healing.

Claudia Card has argued that Kant’s conception of moral evil is lacking in breadth because it cannot account for cases of moral indeterminacy or for cases of moral fragmentation. Others have argued that Kant’s conception lacks depth because it fails to distinguish various degrees of evil. In response to the objection concerning breadth, it is argued that Kant’s character rigorism, which fuels the objection—the claim that one is either morally good or morally evil—should be restricted in a way that allows for the types of morally flawed character Card describes. In response to the objection regarding depth, appeal is made to Kant’s conception of the particular vices that does allow for degrees of evil. Finally, the chapter considers the case of the “badass,” or someone who is aptly described as doing evil for evil’s sake, and explains how Kant’s view can be elaborated to accommodate this sort of character.