Walter Kaufmann
Walter Kaufmann
Walter Arnold Kaufmannwas a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served for over 30 years as a professor at Princeton University...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth1 July 1921
CountryGermany
difficult german-philosopher human picture poses problem suffering takes three
In all three cases, and for most human beings, the problem of suffering poses no difficult problem at all: one has a world picture in which suffering has its place, a world picture that takes suffering into account.
suffering problem knows
The problem of suffering is: why is there the suffering we know?
according deserve eternal german-philosopher god infinite men mercy saves
According to Augustine and many of his successors, all men deserve eternal torture, but God in his infinite mercy saves a very few.
men rights influence
When Hegel later became a man of influence' he insisted that the Jews should be granted equal rights because civic rights belong to man because he is a man and not on account of his ethnic origins or his religion.
being-yourself being-single judgment
Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya.
jobs believe profound
The only theism worthy of our respect believes in God not because of the way the world is made but in spite of that. The only theism that is no less profound than the Buddha's atheism is that represented in the Bible by Job and Jeremiah.
writing thinking slow-motion
Writing is thinking in slow motion.
mean religion belief
Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.
critics extremes stature
No other German writer of comparable stature has been a more extreme critic of German nationalism than Nietzsche.
views gone development
It was also Hegel who established the view that the different philosophic systems that we find in history are to be comprehended in terms of development and that they are generally one-sided because they owe their origins to a reaction against what has gone before.
stars men stand-alone
Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars.
differences polytheism monotheism
The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism and monotheism.
men suffering doe
The doctrine of original sin claims that all men sinned in Adam; but whether they did or whether it is merely a fact that all men sin does not basically affect the problem of suffering.
suffering special atheism
For atheism and polytheism there is no special problem of suffering, nor need there be for every kind of monotheism.