Cauzele răului și ale suferinței
The causes of evil and suffering

Summary/Abstract: he great Austrian novelist and philosopher Stefan Zweig wrote The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin [Castellio gegen Calvin] as a manifest against all the compulsions of violence, outlining a paradigm of the horrors committed by Adolf Hitler. In fact, Castellio against Calvin addresses, among a multitude of other topics, the theme of the man who believes himself to be the holder of the absolute truth and who, when not listened to, becomes extremely dangerous to society, choosing the path of physical violence to impose his ideas. In the case of this monograph, the main character is the famous Protestant theologian, John Calvin, whose religious paradigm has had its own share of tragic consequences – certainly on another level, but psychologically, falling into the same category – comparable to the Nazi excesses imposed on society. This monograph highlights Jean Calvin’s attitude in relation to other sixteenth-century theologians and to the inhabitants of Geneva, the city where he carried out most of his work and where, from the cathedral’s pulpit, he advanced his theological ideas. However, the main idea that pervades the whole monograph – a veritable red thread that connects the various threads of the text – regards the intolerance that Calvin exhibited towards the theologians of the time who tried to have other ideas than those promoted by him. Earthly suffering is the way God shows us that He loves us even if it might seem paradoxical. This is because through this suffering – which we just have to embrace – God forgives our great and many sins. That is why I would dare to say that there are two kinds of pain in this world: pain that hurts and pain that changes...

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