Editing Simone Weil (section)

=== Absence ===
Absence is the key image for her [[metaphysics]], [[Religious cosmology|cosmology]], [[cosmogony]], and [[theodicy]]. She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, she argued that because God is conceived as utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature can exist except where God is not. Thus, creation occurred only when God withdrew in part. This idea mirrors [[tzimtzum]], a central notion in the Jewish [[Kabbalah]] creation narrative.

This is, for Weil, an original ''[[kenosis]]'' ("emptiness") preceding the corrective ''kenosis'' of [[Incarnation (Christianity)|Christ's incarnation]]. Thus, according to her, humans are born in a damned position, not because of [[original sin]], but because to be created at all they must be what God is not; in other words, they must be inherently "unholy" in some sense. This idea fits more broadly into [[apophatic theology]]. 

This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her [[theodicy]], for if creation is conceived this way{{Em dash}}as necessarily entailing [[evil]]{{Em dash}}then there is no [[problem of evil|problem of the entrance of evil]] into a perfect world. Nor does the presence of evil constitute a limitation of God's [[omnipotence]] under Weil's notion; according to her, evil is present not because God could not create a perfect world, but because the act of "creation" in its very [[essence]] implies the impossibility of perfection.

However, this explanation of the essentiality of evil does not imply that humans are simply, originally, and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil claims that "evil is the form which God's [[mercy]] takes in this world".<ref>''Gravity and Grace'', Metaxu, page 132</ref> Weil believed that evil, and its consequent affliction, serve the role of driving humans towards God, writing, "The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it."<ref name=":14">{{cite book| last = Weil | first = Simone | title = Gravity and Grace | publisher = Routledge & Kegan Paul | year = 1952}}</ref>