James McLachlan is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Western Carolina University. He the author of several books and articles on Personalism and the problem of evil including: “The Desire to be God: Freedom and the Other in Sartre and Berdyaev”; and most recently, the articles: “Mormonism and the Problem of Evil”; “Mystic Terror and Metaphysical Rebels: Active Evil and Active Love in Schelling and Dostoevsky”; “Satan: Romantic Hero or Just Another Asshole: The Desire to be God, The Devil, and the Demonic”; “Hell Is Others and Paradise Is Others: Hell in the Existential Paris of Sartre and Berdyaev”; and, “The il y a and the Ungrund: Levinas and the Russian Existentialists Berdyaev and Shestov.” He is co-director of the Levinas Summer Seminar and co-founder and co-organizer of the Personalist Seminar. He has known Thomas Buford since 1990. Tom has mentored him since then and helped him discover he was a personalist.