If you believe in the existence of an infinitely good, -knowing, and -powerful
deity (“God”), how do you explain the reality of evil—including the
inexpressible suffering and death of innocents? Wouldn’t God be forced to
vanquish such suffering due to God’s very nature? Alvin Plantinga has argued,
convincingly, that if the possibility of ultimate goodness somehow necessarily
required that evil be allowed to exist, God, being omnibenevolent, would have
to allow it. But as John Hick has noted, the mere logical possibility of such a
situation might not be enough to console the doubting theist. We need a positive
reason to believe that evil as we know it is compatible with God’s existence. So,
Hick offers a “soul-making” theodicy—or vindication—of God, suggesting the
human soul cannot fully progress to toward spiritual maturity (a kind of ultimate
good on his account) without grappling with evil. In this short piece I argue that,
if we accept Hick’s premises about souls and soul-making, we can indeed make
sense of evil to some extent. But, I suggest, his account cannot justify the type
or amount of evil we see in the world, so his theodicy does not succeed.
