John Hick
John Hick further developed Irenaeus’s theodicy. He describes the world as a ‘vale of soul-making’, where things happen to us for our own good. He argued that evil and suffering in this world are not accidents or problems that God could not overcome, but rather deliberate. God gave us a world in which we would have the best circumstances under which to choose a free and loving relationship with Him, including struggles and hardship through which we develop human virtues, and these virtues are more meaningful than if they were simply graced to humans by God.
It also includes ‘epistemic distance’, a distance in knowledge. God deliberately chooses to remain partially hidden from humanity so we can make genuinely free choices about whether we want to believe in Him or not. If there was no doubt of his existence, then faith would not be a choice, but God wants us to have this choice, turning to him because we want to and not because we were forced to.
He justified evil by arguing that something’s goodness relies on its purpose: instrumental good, in which something may not be good in itself but good for something. This is however highly controversial as it leaves no room for dysteleological evils.
Hick’s theodicy only works if there is a possibility of life after death – if someone dies from a long and painful illness or a baby is abused, then it cannot be seen as ‘all for the good’ unless it works out for the best ‘in the end’ i.e. the afterlife. In his view, during the afterlife people continue with their growth and development towards a relationship with God, and eventually everyone will be saved, which is again controversial.
Discussing Hick
Universal salvation can be criticised: what was the point in Jesus dying on the Christ if everyone will go to heaven?
If everyone will freely come to God eventually, can this be free? We can be free to choose different options, but if in the end we all arrive at the same destination, perhaps our choice is only an apparent choice and not a genuinely free one.
Is it really worth having to live in a world where evil and suffering is so apparent just for the sake of human freedom? Wouldn’t it be better if God never made the world?
D.Z. Phillips argued that it is wrong to suggest that God allows evil and suffering, and actually plans for it to happen, and worked it into His design for the world. This would be an evil God. It is also immoral to justify God by looking at the usefulness of evil.