John Hick’s ‘Soul-Making’ Theodicy

In Evil and the God of Love Professor Hick provides perhaps the most comprehensive and insightful philosophical examination of theodicy in contemporary time.1 In the book he addresses a variety of philosophical issues in an extensive development and discussion of Christian theology as it is relevant to theodicy. But he is also sensitive to current views in biology and evolutionism, and takes these theories into account in his theodical development. As the title suggests, Hick attempts to reconcile ‘sin and suffering to the perfect love of an omnipotent Creator’ (p. 297).2 In Parts I to III he discusses a variety of theodical themes in examination of a wide selection of Christian theodical literature. He rejects non-teleological theodicies, and proposes in Part IV a rather original theodicy that involves a teleological move not unlike that which we saw in Leibniz’s Theodicy. A future-looking view, he thinks, is key to coherent theodicy: ‘instead of looking to the past for its clue to the mystery of evil, it looks to the future, and indeed to that ultimate future to which only faith can look’ (p. 297). Yet in his development of teleological theodicy he goes beyond that of Leibniz, clarifying and stressing a ‘soul-making’ theology in his teleological perspective.