Soul-making Theodicy

Here is another paper from my grad class. This one addresses John Hick's article on his "Soul-making Theodicy."

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John Hick's theodicy emerges from his inability to realize the compatibility of the concept of God as both limitlessly powerful and limitlessly good and loving and the problem of evil. In his proposal, Hick provides an approach to this apparent conflict by revisiting and revising the Irenaean approach to theodicy.

The Irenaean approach to theodicy looks at the world as a "person-making world" which utilizes an evolutionary approach to the development of human beings. This is contrasted against the more historically popular Augustinian approach which begins with the fall and is known in modern times as "the free will defense."

It appears to me that Hick begins with an evolutionary presupposition when he writes, "For more educated inhabitants of the modern world regard the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and their temptation by the devil, as myth rather than story." He goes on to discuss how most "educated" people today believe that humans have evolved from lower forms of life.

Irenaean theodicy is built upon a two-stage approach to the creation of human beings. First, the "image of God" was a gradual process which brought forth human beings. In contrast to Augustinian theodicy, which supports the fall, Hick’s approach rejects the Creation story we find in Genesis and existence "in the image of God" as potential at the outset, rather than something to be realized progressively over time.

This approach then moves on to the divine "likeness," which is where modern human beings find themselves after experiencing one’s own free responses. Rather than the "paradise lost" we find in the Creation account in Genesis, Hick’s theodicy looks at the ideal state solely as a future and unrealized goal, not as something lost in the Garden.

Hick’s theodicy is extremely evolutionary. One of his arguments hinges on his belief that God could create beings that would, in essence, not sin. Hick states it this way: "It appears to me that a perfectly good being, although formally free to sin, would in fact never do so." One of his examples to support this position is Newton’s first law of motion. While this is an interesting consideration, laws of science do not function in the same manner as behaviors of living creatures. I believe that Hick chose a weak illustration to support an argument that does not make sense.

Hick goes on to argue that his theodicy makes moral goodness even more valuable because it is earned, not given. In other words, Hick argues that since God created imperfect beings who had to attain to a higher good, their morality is more valuable than one that God created in the first place. In one sense, this appears to be aligned with free will. However, the significant difference is that Hick argues that morality was never a part of the original design for man. This understanding of the source of morality disregards the Genesis story and removes much of God’s role in the creation story.

He also writes about the evolutionary idea of "survival of the fittest" and argues that natural evil helps develop our character. Since humans are forced to learn in an environment that includes natural evil, pain and death contribute to the growth of one’s moral nature. According to Hick, this world we live in – with its challenges and dangers – exists to help in the person-making process. Removing this pain and suffering would impair moral growth.

Hick does concede that this person-making process does not end in this world and continues in a future world, but his conclusions differ greatly from mine. He argues for universal salvation and states that, "the completeness of the justification must depend on the completeness, or universality, of the salvation achieved." In other words, according to Hick’s theology, everyone must be saved to complete God’s plan. This is basically an inevitable obligation on the part of a God whom one believes created every human being imperfect. If God made them incomplete creatures and life is the effort to be better, He would have to allow all of them to enter Heaven, regardless of their place on the journey.

I disagree with Hick’s theodicy for a variety of reasons. It contradicts the meta-narrative of God’s people in their struggle to regain what was lost in the fall. In my opinion, it negates – or at best diminishes – the significance of the cross. And it supports the idea that man was not initially created in the image and likeness of God. Rather we are evolving into what God intended us to be.

In his effort to justify his belief that God and evil cannot co-exist, Hick has created a theodicy that appears to be grounded more in humanism than in good theology. While some of his arguments may find a base in humanism, very few appear to take seriously God’s mission in the world to renew creation.

While I fundamentally disagree with many of Hick’s positions and opinions, I do not believe his theodicy is completely irrelevant. While I feel it is misapplied, there is a sense that life is about person-making. As individuals, communities, and the world as a whole wrestle with the implications and impact of sin, God is calling each of us to use life’s experiences as an opportunity to grow in our terms of our "God-likeness." In our individual journeys as well as the meta-narrative of human existence, God is calling us to learn from good times and bad to develop more fully into the people he intended us to be. This is where Hick and Irenaus do offer something of value in our understanding of evil, sin, and how God can coexist with these negative aspects of the world.