What you'll learn

• What a theodicy is and how it responds to evil and suffering.
• How Augustine explains evil through the Fall, privation and free will.
• How Irenaeus explains suffering through soul-making, epistemic distance and final fulfilment.
• How process theodicy changes the idea of God’s power, and how to evaluate all three approaches.

1. The starting point: why theodicies are needed

The problem of evil asks how belief in God can be reasonable if there is real evil and suffering in the world. It becomes especially sharp for classical theism, the belief that God is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing and creator of everything.

A theodicy does not usually deny that suffering is terrible. It tries to show that belief in God can still be coherent despite suffering.

Two kinds of evil are useful to distinguish:

• Moral evil: suffering caused by human choices, such as murder, cruelty, exploitation or war.
• Natural evil: suffering caused by natural processes, such as disease, earthquakes, genetic disorders or animal pain.

The map below shows the three main approaches in this topic: Augustine, Irenaeus and process theodicy.

2. Augustine: creation was good, evil is a privation

Augustine’s theodicy begins with the Christian belief that God created the world good. In Genesis, creation is repeatedly described as “good”, so Augustine argues that evil cannot be a thing God created.

Instead, evil is a privation: a lack, corruption or absence of goodness.

A classic example is blindness. Blindness is not a separate “thing” in the same way an eye is a thing. It is the lack of sight where sight should exist. Augustine applies this idea to evil: evil depends on good, but twists or damages it.

The Fall of angels and humans

Augustine links evil to the misuse of free will, meaning the genuine ability to choose between alternatives. He argues that God created free beings good, but some angels turned away from God through pride. Then human beings also fell through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

This is known as the Fall: the traditional Christian belief that human nature and the created order became damaged through the first human sin.

For Augustine, moral evil is therefore caused by creatures, not by God. God gave freedom because a world of freely loving creatures is better than a world of robots. But free will can be misused.

Soul-deciding and reconciliation

Augustine’s approach is sometimes described as soul-deciding because earthly life becomes a serious moral and spiritual arena. Human beings either turn towards God or away from God.

However, Augustine does not think fallen humans can simply repair themselves by trying harder. They need grace, God’s undeserved help. The Christian solution is reconciliation, meaning the restoration of the broken relationship between humanity and God, achieved through Christ.

Strengths of Augustine

Augustine’s theodicy is powerful because it preserves key Christian beliefs:

• God remains wholly good.
• Evil is blamed on created free will, not on God.
• Human moral responsibility is taken seriously.
• The need for salvation through Christ makes sense.

It also gives a strong account of moral evil. Cruelty, betrayal and injustice often do seem connected to disordered human desire.

Weaknesses of Augustine

The biggest difficulty is modern science. If life developed through evolution, then death, predation, disease and extinction existed long before human beings. That makes it hard to say natural evil entered the world through a historical human Fall.

Augustine also faces a logical challenge: if God made free creatures perfectly good, why did they choose evil? J. L. Mackie famously argued that an omnipotent God could have created free beings who always freely choose the good.

There is also a moral concern. Is it fair for all humans to inherit guilt or punishment from Adam and Eve? And why should animals or infants suffer because of human sin?

3. Irenaeus: creation as a vale of soul-making

Irenaeus offers a very different approach. Instead of saying creation began perfect and then fell, Irenaeus sees human beings as created immature and incomplete. We are made in the image of God, but must grow into the likeness of God.

This means the world is not meant to be a paradise of comfort. It is a challenging environment in which humans can develop virtues such as courage, compassion, patience and trust.

The phrase “vale of soul-making” is associated especially with John Hick’s later development of Irenaean ideas, but the roots are in Irenaeus’ belief that humans grow towards divine likeness.

Free will defence

The free will defence argues that genuine freedom is a great good. If God constantly prevented wrong choices, humans would not be morally responsible agents.

For Irenaeus, free will is not only about explaining why evil happens. It is necessary for growth. You cannot develop courage without danger, forgiveness without wrongdoing, or compassion without need.

Best of all possible worlds

The phrase best of all possible worlds is most closely associated with Leibniz, but it is useful here. A soul-making theodicy does not claim this is the most comfortable world possible. It claims this may be the best kind of world for producing mature persons.

A world with predictable natural laws, real risks and real consequences may be better for soul-making than a world where God constantly intervenes to remove pain.

Epistemic distance

Irenaean theodicy also uses the idea of epistemic distance. This means God is not so overwhelmingly obvious that belief becomes forced.

If God appeared unmistakably every time someone considered doing wrong, obedience might be based on fear or self-interest, not genuine love.

Eschatological justification

The Irenaean approach needs an afterlife. This is called eschatological justification, from eschatology, meaning beliefs about the final destiny of humans and the world.

The idea is that suffering can only be fully justified if God ultimately completes the soul-making process beyond death. Hick develops this in a strongly hopeful direction, arguing that all persons will eventually be brought to perfection.

Strengths of Irenaeus

Irenaeus fits modern views about development better than Augustine. Evolution already presents life as a long process of growth, struggle and adaptation. So Irenaeus does not need a literal perfect world at the beginning.

It also gives suffering a positive purpose. Instead of seeing pain only as punishment or corruption, it can be part of moral and spiritual formation.

Weaknesses of Irenaeus

The main weakness is innocent suffering. Babies, animals and victims of extreme cruelty may not seem to gain meaningful soul-making benefits. Some suffering crushes character rather than builds it.

There is also a serious challenge to the nature of God. If God deliberately uses suffering to develop people, does that make God loving, or does it make God manipulative?

The theodicy also depends heavily on life after death. Without a future fulfilment, the amount and unfair distribution of suffering look much harder to justify.

4. Process theodicy: God persuades but does not coerce

Process theodicy is associated with thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne and David Griffin. It is not the same as Augustine or Irenaeus, because it changes the classical idea of omnipotence.

In process thought, reality is dynamic and developing. God works within the process of the world by persuasion, not by coercion.

This means God is not omnipotent in the classical sense. God cannot simply prevent every earthquake, disease or violent act. Instead, God is the co-sufferer who experiences the pain of creation and works to bring good out of it. Whitehead famously described God as “the fellow-sufferer who understands”.

This view also challenges aseity, the classical belief that God is self-existent and independent. In process theology, God is genuinely affected by the world.

5. Comparing Augustine and Irenaeus

6. The four big evaluation tests

Modern views about origins of life

Augustine is weakest here if read literally. Evolution suggests death and suffering existed before human beings, so natural evil cannot easily be blamed on the human Fall.

Irenaeus is stronger because he sees creation as developmental. Process theodicy is also compatible with evolution because it presents the world as genuinely open and dynamic.

The nature of God

Augustine protects God’s goodness by saying God did not create evil. But he still must explain why an omniscient God created beings he knew would fall.

Irenaeus presents God as a loving educator. But if the world is full of extreme suffering for educational purposes, God may seem harsh.

Process theodicy makes God compassionate and involved, but weakens classical omnipotence and aseity.

Innocent suffering

This is the hardest test for all theodicies. Augustine may seem unfair because the innocent suffer due to inherited sin. Irenaeus may seem inadequate because not all suffering develops the sufferer. Process thought avoids saying innocent suffering is divinely planned, but it leaves open why God is worthy of worship if unable to prevent it.

Life after death

Augustine uses reconciliation and salvation through Christ to answer the problem of sin and judgement. Irenaeus needs eschatological fulfilment even more strongly, because soul-making may be incomplete in earthly life.

If life after death is rejected, Irenaean theodicy becomes much weaker. If it is accepted, it can argue that present suffering is not the final word.