Edexcel A-level Religious Studies (9RS0) · Philosophy of Religion: Problems of Evil and Suffering
Mini-Lesson
The Problem of Evil and Suffering
If God is omnipotent and wholly good, why is there evil? This lesson sets out the logical and evidential problems and the main theodicies that try to answer them.
You will distinguish moral from natural evil, study the Augustinian and Irenaean/Hick theodicies and the free will defence, and weigh their success. Answer the questions and collect ⭐.
The problem
The problem stated
Moral evil is caused by human choices (cruelty, war); natural evil is suffering from nature (disease, earthquakes).
Epicurus / Hume: the "inconsistent triad" — God is omnipotent, God is wholly good, yet evil exists; the three seem incompatible.
J. L. Mackie ("Evil and Omnipotence", 1955): this is a logical problem — the beliefs are contradictory, so one must be given up.
The evidential problem: even if not a strict contradiction, the sheer quantity of suffering counts as evidence against God.
Check
The inconsistent triad
1The "inconsistent triad" claims that which three propositions cannot all be true?
Augustine
The Augustinian theodicy
Augustine argues:
God's creation was wholly good; evil is not a substance but a privation of good (privatio boni) — a falling-short.
Evil entered through the free choice of angels and of humans at the Fall; we were "seminally present" in Adam, so all share the consequences.
Natural evil is a consequence of this disorder; God is just to permit it, and the whole retains an aesthetic harmony.
Check
Privation
2In the Augustinian theodicy, evil is best described as:
Irenaeus / Hick
The Irenaean (soul-making) theodicy
Building on Irenaeus, John Hick (Evil and the God of Love, 1966) defends a soul-making theodicy:
Humans are created immature and grow towards God's likeness through freely meeting challenges.
God maintains an epistemic distance so that faith and virtue are genuinely free, not compelled.
The world is a vale of soul-making; suffering has a purpose in developing character. Hick adds universal salvation as the final justification.
Check
Soul-making
3Hick's phrase "vale of soul-making" means the world is:
Free will
The free will defence and alternatives
Alvin Plantinga: a world with free creatures who freely choose good is more valuable than one of programmed goodness; God cannot guarantee that free beings never choose evil, so moral evil is compatible with omnipotence.
Process theology (e.g. Griffin, after Whitehead): God is not omnipotent in the classical sense but works persuasively; this dissolves the triad but revises the concept of God.
Check
Free will defence
4The free will defence argues that:
Challenges
Evaluating the theodicies
The free will defence explains moral evil but struggles with natural evil.
Critics (e.g. Mackie) ask why God could not create free beings who always freely choose good.
The scale and distribution of suffering — including animal and childhood suffering — is a powerful evidential objection; Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov protests that no future harmony justifies a child's torment.
Sort it
Which theodicy?
Sort each idea into the theodicy it belongs to.
✝️ Augustinian
🌱 Irenaean/Hick
🕊️ Free will defence
Match
Thinker to idea
Match each thinker to their contribution.
Statement
Answer
Recap
The big ideas to know
The problem: Logical (Mackie, inconsistent triad) vs evidential; moral vs natural evil
Augustinian: Evil = privation; the Fall; free will; aesthetic harmony