Evil and the God of Love

by John Harwood Hick

When first published, Evil and the God of Love instantly became recognized as a modern theological classic, widely viewed as the most important work on the problem of evil to appear in English for more than a generation. It has continued to be at the centre of discussions ever since. Alongside a new preface by the author, this reissue of the work includes a foreword by Marilyn McCord Adams.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Academic, Christian, Christianity

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think when I'm old and broken and looking back on my life, Mr. Hick's book will be one of the ones that I consider having the largest impact on my life. It really struck a chord in my soul and answered a lot of questions about my faith that have been bothering me for a while. This book was a blessing. Theodicy has been a Christian problem for as long as The Church has existed. In my mind Mr. Hick solved the problem. Really not exaggerating. Give it a try you won't regret it.

[Mike Gaeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hick's book is very enlightening to anyone interested in Christianity west of the Vatican, mostly because it digs up an old and mostly un-disseminated view of human nature, original sin and and ultimate redemption, which is essentially that humans start out immature but are on a path to linear development (ultimately all will be redeemed). He also takes a lot of time breaking down Augustinian theology before building up the Irenaean eastern one. I tend to agree with him that this view is underrepresented in Christianity today. I could say a lot more about this, but I'd rather leave it at that for now.

[Ruth Fanshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tackles the enormous question: If God is both 'all good' and 'all powerful', how can there still be evil and suffering in the world?

I found it to be clearly written and easy to follow, very informative, and thought provoking. However the conclusion the writer ended up reaching was, for me, at least as problematic as the ones he ruled out.

(I also felt that he didn't apply the same levels of rigorous logic to the arguments in favour of his preferred solution as he did to the arguments for other points of view.)


Here are the ideas I found most helpful:

1) If we want to understand God's purposes for humanity and the world, we need to start with Jesus and the Cross, not with either end of history. (Although, sadly, it seems to me that he doesn't actually follow through on this.)

2) That God may have created humanity in a state of 'innocence' rather than 'perfection'.

3) That there will be "a future good so great" that "the whole of human experience" will somehow have been worth it.

4) The concept of Christian universalism: that, through the completed work of Christ, everyone will eventually be reconciled to God. (This is an idea that I'm doing other research into.)


Here are the ideas I found rather suspect:

1) The idea of the world as "a veil of soul-making". This is an idea that Hick borrows from the poet Keats. When I first read Keat's idea (years ago), my first thought was that he'd essentially invented his own religion, and I still can't see anything particularly Christian about it.

2) The idea that there will be multiple existences/lives for everyone to live, in as yet unknown worlds or environments, until we eventually get it right. To me, this seems much closer to Buddhism than to Christianity. I can see no biblical basis for it whatsoever.


Here are the ideas that I found highly problematic:

1) Taking the Fall out the equation altogether and concluding that God created humanity already 'fallen'. To me, this scenario leaves us with an unjust god.

2) Hick's idea that God deliberately placed humanity in a 'fallen' world that was full of suffering as well as opportunities for good – specifically, a world in which it would appear as though He didn't exist!

3) Hick's reason for thinking the two points above: he believed that, although God could have created beings with free will without doing this, He couldn't have created beings who would love Him freely without it. As far as I can see, this line of reasoning leaves us with a very selfish god.

*
Part of Hick's reasoning for these conclusions is that if 'perfect' humans – and even more so, angels in perfect communion with God – were able to fall, how can we know that there won't be another angelic and/or human fall at some future point?

To which I would reply: Well, we don't. The Bible tells us so very little about angels at all – and barely anything about how they came to fall – that we cannot possibly have all the relevant data. How can we hope to reason well about any subject about which we have so little data to work with?

As for the human Fall, the idea that we were created 'innocent' rather than 'perfect' is helpful. In the Genesis creation accounts (whether you take them literally or not), God said that everything He had made was 'good', but He never stated that He had created things (or people) in a state of perfection. That seems to be something we've read into the text subsequently.

At any rate, for me at least, the concept of an 'innocent' humanity makes it easier to understand how the Fall (whatever we may understand that actually to have looked like) could have taken place.

So could there be another human and/or angelic Fall in the future? I would say that we don't have enough data to say for certain. But I don't see how God could possibly have failed to factor in that idea, and I am quite sure He's got it covered, one way or another.

And it's His job to deal with that sort of thing, not ours.

*
It seemed to me that, more and more, Hick was dismissing large swathes of the Bible (including a substantial portion of the teachings of Paul), apparently because of his concerns and because he couldn't make them fit with his ideas for resolving those concerns.

To me, what he ended up presenting us with was more philosophy than theology, and really only nominally Christian at all.

*
I decided a long time ago that, if I ever came to the point where I had to choose between believing that God is 'all good' or 'all powerful', it would not be His character that I gave up on. I still stand by that. (And by the way, there's a lot of territory between 'all powerful' and 'no power at all'!)

However, I'm not at that extreme yet, and I have increasing hope that I'll come to a place of better understanding, so that I never end up at there.

In the meantime, in case it's helpful to anyone else who is still wrestling with this huge issue, here's where I am right now:

1) I believe that Jesus – His teachings, His earthly life, and His completed work through His death, resurrection, and ascension – is the key to everything.

2) I believe that Jesus came to show us what the Father is like (cf. John 14:9-10), and that (in the words of Nick Page): "God is Christlike, and in Him is no Un-Christlikeness at all."

3) I am now, I think, a 'hopeful universalist' – in the sense that I hope I've understood correctly that this is what the completed work of Christ will ultimately accomplish, although I don't have all my theological ducks in a row yet.

4) I do believe that there was a human Fall, in some meaningful sense, and that that has significantly changed the nature of the world we live in (as portrayed in Genesis by the earth starting to produce "thorns and thistles" after the Fall, i.e. things that are harmful to living things, as well as things that are helpful and good). I believe that is the cause of what Hick defines as 'natural evil' (e.g. natural disasters, etc.).

5) I do believe that the traditional 'freewill defence' still covers a lot of ground.

6) What I am still struggling with is why God allows certain specific instances of evil and suffering to happen. (I'm sure each of us can think of something truly terrible without trying very hard.) And where I'm at with that, right now, is that I don't understand. But I trust Jesus. I trust that He is good, and the very essence of Love. And so I have to believe that, somehow, there is a reason – and a very good one!

I'd also like to leave you with another idea I find extremely helpful, although it doesn't come into this book:

"The deep meaning of the Cross is that there is no suffering on earth that is not borne by God."
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

[Rostam Farrokhzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life-changing, a light in the darkness, a must-read work for anyone interested in the problem of evil. Very few books ever moved me like this one did, and this is the highest praise I can possibly confer.

[Henry Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book and I was very close to giving it 4 stars. Hick presents and convincingly rejects nearly all of Augustine's theodicies. Hick was the first of his time to properly formalise Augustine's theodicies (they are numerous and in his original book they are difficult to decipher) and he does so very clearly. He then puts forward a theodicy largely based on the Irenean conception focussing on 'soul-making'.

Indeed, I feel that when Hick starts to present his own theodicy, this is where the book falls apart. His key justification for evil is 'epistemic distance', that we need to be unaware of God in order to make our souls. This justification just isn't good enough, committing - to a severe degree - the No True Scotsman Fallacy. One great example of suffering that can never really be justified (dysteleological suffering) is that of the oppression of women throughout history. For a long time, women were not even aware that this was wrong, so how could they have learned from it? There are lots of other objections, but it seems unimportant to discuss them all.

This book is long. It could be a lot shorter. Hick's writing is extremely repetitive and he often labours over insignificant points for simply too long. I was able to skim read large parts of his book and ultimately not lose anything from it.

However, my biggest problem with this book is that it loses sight of its key objective. To subscribe to Hick's theodicy as a Christian one would have to shed a lot of Christian orthodoxies (and I mean a lot). One would have to follow his extravagant theory about life after death ("Replica Theory"), his interpretation of the purpose of Jesus (example rather than saviour) and the idea of salvation for every human (i.e. Hell doesn't exist). Is this really a Christian theodicy? To me, it seems like a John Hick theodicy, not really meant for anyone else.

[Doni · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the existence of evil and the nature of God as being omnipotent and good bother you, then look no further than this book! Hick explores Protestant's inheritance from St. Augustine and the Greek-Orthodox tradition from Irenaeus, compares the two and then sets out to tell us that evil is necessary for soul-making. If we were looking for a completely good world, then we have confused the world we live in for Heaven. We are beings in the process of becoming more like God and in so doing, we must test our mettles against hardships. We may not always be able to tell what good may come of something we perceive as Evil, but in the end, God will be able to make it such. Hick also doesn't believe in the existence of Hell since that would mean that God had forfeited his relationships with those souls. A powerful and persuasive read!

[Clay Olmstead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stand out telling of the history of humanity's dealings with the problem of evil, emphasizing the evolution of Christian thought on the issue. Perfect introduction to Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian."

[Samuel Eastlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book (I read 230/400 pages), but I wanted to write out my thoughts on it anyway.

Another reviewer commented on the four parts of the book:
Introduction, 43 pages.
'Augustinian' Theodicy, 164 pages.
'Irenaean' Theodicy, 74 pages.
Hick's Theodicy, 121 pages.

I, unlike most of the people reviewing this book, am a convinced supporter of what Hick calls the Augustinian Theodicy. It seems like Hick's criticism of the Augustinian tradition centres on what Hick calls the 'impersonal' relationship of God to His creation:

Perhaps the most fundamental criticism to be made... is the impersonal or subpersonal way in which God's relationship to His creation is prevailingly conceived. Pg. 199

And elsewhere,

The personal character of God and of His dealings with mankind have become increasingly central and normative for theological thinking. Pg. 83

Again, when describing Augustine's views,

The kind of analogy that is appropriate to his doctrine of creation is that of the Artist enjoying the products of his creative activity, rather than the Person seeking to bring about personal relationships with created persons. Pg. 59

In my opinion, this is a man-centred approach to thinking about God. Hick treats God as though God's experience of 'being God' is just like our experience of being human, only with more facts in his head and more power as his disposal. It's true that God is personal, that there are three persons in the Godhead, but it's also true that God's existence and way of being personal is radically different to ours. God loves all His creation, he loves the atoms he created, and the rocks. He loves the trees he created, he loves the dogs and horses and birds he created. He loves the bacteria he created and he loves the people he created. Why should being a human be such a special way of existing that God gives permission for evil to exist just for us?

For example, God loves lions. He loves their strength and their nature, he made them what they are. However, could a lion exist as it does if it didn't eat meat? No, it couldn't. You could have a similar creature which doesn't eat meat, but it wouldn't be a lion as it currently exists. Therefore, if you want a lion, you have to have other creatures which can feed it. Hence, antelope exist, and God permits some antelopes to suffer evil so that lions can exist.

God creates two good things: a lion and an antelope. But he can only do this if he permits one of them to suffer evil. Therefore, God only permits evil if some greater good can be brought out of it. Now, God could have done this without ever creating humans, or ever creating other persons of any kind. If He did that, His creation would still be good, and evil would still be permitted. If we can have a good creation and we can have evil without humans ever existing, then we can't rely on a 'personal' criteria for understanding good and evil. The personal character of God should not be (independently) normative for theological thinking.

Furthermore, when I read through Hick's historical assessment of the 'Irenaean' Theodicy it was significantly lacking in evidence! True, there are themes in what Irenaeus says which might match the contrast in Theodicies which Hick is setting up, but Hick himself recognises that 'we are thus dealing not so much with a continuos Irenaean tradition of theodicy as with a type of theodicy'. This is obvious by simply looking at the numer of pages Hick spends on each of the sections, he spends over twice as much on the Augustinisan and Irenaean theodicies.

And this doesn't even take into account how accurate Hick's extrapolation of Irenaeus's writings actually is. I think that Irenaeus is trying to give an explanation of why God didn't create humanity with a post-Pentecost relationship with Him already, and his explanation is that humanity was in its infancy and wasn't ready to know God in this way. I am doubtful that using this as an explanation of evil is more scriptural than Augustine, and it is most likely less.

The problem with Hick (and most modern Christian philosophers) is that they don't sit within a living tradition which can further work with and develop what they are saying. Hick has written this book and thought a lot about God and evil, but he hasn't done this for 'the Church' as the bearer of the Christian Tradition. He's done it to answer some problems that have arisen about the Christian story in light of modern thinking. He is therefore still very much an outsider to the thought-life of most active Christians.

Despite these criticisms I still enjoyed what I read and would recommend it to those interested in the subject, but I would also point you to Brian Davies/Herbert Mccabe on the subject.

[Luke Merrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant and clear analysis of the fundamental issues found within contemporary theodicies dating back to Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin. Essentially Hick makes the case that these theologians (and the many since) espoused the idea that humanity was first created in perfection and then somehow fell victim to the lures of evil. This then leads us to conclude that perfect creatures are capable of committing sin and subsequently makes God partially responsible for our original sin - for he provided the conditions for which humanity would fall from perfection. Hick then points out how the theologies concocted in this environment fail to make philosophical sense leading to ideas such as calvans double predestination, and Arminius’ notions of free will.
Hick offers an alternative view inspired by Irenaeus claiming that God did not make humanity perfect from the beginning but is in the process of achieving such a reality through the process of divinisation in human life. We were made in the image of God and are being made into his likeness. This framework provides us with a different set of tools from which we can explain evil as juxtaposed to God's goodness.
I would tend to largely agree with Hick but I felt his explanation of human freedom was lacking. His insistence on an evolutionarily emergence into modern humanity was deeply problematic. I hoped he would explain In what sense did humanity evolve and at what point did we become “human”? Human in such a way that we are distinct from the animal kingdom in our consciousness, evilness, and our ability to transcend?

[J.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admire Hick for his pluralistic view. As a Christian minister, he does not see Christianity as the true religion among the great faiths. Rather, he pushes for his "Copernican Revolution," comparing medieval people ("the earth is the center of the universe") to Christians in our time for seeing themselves as the center of the religious realm.

In this book, Hick comes down to earth with his Irenaean theodicy. He begins by debunking the Free Will Defence, and then introduces the theodicy of Irenaeus. The Irenaean theodicy views evil as something that gives benefit to those who encounter evil. Evil, in this view, helps in making people spiritually strong.

Hick's Irenaean theodicy, however, does not properly address the situation where those who encounter evil will meet his/her demise, in which no "soul-making" can arise. But overall, the Irenaean theodicy offers us a better perspective on evil since evil is inevitable. It is far more down to earth than the Augustinian Free Will Defence. I believe this theodicy can be further developed to defend the God of love.

[Seth Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive review of the problem of evil within two specific frameworks: the traditional Protestant answer found in Augustinian thinking, and the more recent development found within the Irenaen tradition.

Highly theological in nature, so much so that I was lost at certain points. Would cautiously recommend to those interested in answering the question, "Why would a good God allow evil?" Cautiously because it would be easy to start and never finish as I almost did, but worth the thought provoking ideas.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book by a great philosopher discussing the philosophical problem of evil and how it proves or disproves the existence of God. The first half is somewhat heavy--focused on the responses of early fathers to the problem of evil. The second half is Hick's explanation of why evil is necessary for 'soul building'. This issue is one of the core arguments against the existence of God, so this is a very important discussion for anyone interested in this issue.

[Brittany Petruzzi]

Unfinishable because I liked it less and less as I read it, than the library pulled it from their digitally available collection. I didn't realize he was attempting to tackle theodicy while not believing in the truth of Scripture untl about halfway through. Not worth tracking down to finish.

[rac]

awfully repetitive and rambling for a pretty unconvincing theodicy. read a few of Hick’s works on his pluralistic theory earlier this semester and it was not nearly as bad as this - there are some chapters that just feel like you’re reading in circles.

[Kendal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dense-as-German-Cholate-Cake theodicy.

[Zach Kagley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up by chance towards the end of my freshman year in college at a book sale in the cafe commons. The author contrasts, with notable clarity of exposition, what he describes as an Irenaean theodicy with an Augustinian theodicy. The former includes an all-encompassing view of the church as based in the early Greek church fathers, such as Origen & Gregory Nazianzen. The latter expresses the 'Latin' interpretation of Christianity as based on a particularly strong doctrine of Original Sin & a Predestinarian view of grace & salvation, which reflected Augustine's maturing views on the Bible, the Church, & salvation, which was generally taken as a given in Western Christianity until very recently (the past few centuries). Hick decidedly embraces the Irenaean tradition.

By chance, one of Hick's own graduate students was later one of my professors. I thought a great deal about her at the time; I do not know if the admiration was fully reciprocated.

[Travis Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect book to begin thinking about theodicy and the traditions and strands of thought surrounding it!