Editing Problem of evil (section)

==Theistic arguments==
{{See also|Religious responses to the problem of evil}}
The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as [[Christianity]], [[Islam]], and [[Judaism]] that believe in a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent;<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161018125339/http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/evil.html Problem of Evil], Paul Brians, Washington State University</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Stephen D.|last=O'Leary|title=Arguing the Apocalypse |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=slB8WHY9B6QC&pg=PA34 |year=1998|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-535296-2 |pages=34–35 }}, Quote: "As Max Weber notes, however, it is in monotheistic religions that this problem becomes acute."</ref> but the question of why evil exists has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as [[Buddhism]], [[Hinduism]], and [[Jainism]].<ref name="Harvey2013p141"/><ref name=arthurhermanp5>Arthur Herman, The problem of evil and Indian thought, 2nd Edition, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN|8120807537}}, pp. 5 with Part II and III of the book</ref> Excepting the classic primary response of suffering as redemptive as not being a full theodicy, [[John Hick]] writes that theism has traditionally responded to the problem within three main categories: the common freewill theodicy, the soul making theodicy, and the newer process theology.<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|79}}

=== Cruciform theodicy ===
Cruciform theodicy is not a full theodical system in the same manner that Soul-making theodicy and Process theodicy are, so it does not address all the questions of "the origin, nature, problem, reason and end of evil."<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|145}} It is, instead, a thematic trajectory. Historically, it has been and remains the primary Christian response to the problem of evil.<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|79–80}}

In cruciform theodicy, God is not a distant deity. In the person of Jesus, [[James Cone]] states that a suffering individual will find that God identifies himself "with the suffering of the world".<ref name="James H. Cone oppressed">{{cite book |last1=Cone |first1=James H. |title=God of the Oppressed |date=1997 |publisher=Orbis Books |isbn=9781608330386}}</ref>

This theodicy sees incarnation as the "culmination of a series of things Divine love does to unite itself with material creation" to first share in that suffering and demonstrate empathy with it, and second to recognize its value and cost by redeeming it.<ref name="Marilyn McCord Adams">{{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Marilyn McCord |title=Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God |date=2000 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9780801486869 |pages=164–168 |edition=reprint}}</ref> This view asserts that an ontological change in the underlying structure of existence has taken place through the life and death of Jesus, with its immersion in human suffering, thereby transforming suffering itself. Philosopher and Christian priest [[Marilyn McCord Adams]] offers this as a theodicy of "[[redemptive suffering]]" in which personal suffering becomes an aspect of Christ's "transformative power of redemption" in the world. In this way, personal suffering does not only have value for one's self, it becomes an aspect of redeeming others.<ref name="Marilyn McCord Adams"/>{{rp|ix}}<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|158–168}}

For the individual, there is an alteration in the thinking of the believer as they come to see existence in this new light. For example, "On July 16, 1944 awaiting execution in a [[Nazi]] prison and reflecting on Christ's experience of powerlessness and pain, [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] penned six words that became the clarion call for the modern theological paradigm: 'Only the suffering God can help'."<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|146}}
 
This theodicy contains a special concern for the victims of the world, and stresses the importance of caring for those who suffer at the hands of injustice.<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|146–148}} Soelle says that Christ's willingness to suffer on behalf of others means that his followers must themselves serve as "God's representatives on earth" by struggling against evil and injustice and being willing to suffer for those on the "underside of history".<ref name="Dorothee Soelle">{{cite book |last1=Soelle |first1=Dorothee |title=Thinking about God |date=2016 |publisher=Wipf & Stock Publishers |isbn=9781498295765|page=134}}</ref>

===Animal suffering===
{{Main|Wild animal suffering|Evolutionary theodicy}}
In response to arguments concerning natural evil and animal suffering, Christopher Southgate, a trained research biochemist and a Senior Lecturer of Theology and Religion at the [[University of Exeter]], has developed a "compound evolutionary theodicy."<ref name="Robert John Russell">{{cite journal |last1=Russell |first1=Robert John |title=Southgate's Compound Only-Way Evolutionary Theodicy: Deep Appreciation and Further Directions |journal=Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science |date=2018 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=711–726 |doi=10.1111/zygo.12438 |s2cid=150123771 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/zygo.12438}}</ref>{{rp|711}} Southgate uses three methods of analyzing good and harm to show how they are inseparable and create each other.<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|128}} First, he says evil is the consequence of the existence of good: free will is a good, but the same property also causes harm. Second, good is a goal that can only be developed through processes that include harm. Third, the existence of good is inherently and constitutively inseparable from the experience of harm or suffering.<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|41–46}}

[[Robert John Russell]] summarizes Southgate's theodicy as beginning with an assertion of the goodness of creation and all sentient creatures.<ref name="Christopher Southgate">{{cite book |last1=Southgate |first1=Christopher |title=The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil |date=2008 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=9780664230906}}</ref>{{rp|15}} Next Southgate argues that Darwinian evolution was the only way God could create such goodness. "A universe with the sort of beauty, diversity, sentience and sophistication of creatures that the biosphere now contains" could only come about by the natural processes of evolution.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|716}} [[Michael Ruse]] points out that [[Richard Dawkins]] has made the same claim concerning evolution:

{{blockquote|Dawkins{{nbsp}}[...] argues strenuously that selection and only selection can [produce adaptedness]. No one{{snd}}and presumably this includes God{{snd}}could have gotten adaptive complexity without going the route of natural selection{{nbsp}}[...] The Christian positively welcomes Dawkins's understanding of Darwinism. Physical evil exists, and Darwinism explains why God had no choice but to allow it to occur. He wanted to produce design like effects (including humankind) and natural selection is the only option open.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|714}}}}

According to Russell and Southgate, the goodness of creation is intrinsically linked to the evolutionary processes by which such goodness is achieved, and these processes, in turn, inevitably come with pain and suffering as intrinsic to them.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|716}} In this scenario, natural evils are an inevitable consequence of developing life.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|716}} Russell goes on to say that the physical laws that undergird biological development, such as thermodynamics, also contribute to "what is tragic" and "what is glorious" about life.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|715}} "Gravity, geology, and the specific orbit of the moon lead to the tidal patterns of the Earth's oceans and thus to both the environment in which early life evolved and in which tsunamis bring death and destruction to countless thousands of people".<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|717–718}}

[[Holmes Rolston III]] says nature embodies 'redemptive suffering' as exemplified by Jesus. "The capacity to suffer through to joy is a supreme emergent and an essence of Christianity... The whole evolutionary upslope is a lesser calling of this kind".<ref name="Holmesredemption">{{cite journal |last1=Holmes Rolston III |first1=Holmes Rolston III |title=Does Nature Need To Be Redeemed? |journal=Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science |date=1994 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=205–229 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9744.1994.tb00661.x |hdl=10217/36766 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9744.1994.tb00661.x|hdl-access=free }}</ref> He calls it the 'cruciform creation' where life is constantly struggling through its pain and suffering toward something higher. Rolston says that within this process, there is no real waste as life and its components are "forever conserved, regenerated, redeemed".<ref name="Holmes Rolston III">{{cite journal |last1=Rolston III |first1=Holmes |title=Redeeming A Cruciform Nature |journal=Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science |date=2018 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=739–751 |doi=10.1111/zygo.12428 |hdl=10217/196986 |s2cid=149534879 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/zygo.12428|hdl-access=free }}</ref>
 
Bethany N. Sollereder, Research Fellow at the Laudato Si' Research Institute at Campion Hall, specializes in theology concerning evolution; she writes that evolving life has become increasingly complex, skilled and interdependent. As it has become more intelligent and has increased its ability to relate emotionally, the capacity to suffer has also increased.<ref name="Bethany N. Sollereder">{{cite book |last1=Sollereder |first1=Bethany N. |title=God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering: Theodicy without a Fall |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780429881855}}</ref>{{rp|6}} Southgate describes this using [[s:Bible (King James)/Romans#Romans 8|Romans 8:22]] which says "the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth" since its beginning. He says God responds to this reality by "co-suffering" with "every sentient being in creation".<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|716–720}}

Southgate's theodicy rejects any 'means to an end' argument that says the evolution of any species justifies the suffering and extinction of any prior species that led to it, and he affirms that "all creatures which have died, without their full potential having been realized, must be given fulfillment elsewhere".<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|63}} Russell asserts that the only satisfactory understanding of that "elsewhere" is the eschatological hope that the present creation will be transformed by God into the New Creation, with its new heaven and new earth.<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|718–720}}

====Critique====

=====Heaven=====
In what Russell describes as a "blistering attack by [[Wesley Wildman]]" on Southgate's theodicy, Wildman asserts that "if God really is to create a heavenly world of 'growth and change and relationality, yet no suffering', that world and not this world would be the best of all possible worlds, and a God that would not do so would be 'flagrantly morally inconsistent'."<ref name="W. Wildman">{{cite journal |last1=Wildman |first1=William J. |title=Incongruous Goodness, Perilous Beauty, Disconcerting Truth: Ultimate Reality and Suffering in Nature |journal=Physics and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil|editor1-last=Murphy|editor1-first=Nancey C.|editor2-last=Russell|editor2-first=Robert J.|date=2007 |pages=267–294}}</ref>{{rp|290}}<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|724}}

Southgate has responded with what he calls an extension of the original argument: "that this evolutionary environment, full as it is of both competition and decay, is the only type of creation that can give rise to creaturely selves".<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|90}} That means "our guess must be that though heaven can eternally preserve those selves subsisting in suffering-free relationship, it could not give rise to them in the first place".<ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|720}}<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|90}}

=====Randomness=====
{{ill|Thomas F. Tracy|qid=Q107183389}} offers a two-point critique: "The first is the problem of purpose: can evolutionary processes, in which chance plays so prominent a role, be understood as the context of God's purposive action? The second is the problem of the pervasiveness of suffering and death in evolution".<ref name="Thomas F. Tracy">{{cite journal |last1=Tracy |first1=Thomas F. |title=Evolutionary Theologies and Divine Action |journal=Theology and Science |date=2008 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=107–116 |doi=10.1080/14746700701806106 |s2cid=144846652 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700701806106|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

According to [[John Polkinghorne]], the existence of chance does not negate the power and purposes of a Creator because "it is entirely possible that contingent processes can, in fact, lead to determined ends".<ref name="PolkinghornetoTracy">{{cite journal |last1=Polkinghorne |first1=John C. |title=Evolution and Providence: A Response to Thomas Tracy |journal=Theology and Science |date=2009 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=317–322 |doi=10.1080/14746700903239445 |s2cid=144281968 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700903239445|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|317–318}} But in Polkinghorne's theology, God is not a "Puppetmaster pulling every string", and his purposes are therefore general.<ref name="PolkinghornetoTracy"/>{{rp|317}} [[Francisco J. Ayala]] adds that this means "God is not the explicit designer of each facet of evolution".<ref name="Francisco J. Ayala">{{cite book |last1=Francisco J. Ayala |first1=Francisco J. Ayala |title=Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion |date=2007 |publisher=National Academies Press |isbn=9780309102315 |edition=illustrated, reprint}}</ref><ref name="Robert John Russell"/>{{rp|714}} For Polkinghorne, it is sufficient theologically to assume that "the emergence of some form of self-conscious, God-conscious being" was an aspect of divine purpose from the beginning whether God purposed humankind specifically or not.<ref name="PolkinghornetoTracy"/>{{rp|317–318}}

Polkinghorne also links the existence of human freedom to the flexibility created by randomness in the quantum world.<ref name="J. C. Polkinghorne">{{cite book |last1=Polkinghorne |first1=John C. |title=Quarks, Chaos & Christianity Questions to Science and Religion |date=2005 |publisher=Crossroad Publishing Company |isbn=9780824524067 |page=4}}</ref> Richard W. Kropf asserts that free will has its origins in the "evolutionary ramifications" of the existence of chance as part of the process, thereby providing a "causal connection" between natural evil and the possibility of human freedom: one cannot exist without the other.<ref name="Richard W. Kropf">{{cite book |last1=Kropf |first1=Richard W. |title=Evil and Evolution: A Theodicy |date=2004 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=9781725211445}}</ref>{{rp|2, 122}} Polkinghorne writes this means that "there is room for independent action in order for creatures to be themselves and "make themselves" in evolution, which therefore makes room for suffering and death.<ref name="PolkinghornetoTracy"/>{{rp|318–319}}

{{blockquote|A world in which creatures 'make themselves' can be held to be a greater good than a ready-made world would have been, but it has an inescapable cost. Evolutionary processes will not only yield great fruitfulness, but they will also necessarily involve ragged edges and blind alleys. Genetic mutation will not only produce new forms of life, but it will also result in malignancy. One cannot have the one without the other. The existence of cancer is an anguishing fact about creation but it is not gratuitous, something that a Creator who was a bit more competent or a bit less callous could easily have avoided. It is part of the shadow side of creative process... The more science helps us to understand the processes of the world, the more we see that the good and the bad are inextricably intertwined... It is all a package deal.<ref name="PolkinghornetoTracy"/>{{rp|318}}}}

====Other responses to animal suffering and natural evil====
Others have argued:
* That natural evils are the result of the [[fall of man]], which corrupted the perfect world created by God.<ref>Linda Edwards, ''A Brief Guide'' (Westminster John Knox, 2001), 62.</ref> Theologian [[David Bentley Hart]] argues that "natural evil is the result of a world that's fallen into death" and says that "in Christian tradition, you don't just accept 'the world as it is'" but "you take 'the world as it is' as a broken, shadowy remnant of what it should have been." Hart's concept of the human fall, however, is an [[atemporal fall]]: "Obviously, wherever this departure from the divine happened, or whenever, it didn't happen within terrestrial history," and "this world, as we know it, from the [[Big Bang]] up until today, has been the world of death."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/a-gregorian-interview |access-date=14 March 2023 |title=A Gregorian Interview |last=Hart |first=David Bentley |date=12 March 2023 |publisher=Leaves in the Wind |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230314140228/https://davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/a-gregorian-interview |archive-date=14 March 2023 |quote=[Starting at 1:13:08:] Moral evil has no essence of its own, so it can only exist as a fabrication of the will continuing to will defectively. And according to tradition, even natural evil is the result of a world that's fallen into death. Somehow, that too follows from the creation of moral evil. So in Christian tradition, you don't just accept 'the world as it is.' You take 'the world as it is' as a broken, shadowy remnant of what it should have been. But obviously wherever this departure from the divine happened, or whenever, it didn't happen within terrestrial history. Now, plenty will argue: 'Oh no. It really happened within history.' No, it really didn't. This world, as we know it, from the Big Bang up until today, has been the world of death.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=David Bentley |last1=Hart |year=2005 |title=[[The Doors of the Sea|The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?]] |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |pages=22, 69 |isbn=9780802829764 |quote=The Christian belief in an ancient alienation from God that{{nbsp}}[...] reduced cosmic time to a shadowy vestige of the world God truly intends.{{nbsp}}[...] Something far more glorious than the pitiable resources of fallen time could ever yield.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=David Bentley |last1=Hart |author-link=David Bentley Hart |year=2020 |chapter=The Devil's March: Creatio ex Nihilo, the Problem of Evil, and a Few Dostoyevskian Meditations |title=Theological Territories: A David Bentley Hart Digest |location=Notre Dame, Indiana |publisher=Notre Dame Press |pages=79–80 |isbn=9780268107178 |quote=The fall of rational creation and the conquest of the cosmos by death is something that appears to us nowhere within the course of nature or history; it comes from before and beyond both. We cannot search it out within the closed totality of the damaged world because it belongs to another frame of time, another kind of time, one more real than the time of death.{{nbsp}}[...] It may seem a fabulous claim that we exist in the long grim aftermath of a primeval catastrophe—that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is a phantom of true time, that we live in an umbratile interval between creation in its fullness and the nothingness from which it was called, and that the universe languishes in bondage to the "powers" and "principalities" of this age, which never cease in their enmity toward the kingdom of God—but it is not a claim that Christians are free to surrender.}}</ref>
* That forces of nature are neither "goods" nor "evils". They just are. Nature produces actions vital to some forms of life and lethal to others.<ref name="Claudia Card">{{cite book |last1=Card |first1=Claudia |title=The Atrocity Paradigm A Theory of Evil |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195181265 |page=5}}</ref> Other life forms cause diseases, but for the disease, hosts provide food, shelter and a place to reproduce which are necessary things for life and are not by their nature evil.<ref name="Patricia A. Williams"/>{{rp|170}}
* That natural evils are the result of [[natural laws]]<ref>{{cite book | last = Polkinghorne | first = John | author-link = John Polkinghorne | title = Belief in God in an Age of Science | publisher=Yale Nota Bene | year = 2003 | location = New Haven, CT | page = 14 | isbn = 978-0-300-09949-2 }} and also See esp. ch. 5 of his ''Science and Providence''. {{ISBN|978-0-87773-490-1}}</ref> Williams points out that all the natural laws are necessary for life, and even death and natural disaster are necessary aspects of a developing universe.{{refn|group=note|"When stars burn, explode and die, the heavy elements are born and distributed, feeding life. When the first living organisms die, they make room for more complex ones and begin the process of natural selection. When organisms die, new life feeds on them... the sources of [natural] evil lie in attributes so valuable that we would not even consider eliminating them in order to eradicate evil."<ref name="Patricia A. Williams"/>{{rp|169, 179}}}} 
* That natural evils provide humanity with a knowledge of evil which makes their free choices more significant than they would otherwise be, and so their free will more valuable<ref>[[Richard Swinburne]] in "Is There a God?" writes that "the operation of natural laws producing evils gives humans knowledge (if they choose to seek it) of how to bring about such evils themselves. Observing you can catch some disease by the operation of natural processes gives me the power either to use those processes to give that disease to other people, or through negligence to allow others to catch it, or to take measures to prevent others from catching the disease." In this way, "it increases the range of significant choice... The actions which natural evil makes possible are ones which allow us to perform at our best and interact with our fellows at the deepest level" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 108–109.</ref> or
* That natural evils are a mechanism of divine punishment for moral evils that humans have committed, and so the natural evil is justified.<ref>Bradley Hanson, ''Introduction to Christian Theology'' (Fortress, 1997), 100.</ref>

===Free will defense===
{{Main|Free will}}

The problem of evil is sometimes explained as a consequence of [[free will]].<ref name=boydp69/><ref name="Lacewing2014p239"/> Free will is a source of both good and of evil, since with free will comes the potential for abuse. People with free will make their own decisions to do wrong, states [[Greg Boyd (theologian)|Gregory Boyd]], and it is they who make that choice, not God.<ref name=boydp69/> Further, the free will argument asserts that it would be logically inconsistent for God to prevent evil by coercion because then human will would no longer be free.<ref name=boydp69>Gregory A. Boyd, ''Is God to Blame?'' (InterVarsity Press, 2003) {{ISBN|978-0830823949}}, pp. 55–58, 69–70, 76, 96.</ref><ref name="Lacewing2014p239"/>

The key assumption underlying the free-will defense is that a world containing creatures who are significantly free is innately more valuable than one containing none. The sort of virtues and values that freedom makes possible – such as trust, love, charity, sympathy, tolerance, loyalty, kindness, forgiveness and friendship – are virtues that cannot exist as they are currently known and experienced without the freedom to choose them or not choose them.<ref name="GF&E">{{cite book |last1=Plantinga |first1=Alvin |title=God, freedom, and evil |date=1977 |publisher=Eerdmans Publishing Company |isbn=9780802817310}}</ref>{{rp|30}} [[Augustine]] offered a theodicy of freewill in the fourth century, but the contemporary version is best represented by Alvin Plantinga.

Plantinga offers a free will defense, instead of a theodicy, that began as a response to three assertions raised by [[J. L. Mackie]].<ref name="Self profile"/> First, Mackie asserts "there is no possible world" in which the "essential" theistic beliefs Mackie describes can all be true. Either believers retain a set of inconsistent beliefs, or believers can give up "at least one of the 'essential propositions' of their faith".<ref name="J. L. Mackie evil">{{cite journal |last1=J. L. Mackie |first1=J. L. Mackie |title=Evil and Omnipotence |journal=Mind |date=1955 |volume=64 |issue=254 |pages=200–212 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251467 |publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/mind/LXIV.254.200 |jstor=2251467 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|90, 97–98}} Second, there is Mackie's statement that an all powerful God, in creating the world, could have made "beings who would act freely, but always go right", and third is the question of what choices would have been logically available to such a God at creation.<ref name="J. L. Mackie evil"/>{{rp|98}}
[[File:Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Bernhard Christoph Francke.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Gottfried Leibniz]]
Plantinga built his response beginning with [[Gottfried Leibniz]]' assertion that there were innumerable possible worlds available to God before creation.<ref name="Self profile"/>{{rp|38}} Leibniz introduced the term theodicy in his 1710 work {{lang|fr|[[Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal]]}} ("Theodicic Essays on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil") where he argued that this is the [[best of all possible worlds]] that God could have created.

Plantinga says mankind lives in the actual world (the world God actualized), but that God could have chosen to create (actualize) any of the possibilities including those with moral good but no moral evil. The catch, Plantinga says, is that it is possible that factors within the possible worlds themselves prevented God from actualizing any of the worlds containing moral goodness and no moral evil. Plantinga refers to these factors as the nature of "human essences" and "transworld depravity".<ref name="GF&E"/>{{rp|51–53}}

Across the various possible worlds (transworld) are all the variations of possible humans, each with their own "human essence" (identity): core properties essential to each person that makes them who they are and distinguishes them from others. Every person is the instantiation of such an essence. This "transworld identity" varies in details but not in essence from world to world.<ref name="GF&E"/>{{rp|50–51}} This might include variations of a person (X) who always chooses right in some worlds. If somewhere, in some world, (X) ever freely chooses wrong, then the other possible worlds of only goodness could not be actualized and still leave (X) fully free.<ref name="Plantinga Nature">{{cite book |last1=Plantinga |first1=Alvin |title=The Nature of Necessity |date=1978 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=9780191037177}}</ref>{{rp|184}} There might be numerous possible worlds which contained (X) doing only morally good things, but these would not be worlds that God could bring into being, because (X) would not be free in those worlds to make the wrong choice.<ref name="Plantinga Nature"/>{{rp|187–188}}

An all knowing God would know "in advance" that there are times when "no matter what circumstances" God places (X) in, as long as God leaves (X) free, (X) will make at least one bad choice. Plantinga terms this "transworld depravity".<ref name="Plantinga Nature"/>{{rp|186}} Therefore, if God wants (X) to be a part of creation, and free, then it could mean that the only option such a God would have would be to have an (X) who goes wrong at least once in a world where such wrong is possible. (X)'s free choice determined the world available for God to create.<ref name="Plantinga Nature"/>{{rp|187–188}}

"What is important about transworld depravity is that if a person suffers from it, then it wasn't within God's power to actualize any world in which that person is significantly free but does no wrong".<ref name="GF&E"/>{{rp|48}} Plantinga extends this to all human agents noting, "clearly it is possible that everybody suffers from transworld depravity".<ref name="Plantinga Nature"/>{{rp|186}} This means creating a world with moral good, no moral evil, and truly free persons was not an option available to God. The only way to have a world free of moral evil would be "by creating one without significantly free persons".<ref name="Plantinga Nature"/>{{rp|189}}

====Discussion====
Most philosophers accept Plantinga's free-will defense and see the logical problem of evil as having been rebutted, according to Chad Meister, [[Robert Merrihew Adams|Robert Adams]], and [[William Alston]].<ref name="2009Meister"/><ref name="auto"/><ref name="auto1"/>  [[William L. Rowe]], in referring to Plantinga's argument, has written that "granted [[incompatibilism]], there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God".<ref>Rowe, William (1979). "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism". American Philosophical Quarterly. 16 (4): 335–341. {{ISSN|0003-0481}}. {{JSTOR|20009775}}p. 335</ref> In ''Arguing About Gods'', [[Graham Oppy]] offers a dissent; while he acknowledges that "[m]any philosophers seem to suppose that [Plantinga's free-will defense] utterly demolishes the kinds of 'logical' arguments from evil developed by Mackie", he also says "I am not sure this is a correct assessment of the current state of play".<ref>Oppy, Graham (2006). Arguing About Gods. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-86386-5}}. pp. 262–263</ref> Among contemporary philosophers, most discussion on the problem of evil currently revolves around the ''evidential'' problem of evil, namely that the existence of God is unlikely, rather than logically impossible.<ref>Beebe, James R. (2005). "Logical Problem of Evil". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. {{ISSN|2161-0002}}.</ref>

Critics of the free will response have questioned whether it accounts for the degree of evil seen in this world. One point in this regard is that while the value of free will may be thought sufficient to counterbalance minor evils, it is less obvious that it outweighs the negative attributes of evils such as rape and murder. Another point is that those actions of free beings which bring about evil very often diminish the freedom of those who suffer the evil; for example the murder of a young child prevents the child from ever exercising their free will. In such a case the freedom of an innocent child is pitted against the freedom of the evil-doer, it is not clear why God would remain unresponsive and passive.<ref>[[Marilyn McCord Adams]], ''Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God'' (Melbourne University Press, 1999), 26.</ref> Christopher Southgate asserts that a freewill defense cannot stand alone as sufficient to explain the abundance of situations where humans are deprived of freewill. It requires a secondary theory.<ref name="Christopher Southgate"/>{{rp|42}}

Another criticism is that the potential for evil inherent in free will may be limited by means which do not impinge on that free will. God could accomplish this by making moral actions especially pleasurable, or evil action and suffering impossible by allowing free will but not allowing the ability to enact evil or impose suffering.<ref>C. S. Lewis writes: "We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them." C.S. Lewis ''[[The Problem of Pain]]'' (HarperCollins, 1996) pp. 24–25</ref> Supporters of the free will explanation state that would then no longer be free will.<ref name=boydp69/><ref name="Lacewing2014p239"/> Critics respond that this view seems to imply it would be similarly wrong to try to reduce suffering and evil in these ways, a position which few would advocate.<ref>Michael Tooley, [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ "The Problem of Evil"], ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.</ref>

=====Natural evil=====
A third challenge to the free will defence is natural evil, evil which is the result of natural causes (e.g. a child suffering from a disease, mass casualties from a volcano).<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/rs/god/chgoodandevilrev1.shtml "The Two Types of Evil"]. Accessed 10 July 2014.</ref> Criticism of natural evil posits that even if for some reason an all-powerful and all-benevolent God tolerated evil human actions in order to allow free will, such a God would not be expected to also tolerate natural evils because they have no apparent connection to free will.<ref name=boydp69/><ref name="Lacewing2014p239">{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Lacewing|title=Philosophy for AS: Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EoA9BAAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-63583-3 |pages=239–242 }}</ref> [[Patricia A. Williams]] says differentiating between moral and natural evil is common but, in her view, unjustified. "Because human beings and their choices are part of nature, all evils are natural".<ref name="Patricia A. Williams">{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Patricia A. |title=Doing Without Adam and Eve Sociobiology and Original Sin |date=2001 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=9781451415438}}</ref>{{rp|169}}

Advocates of the free will response propose various explanations of natural evils. [[Alvin Plantinga]]<ref name="Stanford"/><ref name="Good and evil">{{cite book |title=God, Freedom, and Evil |last=Plantinga |first=Alvin |year=1974 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-8028-1731-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/godfreedomevil00plan/page/58 58] |url=https://archive.org/details/godfreedomevil00plan/page/58 }}</ref> references [[Augustine of Hippo]],<ref>Alvin Plantinga, ''God, Freedom, and Evil'' (Eerdmans, 1989), 58.</ref> writing of the possibility that natural evils could be caused by supernatural beings such as [[Satan]].<ref>Bradley Hanson, ''Introduction to Christian Theology'' (Fortress, 1997), 99.</ref> Plantinga emphasizes that it is not necessary that this be true, it is only necessary that this possibility be compatible with the argument from freewill.<ref name="Good and evil"/>{{rp|58}} There are those who respond that Plantinga's freewill response might address moral evil but not natural evil.<ref name="David Kyle Johnson">{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=David Kyle |title=The Failure of Plantinga's Solution to the Logical Problem of Natural Evil |journal=Philo |date=2012 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=145–157 |doi=10.5840/Philo20121528 |url=https://www.pdcnet.org/philo/content/Philo_2012_0015_0002_0145_0157|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Some scholars, such as [[David Ray Griffin|David Griffin]], state that free will, or the assumption of greater good through free will, does not apply to animals.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Ray Griffin|title=Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations|url=https://archive.org/details/evilrevisitedres0000grif |url-access=registration|year=1991|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=978-0-7914-0612-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evilrevisitedres0000grif/page/94 94]–95 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=John S. |last=Feinberg |title=The Many Faces of Evil (Revised and Expanded Edition): Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9w_vM7DgWN4C |year=2004|publisher=Crossway|isbn=978-1-4335-1727-3 |pages=94–95 }}</ref> In contrast, a few scholars, while accepting that "free will" applies in a human context, have posited an alternative "free creatures" defense, stating that animals too benefit from their physical freedom though that comes with the cost of dangers they continuously face.<ref name="Nicola Hoggard Creegan 2013 48">{{cite book|author=Nicola Hoggard Creegan|title=Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xB1pAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-993185-9|page=48}}</ref>

The "free creatures" defense has also been criticized, in the case of caged, domesticated and farmed animals who are not free and many of whom have historically experienced evil and suffering from abuse by their owners. Further, even animals and living creatures in the wild face horrendous evils and suffering{{snd}}such as burns and slow death after natural fires or other natural disasters or from predatory injuries{{snd}}and it is unclear, state Bishop and Perszyk, why an all-loving God would create such free creatures prone to intense suffering.<ref name="Nicola Hoggard Creegan 2013 48"/>

===Process theodicy===
"Process theodicy reframes the debate on the problem of evil" by acknowledging that, since God "has no monopoly on power, creativity, and [[self-determination]]", God's power and ability to influence events are, of necessity, limited by human creatures with wills of their own.<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott">{{cite book|title=Pathways in Theodicy: An Introduction to the Problem of Evil|last=Scott|first=Mark. S. M.| year=2015|publisher=Augsburg Fortress Publishers|edition=illustrated, reprint|isbn=9781451464702}}</ref>{{rp|143}} This concept of limitation is one of the key aspects of process theodicy.<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|143}} The God of process theology had all options available before actualizing the creation that exists, and chose voluntarily to create free persons knowing the limitations that would impose: he must not unilaterally intervene and coerce a certain outcome because that would violate free will.<ref name="Anderson, A. K.">{{cite thesis |last1=Anderson |first1=A. K. |title=Evil and the God of narrative: Four types of contemporary Christian theodicy |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=Graduate Theological Union |date=2005 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/a54181a40db33ce82b8c1818e74340a2/1 |id={{ProQuest|3196560}} }}</ref>{{rp|93}} God's will is only one factor in any situation, making that will "variable in effectiveness", because all God can do is try to persuade and influence the person in the best direction, and make sure that possibility is available.<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|98–100}} Through knowledge of all possibilities, this God provides "ideal aims to help overcome [evil] in light of (a) the evil that has been suffered and (b) the range of good possibilities allowed by that past".<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|93}}

Process theology's second key element is its stressing of the "here and now" presence of God. God becomes the Great Companion and Fellow-Sufferer where the future is realized hand-in-hand with the sufferer.<ref name="Mark S. M. Scott"/>{{rp|143}} The God of process theology is a benevolent Providence that feels a person's pain and suffering.<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|93}} According to [[Wendy Farley]], "God labors in every situation to mediate the power of compassion to suffering" by enlisting free persons as mediators of that compassion.<ref name="Wendy Farley">{{cite book |last1=Farley |first1=Wendy |title=Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion A Contemporary Theodicy |date=1990 |publisher=Westminster/John Knox Press |isbn=9780664250966|page=118}}</ref> Freedom and power are shared, therefore, responsibility must be as well. Griffin quotes John Hick as noting that "the stirring summons to engage on God's side in the never-ending struggle against the evils of an intractable world" is another key characteristic of process theology.<ref name="Griffin Revisited">{{cite book |last1=Griffin |first1=David Ray |title=Evil Revisited Responses and Reconsiderations |date=1991 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=9780791406120|pages=169–179}}</ref>

==== Critique ====
A hallmark of process theodicy is its conception of God as persuasive rather than coercive.<ref name="Nancy Frankenberry">{{cite journal |last1=Frankenberry |first1=Nancy |title=Some Problems in Process Theodicy |journal=Religious Studies |date=June 1981 |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=179–197 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20005735 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/S0034412500000962 |jstor=20005735 |s2cid=170658129 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|179}} [[Nancy Frankenberry]] asserts that this creates an either-or dichotomy – either God is persuasive or coercive – whereas lived experience has an "irreducible ambiguity" where it seems God can be both.<ref name="Nancy Frankenberry"/>{{rp|180–181}}

Since the 1940s, process theodicy has also been "dogged by the problem of 'religious adequacy' of its concept of God" and doubts about the 'goodness' of its view of God.<ref name="Nancy Frankenberry"/>{{rp|186}} It has not resolved all the old questions concerning the problem of evil,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Griffin |first1=David Ray |title=God, Power, and Evil A Process Theodicy |date=2004 |publisher=Presbyterian Publishing Corporation |isbn=9780664229061 |pages=300, 308}}</ref> while it has raised new ones concerning "the nature of divine power, the meaning of God's goodness, and the realistic assessment of what we may reasonably hope for by way of creative advance".<ref name="Nancy Frankenberry"/>{{rp|196}}

=== "Greater good" responses ===
The greater good defense is more often argued in response to the evidential version of the problem of evil,<ref name="DoughertyMcBrayer2014">{{cite book|first1=Trent|last1=Dougherty|first2=Justin P.|last2=McBrayer|title=Skeptical Theism: New Essays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MaDNAwAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-966118-3 |pages=265–66 }}</ref> while the free will defense is often discussed in the context of the logical version.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[James Franklin Harris]] |title=Analytic Philosophy of Religion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rx2Qf9ieFKYC&pg=PA243 |year=2002|publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4020-0530-5|pages=243–244 }}</ref> Some solutions propose that omnipotence does not require the ability to actualize the logically impossible. "Greater good" responses to the problem make use of this insight by arguing for the existence of goods of great value which God cannot actualize without also permitting evil, and thus that there are evils he cannot be expected to prevent despite being omnipotent.

Skeptical theologians argue that, since no one can fully understand God's ultimate plan, no one can assume that evil actions do not have some sort of greater purpose.<ref name=WhitneyTheodicy>{{cite web|last1=Whitney|first1=B|title=Theodicy|url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=nysl_ce_colgul&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet=GALE%7CCX3407710979&&docId=GALE%7CCX3407710979&docType=GALE|website=Gale Virtual Reference Library|publisher=Gale|access-date=10 December 2014}}</ref>

====Skeptical theism====
{{Main|Skeptical theism}}
"According to skeptical theism, if there were a god, it is likely that he would have reasons for acting that are beyond [human] ken, ... the fact that we don't see a good reason for X does not justify the conclusion that there is no good reason for X".<ref name="Trent Dougherty">{{cite web |last1=Dougherty |first1=Trent |title=Skeptical Theism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=skeptical-theism&archive=win2018 |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition) |publisher=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=2 February 2021 |date=2018}}</ref> One standard of sufficient reason for allowing evil is by asserting that God allows an evil in order to prevent a greater evil or cause a greater good.<ref name=wilks31>{{cite book|first=Ian |last=Wilks |editor=Justin P. McBrayer and Daniel Howard-Snyder|title=The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J0ScAgAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-60797-8 |chapter=Chapter 31, for context see Chapters 29 and 30}}</ref> ''Pointless evil'', then, is an evil that does not meet this standard; it is an evil God permitted where there is no outweighing good or greater evil.  The existence of such pointless evils would lead to the conclusion there is no benevolent god.<ref name="Rowe, William L.">{{cite journal |last1=Rowe |first1=William L. |title=Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism, and the Problem of Evil |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |date=2006 |volume=59 |issue=2 |pages=79–92 |doi=10.1007/s11153-005-6178-6 |jstor=40023383 |s2cid=170120784 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40023383|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|79}}  The skeptical theist asserts that humans can't know that such a thing as pointless evil exists, that humans as limited beings are simply "in the dark" concerning the big picture on how all things work together. "The skeptical theist's skepticism affirms certain limitations to [human] knowledge with respect to the realms of value and modality" (method).<ref name="Michael Bergmann2009">{{cite journal |last1=Bergmann |first1=Michael |title=17. Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil |editor1-last=Flint |editor1-first=Thomas |editor2-last=Rea |editor2-first=Michael |journal=Oxford Handbook to Philosophical Theology|year=2009|pages=374–401 |url=https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bergmann/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OHPT-bergmann-preprint.pdf |publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199289202.003.0018 |isbn=9780199289202 }}</ref>{{rp|6, 8}} "Thus, skeptical theism purports to undercut most ''a posteriori'' arguments against the existence of God".<ref name="Trent Dougherty"/>

Skeptical theism questions the first premise of [[William L. Rowe|William Rowe's]] argument: "There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse"; how can that be known?<ref name="Michael Bergmann2009"/>{{rp|11–12}} [[J. L. Schellenberg|John Schellenberg's]] argument of divine hiddenness,<ref name="Michael Bergmann2009"/>{{rp|13–14}} and the first premise of [[Paul Draper (philosopher)|Paul Draper's]] Hypothesis of Indifference, which begins "Gratuitous evil exists", are also susceptible to questions of how these claimed concepts can be genuinely known.<ref name="Michael Bergmann2009"/>{{rp|15–18}}

===== Critique =====
Skeptical theism is criticized by [[Richard Swinburne]] on the basis that the appearance of some evils having no possible explanation is sufficient to agree there can be none, (which is also susceptible to the skeptic's response); and it is criticized on the basis that, accepting it leads to skepticism about morality itself.<ref name="Almeida and Oppy">{{cite journal |last1=Almeida |first1=Michael J. |last2=Oppy |first2=Graham |title=Sceptical Theism and Evidential Arguments from Evil |journal=Australasian Journal of Philosophy |date=2003 |volume=81 |issue=4 |page=496 |doi=10.1080/713659758 |s2cid=17867179 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713659758}}</ref>

=====Hidden reasons=====
The hidden reasons defense asserts the logical possibility of hidden or unknown reasons for the existence of evil as not knowing the reason does not necessarily mean that the reason does not exist.<ref name="Stanford" /><ref name="IepEvidential" /> This argument has been challenged with the assertion that the hidden reasons premise is as plausible as the premise that God does not exist or is not "an almighty, all-knowing, all-benevolent, all-powerful". Similarly, for every hidden argument that completely or partially justifies observed evils it is equally likely that there is a hidden argument that actually makes the observed evils worse than they appear without hidden arguments, or that the hidden reasons may result in additional contradictions.<ref name="Stanford" /><ref name="Frances2013p110"/> As such, from an inductive viewpoint hidden arguments will neutralize one another.<ref name="Stanford" />

A sub-variant of the "hidden reasons" defense is called the "PHOG"{{snd}}profoundly hidden outweighing goods{{snd}}defense.<ref name="Frances2013p110"/> The PHOG defense, states Bryan Frances, not only leaves the co-existence of God and human suffering unanswered, but raises questions about why animals and other life forms have to suffer from natural evil, or from abuse (animal slaughter, animal cruelty) by some human beings, where hidden moral lessons, hidden social good, and other possible hidden reasons do not apply.<ref name="Frances2013p110">{{cite book|first=Bryan |last=Frances |title=Gratuitous Suffering and the Problem of Evil: A Comprehensive Introduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ngeIkSJnh4kC&pg=PA110|date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-66295-6 |pages=110–123}}</ref>

====Soul-making or Irenaean theodicy====
{{Main|Irenaean theodicy}}

The soul-making (or Irenaean) theodicy is named after the 2nd-century Greek theologian [[Irenaeus]] whose ideas were adopted in Eastern Christianity.<ref name=johnhickp201/> It has been modified and advocated in the twenty-first century by [[John Hick]].<ref name=johnhickp201>{{cite book|first=John|last=Hick|title=Evil and the God of Love|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMcYDAAAQBAJ |year=2016|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-349-18048-6 |pages=201–216}}</ref> Irenaen theodicy stands in sharp contrast to the Augustinian. For Augustine, humans were created perfect but fell, and thereafter continued to choose badly of their own freewill. In Irenaeus' view, humans were not created perfect, but instead, must strive continuously to move closer to it.<ref name="Lars Fr. H. Svendsen">{{cite book |last1=Svendsen |first1=Lars Fr. H. |title=A Philosophy of Evil |date=2010 |publisher=Dalkey Archive Press |isbn=9781564785718 |page=51}}</ref>

The key points of a soul-making theodicy begin with its metaphysical foundation: that "(1) The purpose of God in creating the world was soul-making for rational moral agents".<ref name="G. Stanley Kane">{{cite journal |last1=Kane |first1=G. Stanley |title=The Failure of Soul-Making Theodicy |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |date=1975 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1007/BF00136996 |jstor=40021034 |s2cid=170214854 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40021034}}</ref>  (2) Humans choose their responses to the soul-making process thereby developing moral character. (3) This requires that God remain hidden, otherwise freewill would be compromised. (4) This hiddenness is created, in part, by the presence of evil in the world. (5) The distance of God makes moral freedom possible, while the existence of obstacles makes meaningful struggle possible. (6) The result of beings who complete the soul-making process is "a good of such surpassing value" that it justifies the means. (7) Those who complete the process will be admitted to the kingdom of God where there will be no more evil.<ref name="G. Stanley Kane"/> Hick argues that, for suffering to have soul-making value, "human effort and development must be present at every stage of existence including the afterlife".<ref name="Anderson, A. K."/>{{rp|132, 138}}

[[C. S. Lewis]] developed a theodicy that began with freewill and then accounts for suffering caused by disease and natural disasters by developing a version of the soul-making theodicy. [[Nicholas Wolterstorff]] has raised challenges for Lewis's soul-making theodicy. Erik J. Wielenberg draws upon Lewis's broader corpus beyond ''The Problem of Pain'' but also, to a lesser extent, on the thought of two other contemporary proponents of the soul-making theodicy, John Hick and Trent Dougherty, in an attempt to make the case that Lewis's version of the soul-making theodicy has depth and resilience.<ref>{{cite journal|last =Wielenberg|first=Erik J. |title=In Defence of C.S. Lewis' Soul-Making Theodicy: A Reply to Wolterstorff|journal=Journal of Inklings Studies|year=2019 |volume=9|issue=2|pages=192–199 |doi=10.3366/ink.2019.0048 |s2cid=211937140 |url=https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/ink.2019.0048|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

===== Critique =====
The Irenaean theodicy is challenged by the assertion that many evils do not promote spiritual growth, but can instead be destructive of the human spirit. Hick acknowledges that this process often fails in the actual world.<ref name="Hick and Evil">{{Cite book  | last = Hick  | first = John  | author-link = John Hick  | title = Evil and the God of Love  | publisher=Macmillan  | place = London  | year = 1966  | isbn = 978-0-06-063902-0  }}{{rp|325, 336}}</ref> Particularly egregious cases known as horrendous evils, which "[constitute] ''[[prima facie]]'' reason to doubt whether the participant's life could (given their inclusion in it) be a great good to him/her on the whole," have been the focus of recent work in the problem of evil.<ref>[[Marilyn McCord Adams]], ''Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God'' (Cornell University, 2000), 203.</ref> Horrendous suffering often leads to dehumanization, and its victims become angry, bitter, vindictive, depressed and spiritually worse.<ref name=Creeganp185/>

Yet, life crises are a catalyst for change that is often positive.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Tedeschi |editor1-first=Richard G. |editor2-last=Park |editor2-first=Crystal L. |editor3-last=Calhoun |editor3-first=Lawrence G. |title=Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis |date=1998 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135689803 |pages=99, 117}}</ref> Neurologists [[Bryan Kolb]] and [[Bruce Wexler]] indicate this has to do with the plasticity of the brain. The brain is highly plastic in childhood development, becoming less so by adulthood once development is completed. Thereafter, the brain resists change.<ref name="Bruce E. Wexler">{{cite book |last1=Wexler |first1=Bruce E.|title=Brain and Culture Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change |date=2008 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262265140}}</ref>{{rp|5–9}} The neurons in the brain can only make permanent changes "when the conditions are right" because the brain's development is dependent upon the stimulation it receives.<ref name="Bryan Kolb">{{cite book |last1=Kolb |first1=Bryan |title=Brain Plasticity and Behavior |date=2013 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=9781134784141}}</ref>{{rp|7}} <ref name="Bruce E. Wexler"/>{{rp|13}} When the brain receives the powerful stimulus that experiences like bereavement, life-threatening illness, the trauma of war and other deeply painful experiences provide, a prolonged and difficult internal struggle, where the individual completely re-examines their self-concept and perceptions of reality, reshapes neurological structures.<ref name="Bruce E. Wexler"/>{{rp|6–7}}<ref name="Horowitz and Van Eeden">{{cite journal |last1=Horowitz |first1=D. S. |last2=Van Eeden |first2=R. |title=Exploring the learnings derived from catalytic experiences in a leadership context |journal=SA Journal of Human Resource Management/SA Tydskrif vir Menslikehulpbronbestuur |date=2015 |volume=13 |issue=1 |url=https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/598/895}}</ref>{{rp|4}} The literature refers to ''turning points,''<ref name="McAdams">{{cite book |last1=McAdams |first1=Dan P. |title=The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199969760 |edition=Revised and Expanded}}</ref> ''defining moments,''<ref name="Badaracco">{{cite book |last1=Badaracco |first1=Joseph L. Jr. |title=Defining Moments When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right |date=2016 |publisher=Harvard Business Review Press |isbn=9781633692404}}</ref> ''crucible moments,''<ref name="Bennis and Thomas">{{cite book |last1=Bennis |first1=Warren G. |last2=Thomas |first2=Robert J. |title=Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders – How Tough Times Shape Good Leaders |date=2002 |publisher=Harvard Business School Press}}</ref> and ''life-changing events.''<ref name="Boyatzis and McKee">{{cite book |last1=Boyatzis |first1=Richard E. |last2=McKee |first2=Annie |title=Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion |date=2005 |publisher=Harvard Business Press |isbn=9781591395638 |edition=illustrated}}</ref> These are experiences that form a catalyst in an individual's life so that the individual is personally transformed, often emerging with a sense of learning, strength and growth, that empowers them to pursue different paths than they otherwise would have.<ref name="Horowitz and Van Eeden"/>{{rp|2}}

Steve Gregg acknowledges that much human suffering produces no discernible good, and that the greater good does not fully address every case. "Nonetheless, the fact that sufferings are temporal, and are often justly punitive, corrective, sanctifying and ennobling stands as one of the important aspects of a biblical worldview that somewhat ameliorates the otherwise unanswerable problem of pain".<ref name="Steve Gregg">{{cite book |last1=Gregg |first1=Steve |title=All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God's Final Solution to the Problem of Sin |date=2013 |publisher=Thomas Nelson |isbn=9781401678319 |page=2}}</ref>

A second critique argues that, were it true that God permitted evil in order to facilitate spiritual growth, it might be reasonable to expect that evil would disproportionately befall those in poor spiritual health such as the decadent wealthy, who often seem to enjoy lives of luxury insulated from evil, whereas many of the pious are poor and well acquainted with worldly evils.<ref>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Problem of Evil", James R. Beebe</ref> Using the example of [[Francis of Assisi]], [[G. K. Chesterton]] argues that, contrary "to the modern mind", wealth is condemned in Christian theology for the very reason that wealth insulates from evil and suffering, and the spiritual growth such experiences can produce. Chesterton explains that Francis pursued poverty "as men have dug madly for gold" because its concomitent suffering is a path to piety.<ref name="G. K. Chesterton">{{cite book |last1=Chesterton |first1=G. K. |title=Saint Francis of Assisi |date=2009 |publisher=Floating Press |isbn=9781775413776}}</ref>{{rp|32, 89–90}}

[[G. Stanley Kane]] asserts that human character can be developed directly in constructive and nurturing loving ways, and it is unclear why God would consider or allow evil and suffering to be necessary or the preferred way to spiritual growth.<ref name=johnhickp201/>{{rp|376–379}}  Hick asserts that suffering is necessary, not only for some specific virtues, but that "...one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering temptation, and thus by rightly making [responsible] choices in concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than would be one created ''ab initio'' in a state either of innocence or of virtue. In the former case, which is that of the actual moral achievements of mankind, the individual's goodness has within it the strength of temptations overcome, a stability based upon an accumulation of right choices, and a positive and responsible character that comes from the investment of costly personal effort."<ref name="Hick and Evil"/>{{rp|255}}

However, the virtues identified as the result of "soul-making" may only appear to be valuable in a world where evil and suffering already exist. A willingness to sacrifice oneself in order to save others from persecution, for example, is virtuous because persecution exists. Likewise, the willingness to donate one's meal to those who are starving is valuable because starvation exists. If persecution and starvation did not occur, there would be no reason to consider these acts virtuous. If the virtues developed through soul-making are only valuable where suffering exists, then it is not clear what would be lost if suffering did not exist.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rationalrealm.com/downloads/philosophy/ProblemOfEvil.pdf|website=Rational Realm|title=The Problem of Evil|first=Leslie|last=Allan|date=28 July 2015|access-date=12 September 2018}}</ref> [[C. Robert Mesle]] says that such a discussion presupposes that virtues are only instrumentally valuable instead of intrinsically valuable.<ref name="C. Robert Mesle">{{cite journal |last1=Mesle |first1=C. Robert |title=The Problem of Genuine Evil: A Critique of John Hick's Theodicy |journal=The Journal of Religion |date=1986 |volume=66 |issue=4 |page=413 |doi=10.1086/487442 |jstor=1202728 |s2cid=170193070 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1202728|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The soul-making reconciliation of the problem of evil, states Creegan, fails to explain the need or rationale for evil inflicted on animals and resultant animal suffering, because "there is no evidence at all that suffering improves the character of animals, or is evidence of soul-making in them".<ref name=Creeganp185>{{cite book|author=Nicola Hoggard Creegan |title=Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jWSL-zZ5x4QC |year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-993184-2 |page=185 with footnote 3 }}</ref> Hick differentiates between animal and human suffering based on "our capacity imaginatively to anticipate the future".<ref name="Hick and Evil"/>{{rp|314}}

====Afterlife====
[[Thomas Aquinas]] suggested the [[afterlife]] theodicy to address the problem of evil and to justify the existence of evil.<ref name="stump2008p49">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2wDHCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 | title=The Evidential Argument from Evil | publisher=Indiana University Press | first=Eleonore | last=Stump | editor-first=Daniel | editor-last=Howard-Snyder | year=2008 | pages=49–52 | isbn=978-0-253-11409-9}}</ref> The premise behind this theodicy is that the afterlife is unending, human life is short, and God allows evil and suffering in order to judge and grant everlasting heaven or hell based on human moral actions and human suffering.<ref name=stump2008p49/><ref name="Goetz2008p139"/><ref>{{cite book|first1=Benjamin W.|last1=McCraw|first2=Robert|last2=Arp|title=The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oUA1CwAAQBAJ |year=2015|publisher=Lexington|isbn=978-1-4985-1208-4 |pages=132–133 }}</ref> Aquinas says that the afterlife is the greater good that justifies the evil and suffering in current life.<ref name=stump2008p49/> Christian author [[Randy Alcorn]] argues that the joys of [[heaven]] will compensate for the sufferings on earth.<ref>If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil, published by Random House of Canada, 2009, p. 294; Quote: Without this eternal perspective, we assume that people who die young, who have handicaps, who suffer poor health, who don't get married or have children, or who don't do this or that will miss out on the best life has to offer.  But the theology underlying these assumptions have a fatal flaw.  It presumes that our present Earth, bodies, culture, relationships and lives are all there is... [but] Heaven will bring far more than compensation for our present sufferings.</ref>

Stephen Maitzen has called this the "Heaven Swamps Everything" theodicy, and argues that it is false because it conflates compensation and justification.<ref name="Goetz2008p139">{{cite book|first=Stewart|last=Goetz|title=Freedom, Teleology, and Evil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cZmvAwAAQBAJ |year=2008|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-4411-7183-2 |pages=139–147 }}</ref><ref>[http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_OMIA.pdf "Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism"], European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1:2 (2009), 107–126, Quote: "... may stem from imagining an ecstatic or forgiving state of mind on the part of the blissful: in heaven no one bears grudges, even the most horrific earthly suffering is as nothing compared to infinite bliss, all past wrongs are forgiven. But "are forgiven" doesn't mean "were justified"; the blissful person's disinclination to dwell on his or her earthly suffering doesn't imply that a perfect being was justified in permitting the suffering all along. By the same token, our ordinary moral practice recognizes a legitimate complaint about child abuse even if, as adults, its victims should happen to be on drugs that make them uninterested in complaining. Even if heaven swamps everything, it doesn't thereby justify everything."</ref> This theodical view is based on the principle that under a just God, "no innocent creature suffers misery that is not compensated by happiness at some later stage (e. g. an afterlife)" but in the traditional view, animals don't have an afterlife.<ref name=jolley2014p66>{{cite book|first=Nicholas|last=Jolley|editor=Larry M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands|title=New Essays on Leibniz's Theodicy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lNPQAgAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-966003-2 |pages=64–68 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Andrew|last1=Chignell|first2=Terence|last2=Cuneo|first3=Matthew C.|last3=Halteman|title=Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments About the Ethics of Eating|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rDCvCgAAQBAJ  |year=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-57807-6|page=199}}</ref>

Maintzen's argument has been rejected by Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad based on the strong account of the compensation theodicy. Two accounts of compensation theodicy can be proposed. Based on the weak interpretation that only considers compensation in afterlife, this criticism would be acceptable, but based on the strong account which consider both the "compensation in afterlife" and "the primary benefits of evils" (even if they are not greater), the compensation theodicy can be defended.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mousavirad |first=Seyyed Jaaber |date=2022-07-02 |title=Theory of Compensation and the Problem of Evil; a New Defense |url=https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/index.php/ejpr/article/view/3357 |journal=European Journal for Philosophy of Religion |language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=197–198 |doi=10.24204/ejpr.2022.3357 |s2cid=250298800 |issn=1689-8311}}</ref>

==== Exemplarist Theodicy ====
[[Joshua Sijuwade]] argues that God allows evil in the world in order to turn certain individuals into exemplars, thus letting them contribute towards goodness of our world:{{blockquote|text=God having allowed a certain class of individuals to suffer—namely, the exemplary sufferers—would be justified by them being presented with the opportunity to transform into exemplars, and thus make a great contribution to the world being a good world. However, God is also justified in having allowed the rest of the sentient creatures in existence—namely, the nonexemplary sufferers—that do not fall into the aforementioned class, to suffer (and thus their suffering experiences not being gratuitous), given that the fact of them having undergone these experiences provides them with the opportunity to be of use in enabling other individuals to undergo the process of transforming into exemplars—and thus they are indirectly involved in the process of making the world a good world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sijuwade |first=Joshua R. |date=2023 |title=The Problem of Suffering: The Exemplarist Theodicy |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/SIJTPO |journal=Studies in Christian Ethics |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=497–550 |doi=10.1177/09539468231158473}}</ref>}}

===Denial of evil===
In the second century, Christian theologians attempted to reconcile the problem of evil with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, by denying that evil exists. Among these theologians, [[Clement of Alexandria]] offered several theodicies, of which one was called "privation theory of evil" which was adopted thereafter.<ref name="Kelly2002p42">{{cite book|author=Joseph Francis Kelly|title=The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition|url=https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose |url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5104-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose/page/42 42] }}</ref> The other is a more modern version of "deny evil", suggested by Christian Science, wherein the perception of evil is described as a form of illusion.<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 2007, page 445-446"/>

====Privation theory of evil====
{{Main|Absence of good}}
The early version of "deny evil" is called the "privation theory of evil", so named because it described evil as a form of "lack, loss or privation". One of the earliest proponents of this theory was the 2nd-century Clement of Alexandria who, according to Joseph Kelly,<ref name="Kelly2002p42"/> stated that "since God is completely good, he could not have created evil; but if God did not create evil, then it cannot exist". Evil, according to Clement, does not exist as a positive, but exists as a negative or as a "lack of good".<ref name="Kelly2002p42"/> Clement's idea was criticised for its inability to explain suffering in the world, if evil did not exist. He was also pressed by Gnostics scholars with the question as to why God did not create creatures that "did not lack the good". Clement attempted to answer these questions ontologically through dualism, an idea found in the Platonic school,<ref name=jeffrey49>{{cite book|author=R. Jeffery |title=Evil and International Relations: Human Suffering in an Age of Terror |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7WyADAAAQBAJ |year=2007|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-61035-4 |page=49 }}</ref> that is by presenting two realities, one of God and Truth, another of human and perceived experience.<ref>{{cite book|author=Joseph Francis Kelly|title=The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition|url=https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose |url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5104-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose/page/42 42]–43 }}</ref>

The fourth-century theologian [[Augustine of Hippo]] adopted the privation theory, and in his ''Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love'', maintained that evil exists as "absence of the good".<ref name=jeffrey49/> God is a spiritual, (not corporeal), Being who is sovereign over other lesser beings because God created material reality ''ex nihilo''. Augustine's view of evil relies on the causal principle that every cause is superior to its effects.<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|43}} God is innately superior to his creation, and "everything that God creates is good."<ref name="Mann">{{cite book |last1=Mann |first1=William E. |editor1-last=Stump |editor1-first=Eleonore |editor2-last=Meconi |editor2-first=David Vincent |title=The Cambridge Companion to Augustine |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1107025332 |pages=40–48 |edition=2nd |chapter=Augustine on evil and original sin}}</ref>{{rp|40–42}} Every creature is good, but "some are better than others".<ref name="Mann"/>{{RP|44}} However, created beings also have tendencies toward mutability and corruption because they were created out of nothing. They are subject to the prejudices that come from personal perspective: humans care about what affects themselves, and fail to see how their privation might contribute to the common good. For Augustine, evil, when it refers to God's material creation, refers to a privation, an absence of goodness "''where goodness might have been''".<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|44}} Evil is not a substance that exists in its own right separately from the nature of all Being.<ref name="Pereira2013p54">{{cite book|author=Jairzinho Lopes Pereira |title=Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4iVcAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |isbn=978-3-647-55063-3 |pages=54–55 }}</ref> This absence of good is an act of the will, "a culpable rejection of the infinite bounty God offers in favor of an infinitely inferior fare", freely chosen by the will of an individual.<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|46}}

Ben Page and [[Max Baker-Hytch]] observe that although there are numerous philosophers who explicitly advocate the [[absence of good|privation theory]], it also appears to be derived from a functional analysis of goodness, which is a widely embraced perspective in contemporary philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal|author1= Page, Ben|author2= [[Max Baker-Hytch|Baker-Hytch, Max]]| date=2020 |title=Meeting the Evil God Challenge |url= |journal=[[Pacific Philosophical Quarterly]] |volume=101 |issue=3 |pages=489–514 |doi=10.1111/papq.12304  |access-date= |name-list-style=vanc}}</ref><ref>Korsgaard, Christine M., 'Aristotle's Function Argument', The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552733.003.0005, accessed 7 Feb. 2023.</ref>

=====Critique=====
This view has been criticized as semantics: substituting a definition of evil with "loss of good", of "problem of evil and suffering" with the "problem of loss of good and suffering", neither addresses the issue from the theoretical point of view nor from the experiential point of view.<ref name=pereira2013p56>{{cite book|author=Jairzinho Lopes Pereira |title=Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4iVcAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |isbn=978-3-647-55063-3 |page=56 with footnote 25 }}</ref> Scholars who criticize the privation theory state that murder, rape, terror, pain and suffering are real life events for the victim, and cannot be denied as mere "lack of good".<ref>Todd C. Calder (2007), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20464387 Is the Privation Theory of Evil Dead?], American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 371–81</ref> Augustine, states Pereira, accepted suffering exists and was aware that the privation theory was not a solution to the problem of evil.<ref name=pereira2013p56/>

====Evil as illusory====
An alternative modern version of the privation theory is by [[Christian Science]], which asserts that evils such as suffering and disease only appear to be real, but in truth are illusions, and in reality evil does not exist.<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 2007, page 445-446"/> The theologians of Christian Science, states Stephen Gottschalk, posit that the Spirit is of infinite might, mortal human beings fail to grasp this and focus instead on evil and suffering that have no real existence as "a power, person or principle opposed to God".<ref name=Gottschalkp65/>

The illusion version of privation theory theodicy has been critiqued for denying the reality of crimes, wars, terror, sickness, injury, death, suffering and pain to the victim.<ref name= Gottschalkp65/> Further, adds Millard Erickson, the illusion argument merely shifts the problem to a new problem, as to why God would create this "illusion" of crimes, wars, terror, sickness, injury, death, suffering and pain; and why God does not stop this "illusion".<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 1998 446–47"/>

===Turning the tables===
A different approach to the problem of evil is to turn the tables by suggesting that any argument from evil is self-refuting, in that its conclusion would necessitate the falsity of one of its premises. One response{{snd}}called the defensive response{{snd}}has been to point out that the assertion "evil exists" implies an ethical standard against which moral value is determined, and then to argue that the fact that such a universal standard exists at all implies the existence of God.<ref>C. S. Lewis ''Mere Christianity'' Touchstone: New York, 1980 pp. 45–46</ref>

===Pandeism===
[[Pandeism]] is a more modern theory that unites deism and pantheism, and asserts that God created the universe but during creation became the universe.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deism#ref1042352 Deism], Encyclopædia Britannica</ref> In pandeism, God is no superintending, heavenly power, capable of hourly intervention into earthly affairs. No longer existing "above," God ''cannot'' intervene from above and cannot be blamed for failing to do so. God, in pandeism, was omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but in the form of universe is no longer omnipotent, omnibenevolent.<ref name="Lane">{{Cite journal | last = Lane | first = William C. | date = January 2010 | title = Leibniz's Best World Claim Restructured | url = http://apq.press.illinois.edu/47/1/lane.html | journal = American Philosophical Journal | volume = 47 | issue = 1 | pages = 57–84 | access-date = 9 March 2014 | archive-date = 8 May 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130508204415/http://apq.press.illinois.edu/47/1/lane.html | url-status = dead }}</ref>{{rp|76–77}}