Problem of Evil 4

6.4 The Soul Making Theodicy
A theodicy is an explanation of God's justice in the light of the existence of evil. Two main ones have emerged over the course of Christian history: the "soul making" theodicy and the "free will" theodicy.

The earliest of these two shows up in the writings of Irenaeus in the late 100's and has been advanced in various ways in recent times by individuals like John Hick <1> and C. S. Lewis. The basic idea is that God created Adam not as an ideal human but more along the lines of a child. The challenges of living help us grow up, make us better people. In other words, suffering and misfortune improve our souls.

We might compare this approach to evil to exercise or weight training. Anyone who has been on bed rest even for several days knows how their muscles atrophy quickly. On the other hand, exercise "tears down" muscle with the result that it is replaced by stronger muscle than before.

The soul making theodicy pictures a world that is like a jungle gym. As we face obstacles, we get better, stronger. What we call evil is actually good for us, like liver or spinach. "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). C. S. Lewis also, at least in the period before the painful death of his wife by cancer, often spoke of suffering as God's chisel that hurts so much but makes us beautiful. <2>

What are we to make of this theodicy? On the one hand, it is surely true that not all pain is ultimately bad. Sometimes pain can lead to a better world than would have existed if it had not taken place, although recognizing this is usually of little comfort when we are in the middle of the suffering. We need not adopt all of Nietzsche's views to recognize the element of truth in his well known statement that "what does not kill us makes us stronger."

From a philosophical standpoint, it is not clear that death in itself is evil or even that suffering is. They are undesirable. But it is not clear that they are evil.

As unreassuring as it is, it is quite possible that the problem of evil seems so huge to us because we do not have a proper sense of priorities. We think of our individual lives as more significant than they really are in the vast scheme of things. We exaggerate the significance of our minute pains and pleasures.

It is perhaps worthwhile to note that this would even more be the case if there were no God. If there is no God, then we are simply biological machines that are overly concerned with their own destinies. If undirected, atheistic evolution is the fundamental explanation of what a person is, then there is no goodness--or evil--to the world at all. The fittest survive, and the weak get eaten.

Certainly it is the fallacy of subjectivism to think that something is true just because it is more convenient for me. Yet it is significant to observe that God is the only hope for suffering meaning anything at all in the vast scheme of things. It is God's love for the world that makes things like suffering and death significant, not the fact that it hurts me.

When we think of the soul making theodicy, we are especially thinking about the potential of natural "evil" to lead to positive outcomes, although the same concept could apply just as well to the effects of moral evil. We should remind ourselves again that there are different perspectives on whether God directs such natural evil or allows it.

From one Christian point of view, God directly causes hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornados, car accidents and fires. From another, God allows these things to happen as the natural outworking of the laws of cause and effect that God placed into the universe. Sometimes a frame of metal going one way collides with a frame of metal going another, and people in these cars get hurt. The question is why God did not stop the cars, not why God caused them to collide.

But why would God design a world that works this way? Even if God does not orchestrate hurricanes to kill people, why did God create a world that creates hurricanes by the laws of cause and effect? Could not an all powerful God have made a world where growth could take place without suffering?

The soul making theodicy seems inadequate in itself as an explanation for why a loving God created a world that grows in this particular way. This observation leads us to the more dominant theodicy, the so called free will theodicy of Augustine. We should not presume, however, that we will find an explanation that leaves us with no questions. Even people like Habakkuk, Job, and various psalmists had questions about the ways of God. In the conclusion of this chapter we will inevitably conclude that it comes down to faith.

<1> Evil and the God of Love

<2> A Grief Observed