Theodicy—the attempt to reconcile God's goodness with the reality of evil—has produced few proposals as ambitious as John Hick's soul-making defense. Rather than treating suffering as an unfortunate byproduct of free will or cosmic accident, Hick argued that a world containing genuine evil is precisely what a loving God would create.

The core intuition is disarmingly simple: certain excellences of character cannot exist without struggle. Courage requires danger. Compassion requires witnessing pain. Forgiveness requires being wronged. A world engineered for constant comfort would be spiritually sterile—a moral kindergarten where the deepest human virtues could never emerge.

But intuitive appeal and philosophical adequacy are different things. Can soul-making actually bear the weight of explaining the Holocaust, childhood cancer, or the suffering of animals? We need to examine both the sophisticated arguments supporting this theodicy and the serious objections that challenge whether any developmental narrative can justify the actual scope and intensity of suffering in our world.

Hick's theodicy depends on a subtle claim about divine hiddenness. For genuine moral and spiritual development to occur, God cannot be too obvious. If divine judgment were as evident as gravity—if every sin produced immediate punishment and every virtue immediate reward—human goodness would reduce to prudent self-interest.

This is what Hick called epistemic distance. God creates a world where His existence and moral governance remain genuinely uncertain. The universe must appear, at least superficially, as if it could be godless. This uncertainty is not a design flaw but a necessary condition for authentic faith and genuine moral choice.

Consider the alternative: a world where miracles constantly intervene to prevent suffering, where prayer reliably produces results, where cosmic justice operates on a visible timeline. In such a world, believing in God would require no faith—it would be like believing in tables. And acting morally would require no character—it would be like avoiding a hot stove.

The epistemic distance argument transforms a traditional problem into a solution. Skeptics ask: if God exists, why doesn't He make His existence clearer? Hick answers: because clarity would undermine the very project for which creation exists. Ambiguity about God's existence and purposes is the enabling condition for the development of spiritual maturity.

Takeaway

Divine hiddenness might not indicate God's absence but could be a necessary feature of any world designed for genuine moral and spiritual growth rather than mere behavioral compliance.

The soul-making theodicy rests on what we might call the virtue cultivation thesis: that certain excellences of character are logically impossible in a world without genuine suffering. This isn't merely a contingent psychological fact but a conceptual necessity. Courage just is the disposition to act rightly despite danger—no danger, no courage.

Hick drew on an Irenaean tradition (after the church father Irenaeus) that distinguished between humans made in the image of God and humans growing into the likeness of God. We begin as morally and spiritually immature creatures with the potential for development. Actualizing that potential requires a challenging environment.

The argument extends beyond obvious adversity-dependent virtues. Even apparently 'peaceful' excellences like patience, gratitude, and humility require a world where things don't always go as we wish. A creature who always got what it wanted instantly could never develop patience. One who received everything as automatic entitlement could never experience genuine gratitude.

Furthermore, Hick argued that second-order goods often exceed first-order evils in value. The compassion developed through witnessing suffering, the solidarity formed through shared struggle, the depth of character achieved through overcoming obstacles—these may constitute greater goods than the suffering that occasioned them. The question is whether this accounting works when we consider extreme cases.

Takeaway

Many virtues we consider central to human excellence—courage, compassion, resilience, gratitude—are conceptually dependent on the existence of challenges, making a struggle-free world incapable of producing morally developed persons.

Here the soul-making theodicy faces its most serious challenge. Grant that some suffering might serve developmental purposes. Does this explain the actual suffering we observe? The objection comes in several forms, each targeting a different aspect of the theodicy's explanatory ambitions.

First, the distribution problem: suffering falls disproportionately on those least equipped to benefit from it. Children who die in infancy, the severely mentally disabled, victims of genocide—these sufferers often cannot extract soul-making value from their experiences. If development is the purpose, why does suffering so poorly track developmental capacity?

Second, the intensity problem: even granting that adversity builds character, there appears to be severe diminishing returns. Moderate challenges may cultivate virtue, but extreme trauma more often destroys than develops. The Holocaust survivor who loses all faith, the abuse victim permanently psychologically damaged—these represent what Marilyn McCord Adams called horrendous evils that seem to defeat rather than serve any developmental narrative.

Third, the animal suffering problem: billions of years of animal predation, disease, and natural disaster preceded human existence. Whatever soul-making value suffering might have for beings capable of moral development, sentient creatures incapable of such development have suffered enormously. Hick acknowledged this as a significant difficulty, gesturing toward speculative solutions involving animal afterlives—a move many find philosophically unsatisfying.

Takeaway

Even if suffering can theoretically serve developmental purposes, the actual distribution and intensity of suffering in our world—falling heavily on those unable to benefit, often destroying rather than building character—poses serious challenges to soul-making as a complete theodicy.

The soul-making theodicy offers something valuable: a framework where suffering is neither divine punishment nor meaningless accident but potentially purposive. It dignifies human struggle by connecting it to something larger than mere endurance. For many, this reframing transforms their relationship to adversity.

Yet philosophical honesty requires acknowledging the theodicy's limits. It may explain why some suffering exists in a world created by a good God, but it struggles with the scope and distribution of actual suffering. The gap between 'some challenges serve development' and 'this much suffering is justified' remains substantial.

Perhaps the soul-making theodicy works best not as a complete explanation but as a partial one—illuminating one strand in a complex divine purpose while acknowledging that finite minds may not grasp the whole pattern.