¹ Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (reprinted in Pike, Nelson, ed., God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964]) 10. 22–23Google Scholar. On the ancestry of the problem of evil, see Hick, John, Evil and the God of Love (London: Fontana/Collins, 1968) 5.Google Scholar

² For a magisterial survey of Christian responses to the problem of evil, see Hick, Evil and the God of Love.

³ Critique of Pure Reason (Smith, Norman Kemp, trans.; London/New York: Macmillan, 1964) 21. One is reminded too of Donald MacKinnon's stricture:Google Scholar

where the treatment of “the problem of evil” is concerned, we reach an area in which in very various ways, theologians have allowed apologetic eagerness to lead them to suppose they had reached solutions, when in fact they had hardly begun effectively to articulate their problems.

See his The Problem of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1974) 124.Google Scholar

⁴ On Newton, see Raven's, Charles 1951 Gifford Lectures, Natural Religion and Christian Theology (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953) 1. 124–44Google Scholar, and Barbour, Ian G., Issues in Science and Religion (London: SCM, 1966) 34–55Google Scholar; on Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, see von Leyden, W., Seventeenth Century Metaphysics (London: Duckworth: 1971)Google Scholar; on Hume and Kant, see Charlesworth, M. J., Philosophy of Religion: The Historic Approaches (London: Macmillan, 1972) 102–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Hegel, see Taylor, Charles, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These Aufklärer sought essentially to render morality and religious faith compatible with the exigencies of reason and skeptical empiricism. An alternative response to the thoroughgoing rationalism and empiricism sponsored by the Enlightenment was to give morality and faith a basis in man's subjectivity. Pascal and Kierkegaard took this alternative, in opposition to Descartes and Hegel respectively. See Barrett, William, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1967) 97–105Google Scholar and 133–57; Brown, James, Subject and Object in Modern Theology (London: SCM, 1955) 11–82Google Scholar; and Solomon, Robert C., From Rationalism to Existentialism: The Existentialists and Their Eighteenth-Century Backgrounds (New York: Humanities, 1972)Google Scholar. For a profound study of Pascal's response to the Enlightenment, see Goldmann, Lucienn, The Hidden God: A Study of Tragic Vision in the ‘Pensées’ of Pascal and the Tragedies of Racine (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964)Google Scholar. for a study of Kierkegaard in relation to Hegel, see Taylor, Mark C., Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California, 1980)Google Scholar. Charles Taylor's Hegel provides a lucid account of the way man's modern self-understanding emerged from the Enlightenment. See especially chap. 1.

⁵ The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man (New York: Free Press, 1976) 18.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid. It was Feuerbach who took the premises of post-Enlightenment anthropology to their logical conclusion by arguing that man should seek the absolute not in God but in human nature itself. Post-Enlightenment man, having expropriated God of his powers, thus makes himself into a man-god. Iris Murdoch has characterized this post-Enlightenment man-god in the following way:

How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man … who confronted even with Christ turns away to consider the judgement of his own conscience and to hear the voice of his own reason.... this man is still with us, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral philosophy. (The Sovereignty of Good [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970] 80)Google Scholar

Murdoch maintains that this man-god is so depicted in Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten.

⁷ Becker, Structure of Evil, 17. Weber believes that manipulability of the world (the principle on which bureaucracy operates) is a concomitant of post-Enlightenment man's new found identity as self-defining subject. Such a man regards the world, including the good and evil contained therein, as an object of control. The world for such a man is, in Weber's phrase, “disenchanted” (entzaubert).

⁸ Frederick Sontag, as far as I know, is the only theodicist who makes a serious attempt to come to terms with the phenomenon of “anthropodicy.” But even he does not seem to be really aware of the extent to which post-Enlightenment thought is likely to subvert the enterprise of theodicy. For Sontag's views, see his “Anthropodicy and the Return of God,” in Davis, Stephen T., ed., Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981) chap. 5.Google Scholar

An unknown referee of this journal has noted that my argument about the connection between the Enlightenment and theodicy may in fact operate backwards, i.e., that perhaps it was the Enlightenment that made theodicy such an important problem. This is undoubtedly correct. The Aufklärer, and Kant in particular, discredited the notion that nature possessed an immanent teleology, and thus made it less easy for theologians and philosophers to explain occurrences of evil and suffering in terms of a divinely ordained creative process inherent in nature. Evil and suffering thus become more difficult to account for and explain away. The Enlightenment, it would seem, not only helped to deprive theodicy of its prima facie plausibility (which is what I have been arguing), but also served to make theodicy a problem, and an almost insoluble problem at that. I am grateful to this referee for suggesting this line of thought to me.

⁹ God, Freedom and Evil (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974) 29. John Hick upholds Plantinga's point of view when he says: “a Christian theodicy … offers an understanding of our human situation; but this is not the same as offering practical help and comfort to those in the midst of acute pain or deep suffering.” See his “An Irenaean Theodicy,” in Davis., ed., Encountering Evil, 68.Google Scholar

¹⁰ lt is typical of the bureaucratic view of good and evil that it regards them in an abstract way, as something involving roles of office, administrative procedures, protocols, etc., but rarely personal guilt and responsibility. The evil bureaucrat par excellence, who rendered evil “banal,” was of course Adolf Eichmann. See Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (rev. and enlarged ed.; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977). It is imperative therefore that the theodicist ask himself: Am I operating with a conception of evil that, because of its abstract nature, effectively reduces evil to banality?Google Scholar

¹¹ This quotation is from Nicholas Lash, Theology on Dover Beach (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1979) 21Google Scholar, who in turn quotes from G. K. Chesterton's hymn “O God of Earth and Altar.” Lash's book contains an admirably clear statement of the dangers involved in allowing theological reflection to degenerate into ideology by ignoring the particular social and political praxis mediated by such reflection. Relevant in this context is Isaiah Berlin's observation that “if Kant had not discredited the God of the rationalist theologians, Robespierre might not have beheaded the king” (quoted in Magee, Bryan, ed., Men of Ideas: Some Creators of Contemporary Philosophy [New York/Oxford: Oxford University, 1982] 9)Google Scholar. Berlin's quite plausible suggestion here is that in discrediting the God of rational theology, Kant effectively undermined (albeit indirectly) the notion that the monarchs of pre-revolutionary Europe ruled by divine right. Berlin goes on to say: “the power of philosophical or metaphysical ideas … can be very great—indirect, but far-reaching … philosophers [are] not harmless word-spinners, but a great force of good and evil, among the most formidable unacknowledged legislators of mankind” (Ibid.).

¹² To quote Sartre:

We have been taught to take [evil] seriously. It is neither our fault nor our merit if we lived in a time when torture was a daily fact. … Dachau, and Auschwitz have … demonstrated to us that Evil is not an appearance, that knowing its cause does not dispel it, that it is not opposed to Good as a confused idea is to a clear one, that it is not the effects of passions which might be cured, of a fear which might be overcome, of a passing aberration which might be excused, of an ignorance which might be enlightened. …

We heard whole streets screaming and we understood that Evil … is, like Good, absolute.

Perhaps a day will come when a happy age, looking back at the past, will see in this suffering and shame one of the paths which led to peace. But we were not on the side of history already made. We were, as I have said, situated in such a way that every lived minute seemed to us like something irreducible. Therefore, in spite of ourselves, we came to this conclusion, which will seem shocking to lofty souls: Evil cannot be redeemed. (What is Literature? [Frechtman, Bernard, trans.; London: Methuen, 1950] 160–62)Google Scholar

Sartre, in this passage, is reflecting on his experiences as a member of the war-time Resistance in France.

¹³ Tales of Unrest (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977) 100.Google Scholar

¹⁴ ”The Hermeneutics of Symbols and Philosophical Reflection: I,” in The Conflict of Interpretations (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1974) 312. See also p. 314, where Ricoeur argues that theodicy is an expedient of false knowledge because it does not give us an understanding of hope.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Namely, that of enabling us to come to terms not only with the mere existence, but also with the awfulness, of evil and suffering; and not only this, but in so doing for the theodicist also to address himself directly to the plight of human sufferers.

¹⁶ That is, how coherent is the idea of an almighty and morally perfect God who nevertheless creates a world that contains so much pain and suffering? Herbert McCabe has argued that there is nothing incoherent in the idea of a morally perfect God who permits the suffering caused by sin to exist. To quote him:

… it is one thing to say that sin is not a manifestation of God's goodness and quite another to say that sin is a manifestation that God is not good. We do not know why the good God has made a world which does not at all times manifest his goodness, but the notion is not contradictory. Somehow the infinite goodness of God is compatible with his allowing sin. (“God: Evil,” New Blackfriars 62 [1981] 17)Google Scholar

Even if we concede, for the purposes of argument, McCabe's claim that there is no contradiction in the idea of a good God who allows sin to exist, it seems to me that a problem remains if we accept that this God is an infinitely loving being: Can an infinitely loving God permit the suffering caused by sin to exist while he does nothing about it? It is one of the main contentions of this essay that human suffering can be reconciled with the existence of a God of love only if this God becomes a God of salvation.

¹⁷ Of these two questions, (iii) is more important from the standpoint of theodicy than (iv). Even so, we are not justified in treating (iii) and (iv) as though they have no connection with each other; given the framework of Christian theism, (iv) is entailed by (iii).

¹⁸ Plantinga's and Hick's position on this issue can be inferrred from the passages quoted on p. 6 and n. 9 above.

¹⁹ The Crucified God (London: SCM, 1974) 215–16.Google Scholar

²⁰ To this extent, ours is not a theodicy in the traditional sense of the term. However, it seems to me that the point at issue for the theodicist is invariably the goodness and benevolence of deity—I have yet to come across a theodicy which identifies divine omnipotence as the crux of the problem of evil.

²¹ For such a person there would be no point in doing theodicy: the “solution” to the problem of evil will lie in altering the states of mind of individuals who are troubled by the fact of evil, and not in any need to justify God.

²² All references to The Brothers Karamazov will be to the translation by Magarshack, David (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958). In discussing the case of Ivan Karamazov, I shall presuppose that the God of the problem of evil is the God worshiped by Christians (as indeed I have throughout this essay).Google Scholar

²³ Atheism and the Rejection of God: Contemporary Philosophy and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977). See especially 25–39.Google Scholar

²⁴ I do not propose in this essay to consider Dostoyevsky's own answer to the problem of evil as it is posed by Ivan Karamazov —Sutherland does this more than adequately.

²⁵ Thus Max Weber is able to distinguish between three forms of theodicy which he regards as consistent: (1) dualism; (ii) predestination; and (iii) “virtuoso-like selfredemption.” See his “Three Forms of Theodicy,” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright, eds.; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970) 358–59.Google Scholar

²⁶ Brian Hebblethwaite, in a private communication, has also expressed the desirability of linking theodicy to an Irenaean picture of the world process in order to enhance the viability of theodicy.

²⁷ Ivan, though, is in no way suggesting that man is worthy of the love of God. Thus he tells Alyosha: “And what is so strange … is not that God actually exists, but that such an idea —the idea of the necessity of God—should have entered the head of such a savage and vicious animal as man” (274).

²⁸ It must be emphasized, though, that Hick takes pains to distance himself from the position which regards the promised bliss of heaven as a compensation or reward for man's earthly travails. As Hick says: “The ‘good eschaton’ will not be a reward or a compensation proportioned to each individual's trials, but an infinite good that would render worthwhile any finite suffering endured in the course of attaining to it” (377). Admittedly, Ivan's outburst seems to be directed specifically against the idea of a compensatory heaven which Hick rejects. However, it seems to me that Ivan's strictures are just as applicable to Hick's claim that the “good eschaton” would “render worthwhile any finite suffering endured in the course of attaining it.” For Ivan, not only can the principle of an eschatological transfiguration of innocent suffering never be morally justified; but (as he sees it) to adopt this principle is also to reduce the profoundest affirmations of the Christian faith to the status of empty chatter, idle speculation. A more detailed consideration of the soul-making theodicy is to be found in my “The Impassibility of God and the Problem of Evil,” SJT 35 (1982) 97–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ For this story, see Moltmann, , The Crucified God, 373–74; and Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975) 145.Google Scholar

³⁰ To use a phrase of Donald MacKinnon. See his “Order and Evil in the Gospel,” Borderlands of Theology and Other Essays (New York: Lippincott, 1968) 91. I am deeply indebted to this essay of MacKinnon for several of the ideas developed in this essay.Google Scholar

³¹ The principle that only a suffering God can help is elaborated in Kitamori, Kazoh, Theology of the Pain of God (Bratchen, M. E., trans.; Richmond: John Knox, 1965)Google Scholar; and MacGregor, Geddes, He Who Let Us Be: A Theology of Love (New York: Seabury, 1975)Google Scholar. A valuable conspectus of recent discussions of the subject of divine suffering is to be found in McWilliams, Warren, “Divine Suffering in Contemporary Theology,” SJT 33 (1980) 35–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² The Justification of God (London: Latimer House, 1948) 167. For a brief discussion of Forsyth's theodicy, see Hick, Evil and the God of Love, 246–48.Google Scholar

³³ Forsyth, Justification of God, 53.

³⁴ Ibid., 211, 220. Relevant here too are the words of Donald MacKinnon:

To suggest that Christianity deals with the problem of evil by encouraging the believer to view it from a cosmic perspective is totally to misunderstand both the difficulty and the consolation of its treatment. Rather Christianity takes the history of Jesus and urges the believer to find, in the endurance of the ultimate contradictions of human existence that belong to its very substance, the assurance that in the worst that can befall his creatures, the creative Word keeps company with those he has called his own. (“Order and Evil,” 93)

³⁵ It is precisely for this reason that John Hick rejects the “classic” atonement doctrine, which, according to him, is inextricably bound up with the notion of the Incarnation, effectively making christology the ground of soteriology. Hick rejects this incarnational christology because of the so-called “scandal of particularity” which surrounds the Incarnation. Salvation, thus conceived, says Hick, will eo ipso be confined to the adherents of an incarnational faith, and this is unacceptable in a world that is characterized by a plurality of faiths. See Hick, John, “Evil and Incarnation,” in Goulder, Michael, ed., Incarnation and Myth: The Debate Continued (London: SCM, 1979) 77–84.Google Scholar

³⁶ As will be indicated in the next section, sometimes silence is the only morally appropriate response to extreme suffering. The principle of redemptive incarnation is not one that can be vindicated by philosophical or systematic theology. That salvation should be proffered to mankind in and through a Nazarene who died on a cross at Golgotha nearly two thousand years ago is a truth that can only be established by a theology of revelation based on the Word of God as given in Holy Scripture. If this is the case, then theodicy moves away from philosophical or systematic theology into the realm of dogmatic theology.

³⁷ Theodicy hinges on the enormous presumption that evil is something that can be understood. It is this presumption that trivializes theodicy's treatment of evil and suffering, because they are reduced by it to humanly assimilable proportions. Theodicy would not get off the ground if it heeded the words of a survivor of Auschwitz (Eli Wiesel): “I who was there still do not understand.”

³⁸ See his Freedom and the Spirit. This quotation is reproduced from Lowrie, Donald A., Christian Existentialism: A Berdyaev Anthology (London: Allen & Unwin, 1965) 41.Google Scholar

³⁹ The content of this revelation, we have already argued, is to be articulated in terms of a theologia crucis: what God reveals to man, in the context of the problem of evil, is that he himself, through the Cross of Christ, endures the sufferings that afflict us. I have developed this point in my “Atonement and Christology,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosohie 24 (1982) 131–49Google Scholar. In turning to the theology of revelation to provide a basis for a theologia crucis I am mindful of Wolfhart Pannenberg's formula that God is “accessible … by his own action.” Pannenberg makes this point in Theology and the Philosophy of Science (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1976) 310Google Scholar. Nicholas Lash rightly says that Pannenberg's formula is a necessary condition for the enterprise of critical theology. See his Theology on Dover Beach, 16–23. To quote Lash: “unless God is accessible by his own action, Christian faith expresses only man's hope, and theology is rendered incapable of speaking of God” (17).

⁴⁰ Moltmann, Jürgen, Hope and Planning (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) 43.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “Theodicy” in this context refers primarily to the theoretical aspect of theodicy.

⁴² Such a person may even believe that it is possible to have an explanation which makes evil and suffering intelligible. (I happen to believe that it is not possible —in principle —to provide such an explanation.)

⁴³ For Garfinkel's discussion, see Forms of Explanation: Rethinking the Question in Social Theory (New Haven: Yale University, 1981)Google Scholar chap. 1. See Putnam, Hilary, Meaning and the Moral Sciences (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) 42–43Google Scholar, for another discussion of the interest-relativity of explanation.

⁴⁴ See n. 34 above.

⁴⁵ The mistake of those who seek to acquire a cosmic perspective on the problem of evil is superbly depicted by Thomas, R. S. in his poem “The Prisoner” (in The Critical Quarterly 17 [1975] 4):Google Scholar

⁴⁶ As Hans Urs von Balthasar says: “The key to the understanding of God's action lies exclusively in the interpretation which God gives of himself before man on the stage of human nature. … What God has done for man is ‘understandable’ only in so far as it is not understandable or justifiable from a human, worldly point of view, and from the standpoint of our fragmentary knowledge: by these standards it is bound to appear ‘foolishness’ and ‘madness’” (Alone, Love: The Way of Revelation [London: Burns & Oates, 1968] 58).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Parts of this essay were read to a meeting of the “D” Society of Cambridge University, where it was penetratingly criticized by Nicholas Lash and Brian Hebblethwaite. The latter also kindly put some of his comments on paper in a way that helped with the production of the final draft.