3.1.1 - Theodicies: strengths and weaknesses of each response
Hick, Plantinga, and Griffin do not defend God in the same way: soul-making gives suffering a developmental purpose, free will locates moral evil in creaturely choice, and process thought limits divine control. You will compare these responses against logical consistency, coverage of natural and moral evil, and moral credibility, then evaluate whether any one account preserves both divine goodness and meaningful human experience.
How To Evaluate A Theodicy
The problem of evil asks whether evil and suffering can be reconciled with belief in God. In AQA Component 1 this matters because students must move from AO1 explanation of each response to AO2 judgement about its strengths and weaknesses.
Theodicy
A theodicy is an attempt to show why belief in a good God can still be rational even though evil and suffering exist.
Evaluation should not mean listing any convenient criticism. A strength or weakness is only useful if it tests what the response is trying to do.
| Evaluation test | What it asks | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Is the response aimed at the logical problem, the evidential problem, or both? | A response may defeat a claim of contradiction without explaining the amount and distribution of suffering. |
| Type of evil | Does it address moral evil, natural evil, animal suffering, or horrendous suffering? | A response that works well for human wrongdoing may struggle with earthquakes, disease or pre-human suffering. |
| Concept of God | Does it preserve classical divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence? | Some responses solve one pressure by changing what is meant by divine power or goodness. |
| Human and moral cost | Does the response treat sufferers with moral seriousness? | A theodicy can sound logically neat while seeming pastorally or ethically troubling. |
| Explanatory ambition | Is it a full explanation, or only a defence showing that God and evil are logically compatible? | This affects how much the response needs to prove. |
The most careful judgement is usually comparative: one response may be strongest against the logical problem, another may explain natural evil better, and another may protect divine goodness by revising divine power.
Hick's Soul-Making Response
Hick's soul-making theodicy is a constructive theodicy. It does not merely say that God and evil are logically compatible; it offers a purpose for a world containing difficulty. Hick argues that human beings are not created morally finished. They develop through challenge, freedom, risk and response.
| Scholar/source card | Hick's soul-making theodicy |
|---|---|
| Central claim | A world containing suffering can be understood as a context for moral and spiritual development. |
| Key idea | People grow into virtues such as courage, compassion, patience and responsibility through real challenge. |
| Specialist term | Epistemic distance: God is not overwhelmingly obvious, so human response to God can be free rather than forced. |
| AQA use | Evaluate whether this gives a strong enough purpose for evil and suffering. |
Argument chain:
- God wants persons capable of mature goodness, not merely comfortable creatures.
- Mature virtues are more valuable when they are formed through responsible choices.
- A world with danger, pain, resistance and uncertainty gives the conditions for such choices.
- Therefore some evil and suffering may be permitted as part of soul-making.
The strength of Hick's response is that it gives suffering an intelligible role. Natural evil is not left as an awkward extra; it helps create a stable, challenging environment in which virtues can develop. Moral evil is also connected to freedom and responsibility. This makes Hick broader than a simple free will explanation of human wrongdoing.
The weakness is proportionality. Even if some suffering can develop character, critics ask whether the scale, intensity and uneven distribution of suffering can be justified. Some suffering crushes people rather than improves them. Animal suffering and suffering before human moral development are especially difficult, because they do not obviously contribute to human soul-making. Hick's response also depends heavily on a future completion of the soul-making process; without that, many lives seem to end before the alleged purpose is fulfilled.
| Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|
| Gives a positive purpose for suffering rather than only a defensive possibility. | Risks making suffering sound like a tool used for someone else's moral growth. |
| Addresses natural evil more directly than the free will defence. | Struggles with apparently excessive, pointless or destructive suffering. |
| Fits an evolutionary picture of unfinished human beings developing over time. | Depends on hope beyond this life if earthly suffering is to be finally redeemed. |
| Preserves a morally serious idea of human freedom and responsibility. | May not explain animal suffering or pre-human suffering convincingly. |
Hick is strongest when the evaluation test is moral and spiritual development; he is weakest when the test is whether all suffering is proportionate to that purpose.
The Free Will Defence
The free will defence is especially important because it has a narrower aim than a full theodicy. It tries to show that God and evil are not logically inconsistent. In modern philosophy it is often associated with Alvin Plantinga, but AQA's required wording names the defence rather than Plantinga as compulsory content.
The core claim is that genuine freedom is a great good, and a world with genuinely free agents includes the real possibility that those agents will choose wrongly. If God forced every creature always to choose good, that would not be the same as creating free moral agents.
Argument chain:
- Genuine moral freedom is valuable.
- Genuine moral freedom includes the possibility of choosing evil.
- Moral evil results from the misuse of creaturely freedom, not from God's direct willing of evil.
- Therefore the existence of moral evil is logically compatible with belief in a good and powerful God.
Its major strength is precision. Against the logical problem of evil, the free will defence only needs to show a possible reason why God might allow evil. It does not need to prove God's actual reason in every case. This makes it powerful as a reply to the claim that God and evil are strictly contradictory. It also preserves a familiar religious view of God as omnipotent and good while taking human moral responsibility seriously.
The weakness is that moral evil is not the whole problem. Earthquakes, disease, genetic disorders, animal suffering and other forms of natural evil are not easily explained by human free choice. Even within moral evil, critics ask whether the amount of cruelty found in the world is really required for freedom. A world with free agents who commit fewer or less terrible wrongs seems possible to many critics. The defence may therefore answer the logical problem better than the evidential problem.
| Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|
| Strong against the logical problem because it shows possible compatibility. | Less satisfying against the evidential problem because possibility is not probability. |
| Explains moral evil through human agency rather than divine intention. | Does not straightforwardly explain natural evil. |
| Preserves classical divine power and goodness more than process theodicy does. | Raises the question of why God could not create free beings who freely choose better more often. |
| Takes moral responsibility seriously. | Horrendous evil can make the value of freedom seem too costly. |
Griffin's Process Response
Process theodicy as presented by Griffin takes a different route. Instead of defending classical omnipotence, it challenges the assumption that God has coercive control over every event. On a process view, reality includes many centres of activity or creativity. God works persuasively within that process rather than unilaterally determining everything.
| Scholar/source card | Griffin's process theodicy |
|---|---|
| Central claim | Evil exists because God does not have the kind of coercive omnipotence assumed by classical theism. |
| Key idea | God lures or persuades creation toward the good, but cannot simply override creaturely processes. |
| AQA use | Evaluate whether revising divine power solves the problem of evil or creates a greater theological cost. |
Argument chain:
- Classical theism often says God creates and sustains the world with total power.
- If God has total coercive power, critics argue that God seems responsible for permitting preventable evil.
- Process theodicy denies that divine power works as total coercive control.
- Therefore evil does not show that God is morally indifferent; it shows that finite processes can resist or fall short of God's persuasive good.
This response has a clear strength: it directly reduces the charge that God allows suffering while having the power to stop it. If God cannot simply prevent every disaster or wrongdoing, then the existence of evil does not count against divine goodness in the same way. It also takes natural process seriously. A world of real processes, risks and creaturely agency is not a stage on which God secretly controls every detail.
Its weakness is the cost to classical theism. Many religious believers understand God as omnipotent in a stronger sense than process theism allows. If God cannot guarantee the defeat of evil, some critics ask whether such a God is still worthy of worship or able to ground religious hope. Process theodicy may solve the problem of evil by changing the concept of God so much that it no longer answers the problem faced by classical theism.
| Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|
| Protects divine goodness by denying that God could coercively prevent every evil. | Revises omnipotence, so it may not satisfy classical theists. |
| Gives natural evil a place within real processes rather than treating it as a puzzle added later. | A limited God may seem religiously inadequate to those who expect providence, rescue or final victory. |
| Avoids saying that God uses suffering as a tool for character formation. | If God cannot stop evil, the response may comfort less than it explains. |
| Makes divine love responsive and involved in suffering. | Critics may ask why this should still be called the God of classical theism. |
Griffin is strongest if the key problem is divine responsibility for preventable evil; he is weakest if the evaluation test requires preserving classical omnipotence.
Comparison Without Flattening
The three responses should not be treated as if they all do the same job. Their strengths and weaknesses depend on the standard being used.
| Evaluation standard | Hick | Free will defence | Griffin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best target | Explaining why a world with suffering might have a positive purpose. | Defeating the claim that God and evil are logically inconsistent. | Reducing divine responsibility by revising divine power. |
| Moral evil | Explains it through freedom and moral growth. | Strongest here: moral evil comes from misuse of freedom. | Explains it through creaturely agency resisting God's persuasive good. |
| Natural evil | Gives it a role in a challenging environment. | Struggles unless natural evil is linked indirectly to freedom or wider order. | Stronger: natural processes are not fully controlled by coercive divine power. |
| Horrendous suffering | Vulnerable: the suffering may seem too destructive for soul-making. | Vulnerable: extreme evil may seem too high a price for freedom. | Vulnerable: a God unable to prevent horror may seem too limited. |
| Cost to the concept of God | Keeps a broadly good and purposeful God, but raises questions about divine permission. | Preserves classical attributes, but may leave much unexplained. | Protects goodness by limiting coercive power, but departs from classical omnipotence. |
| Best limited judgement | Persuasive if suffering is assessed through character formation and future fulfilment. | Persuasive as a defence against logical contradiction, less complete as an explanation. | Persuasive if process theism is acceptable, less persuasive if classical theism is required. |
A strong AO2 comparison uses criteria. For example:
- If the issue is the logical problem, the free will defence is probably the most successful because it only has to show possible compatibility.
- If the issue is natural evil, Hick and Griffin have clearer resources than a simple free will defence.
- If the issue is preserving classical theism, Griffin is weaker because it changes divine omnipotence.
- If the issue is the moral seriousness of suffering, all three face pressure: Hick may instrumentalise suffering, free will may tolerate too high a price, and Griffin may make God seem unable to rescue.
AO1 To AO2 Bridge
AO1 gives the accurate content. AO2 turns that content into a judgement about persuasiveness, coherence and significance. The bridge is the reasoning step between them.
| AO1 content | AO2 strength it can support | AO2 weakness it can support | Balanced mini-judgement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hick says suffering can contribute to soul-making. | This gives evil a positive role in moral and spiritual development. | It may not justify suffering that destroys character or affects non-human animals. | Hick is broad and purposeful, but vulnerable to the scale and distribution of evil. |
| The free will defence says genuine freedom includes the possibility of moral evil. | It makes God and moral evil logically compatible. | It does not explain why natural evil exists or why moral evil is so extreme. | The defence is powerful against contradiction, but incomplete against evidential pressure. |
| Griffin denies coercive divine omnipotence. | God is not morally blameworthy for failing to prevent every evil. | The cost is a major revision of classical belief about God. | Process theodicy is coherent within process theism, but less persuasive for classical theism. |
Notice the difference between a weak and a strong AO2 move:
| Weak move | Stronger move |
|---|---|
| "Hick is weak because suffering is bad." | "Hick is weak if the suffering is so excessive or destructive that it no longer plausibly contributes to soul-making." |
| "Free will is strong because people choose evil." | "The free will defence is strong against the logical problem because it offers a possible morally sufficient reason for God to permit moral evil." |
| "Griffin is wrong because God should be powerful." | "Griffin's process theodicy is less persuasive for classical theists because it solves the problem by revising the meaning of divine omnipotence." |
Paragraph Clinic And Synoptic Link
Paragraph focus: which response is most persuasive depends on the problem being tested.
A basic paragraph:
Hick's theodicy is strong because suffering helps people grow. The free will defence is also strong because people choose evil. Griffin is weak because it limits God's power. Therefore Hick is best.
A stronger paragraph:
The free will defence is arguably the strongest response to the logical problem of evil because it only needs to show that God and evil are possibly compatible: if genuine freedom is a great good, then moral evil can result from its misuse without making God's existence contradictory. However, this strength is limited. It is less persuasive against the evidential problem, because the amount of suffering, natural evil and horrendous evil may still make belief in God seem unlikely. Hick has a broader explanation because natural evil can become part of a challenging environment for soul-making, while Griffin deals most directly with divine responsibility by denying coercive omnipotence. The best judgement is therefore not that one response simply "wins", but that each is strongest under a different evaluation test.
Why this improves:
- It names the exact problem being answered.
- It distinguishes logical compatibility from evidential plausibility.
- It compares all three AQA-listed responses.
- It makes a limited judgement rather than a vague preference.
Synoptic link: this lesson prepares for the C1-evil-and-suffering essay cluster by connecting the named responses back to the logical and evidential problem of evil, natural and moral evil, and the overall question of whether evil damages religious belief. It can also support C1-philosophy-synoptic work where arguments for God, reason and faith, or religious experience are weighed against the challenge of evil.
The most essay-ready judgement is criteria-based: Hick is purposeful, free will is logically sharp, and Griffin is radical about divine power; each strength creates a different weakness.