Soul-Making Theodicy

1. Introduction

Soul-making theodicy is a family of responses to the problem of evil that interprets a world permeated by suffering as an arena for the development of morally and spiritually mature persons. Rather than viewing evil solely as a punishment for sin or as an inexplicable defect in creation, this approach holds that many difficulties, dangers, and losses are conditions under which virtues such as courage, compassion, forgiveness, and faith can arise and deepen.

In its most influential modern form, associated with John Hick, soul-making theodicy proposes that God’s primary purpose in creation is the formation of “children of God” who freely grow into mature relationship with the divine. On this view, the present world functions as a “vale of soul-making”: a setting in which finite, initially immature creatures are invited to respond to challenges in ways that shape their character over time.

The soul-making approach is typically advanced within theistic frameworks that affirm God as omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. It does not deny the reality or gravity of evil; instead, it attempts to show how the existence, variety, and depth of evil might be compatible with such a God, and possibly even expected, if the world is ordered toward developmental goods that cannot (or, on some formulations, likely cannot) be achieved otherwise.

Philosophically, soul-making theodicy engages both the logical and evidential versions of the problem of evil. It offers a positive story about why a good God might allow significant moral and natural evils, while acknowledging that not every particular instance of suffering can be individually explained. The view has generated extensive debate, drawing support from virtue ethics, developmental conceptions of personhood, and certain strands of Christian theology, while also facing serious objections regarding horrendous evils, unfair distributions of suffering, and the status of non-human creatures.

2. Origin and Attribution

Although elements of soul-making thought appear in several religious and philosophical traditions, the label “soul-making theodicy” and its systematic development are most closely associated with John Hick.

Patristic and Early Christian Roots

The approach is often described as Irenaean, referring to Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century). Irenaeus distinguished between humans made in the “image” of God and their gradual growth into the “likeness” of God, suggesting an initial immaturity intended for development. Later patristic figures, such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, advanced themes of progressive purification, pedagogical suffering, and eventual restoration, which many interpreters see as proto–soul-making motifs.

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“Man was not made perfect from the beginning, but was made to grow toward perfection.”

— Paraphrase of themes in Irenaeus, Against Heresies

John Hick’s Modern Formulation

The modern, analytic articulation arises with John Hick’s Evil and the God of Love (1966; revised 1977). Hick contrasts what he calls the Augustinian and Irenaean traditions, arguing that the latter better accounts for a world structured for growth rather than mere retribution or the restoration of a lost perfection. He coins and popularizes the phrase “vale of soul-making”, borrowing from John Keats, and frames theodicy in explicitly developmental and eschatological terms.

Other Influences and Parallel Figures

Hick acknowledges inspiration from:

While Hick is the central architect of the modern view, related emphases appear in Eastern Christian theology of deification (theosis), in some Roman Catholic accounts of redemptive suffering, and in strands of virtue ethics that treat adversity as integral to character formation. Contemporary philosophers and theologians have since refined, diversified, or critiqued Hick’s version, but standard usage in the philosophy of religion literature continues to trace the explicit soul-making theodicy to his work.

3. Historical and Theological Context

Soul-making theodicy emerges within a broader Christian theological and philosophical landscape shaped by differing views of creation, sin, and salvation.

Patristic Contrasts: Irenaean and Augustinian Streams

From the early centuries, Christian thinkers offered divergent emphases regarding evil and human destiny:

Interpreters of Irenaeus, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa highlight a forward-looking, teleological narrative in which creation is unfinished and creatures progress toward union with God, often through struggle. By contrast, Augustine of Hippo framed evil primarily as privation and saw much suffering as a result of the primordial Fall, although he also acknowledged disciplinary and medicinal aspects of pain.

Medieval and Early Modern Developments

Medieval scholastics often combined Augustinian elements with nuanced accounts of providence and merit. While not using the language of “soul-making,” they sometimes portrayed trials as occasions for virtue and sanctification. Early modern thinkers such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed best possible world theodicies that include developmental aspects, though their focus was more on global optimization than on individual moral formation.

20th-Century Context

In the 20th century, analytic philosophy of religion posed the logical and evidential problems of evil in precise argumentative terms. The Free Will Defense (notably by Alvin Plantinga) responded to the logical problem; Hick’s soul-making theodicy arose as a complementary response, particularly to the evidential problem.

Hick’s work also reflects mid-century theological currents:

• A shift from static to process-oriented and evolutionary views of creation.
• Renewed interest in Eastern Christian notions of theosis (participation in divine life).
• A pastoral concern to interpret suffering not merely as punishment but as potentially redemptive or formative.

Placed against this backdrop, soul-making theodicy represents an attempt to integrate patristic developmental themes with modern concerns about the intelligibility of evil and the moral psychology of virtue formation.

4. Core Claims of Soul-Making Theodicy

While formulations differ, most soul-making theodicies share several core claims that structure the view.

Purpose of Creation and Human Destiny

Proponents hold that God’s central purpose is the formation of morally and spiritually mature persons. Humans are created not as finished products but as immature agents intended to grow into deeper likeness to God. This growth is said to have distinctive value because it involves genuine freedom, learning, and self-shaping over time.

The World as a Vale of Soul-Making

Soul-making accounts treat the present world as a challenging environment specifically suited to foster such development. This involves:

• Regular natural laws that make actions reliably consequential.
• Opportunities for moral choice, including temptations and risks.
• Exposure to suffering and need, calling forth compassion, resilience, and solidarity.

The presence of moral evil (wrongdoing by agents) and natural evil (disease, disasters, pain) is understood, at least in part, as providing the backdrop against which virtues can arise and be tested.

Value of Virtue and Character Formation

A key claim is that virtues formed through struggle have a distinct and often superior value compared to merely “programmed” goodness. Traits like courage, forgiveness, and steadfast love are thought to presuppose real dangers, injuries, and disappointments. The process itself—of responding, repenting, persevering—is treated as a significant good, not merely an unfortunate means to an unrelated end.

Non-Immediate Justification of Particular Evils

Most formulations shift attention from individual events to the overall structure of the world. They do not claim to identify a specific soul-making benefit for every instance of suffering. Instead, they maintain that, in general, a world enabling deep soul-making will likely contain evils broadly comparable to those observed.

Eschatological Orientation

Finally, soul-making theodicists typically integrate an eschatological horizon: they contend that the developmental story of persons is not limited to earthly life. The ultimate justification of suffering—where it is to be had—lies in a completed narrative in which persons are healed, fulfilled, and brought into mature communion with God, with earlier trials playing an intelligible role in that outcome.

5. Logical Structure and Argumentative Form

Soul-making theodicy is usually advanced as an inductive or cumulative-case argument rather than a strict deductive proof. It aims to show that, given certain value judgments and background theistic commitments, the existence of evil is compatible with—and in some renderings, expected on—the hypothesis of a good, omnipotent God.

Overall Pattern of Reasoning

The argumentative structure often follows this pattern:

1. Value premise: Deep moral and spiritual character (virtue, mature love, faithfulness) is a significant or supreme good.
2. Modal premise: Such character typically requires or strongly tends to arise through experiences of challenge, risk, and suffering in a law-governed world.
3. Theistic premise: If God exists and wills the greatest goods, God would have reason to create a world that realizes or makes possible this kind of soul-making.
4. Empirical premise: The actual world exhibits just such a mix of regularity, freedom, and pervasive hardship.
5. Conclusion: Therefore, the world’s evils are not strong evidence against theism; they can be interpreted as elements of a soul-making environment.

Some proponents frame this as a defense—a logically possible story undermining claims of inconsistency; others offer it as a full theodicy, proposing it as God’s actual or highly probable rationale.

Relation to Logical and Evidential Problems of Evil

Soul-making arguments address:

Because it acknowledges the limits of human knowledge regarding specific evils, soul-making is sometimes combined with skeptical theism. In that more modest form, it is offered as one plausible type of divine reason among others, rather than as an exhaustive explanation.

Dependence on Auxiliary Assumptions

The argument’s force depends on auxiliary claims, including:

• Judgments about the relative value of creaturely freedom and formed character.
• Assessments of the necessity or probable necessity of suffering for virtue.
• Assumptions about post-mortem existence and eventual compensation.

Disagreement over these assumptions underlies much of the contemporary debate about the cogency of the soul-making framework.

6. Human Freedom, Virtue, and Moral Development

Soul-making theodicy places human freedom and virtue formation at the center of its explanation of evil.

Freedom as a Condition for Soul-Making

Proponents typically affirm that meaningful soul-making requires substantial creaturely freedom. This often includes:

• Freedom of choice between morally significant alternatives.
• Responsibility for actions and character development.
• Openness of future personal trajectories.

On many accounts, a world in which individuals could not significantly harm or help one another, or in which their choices had no serious consequences, would be ill-suited for the development of robust moral agency.

Virtues Dependent on Adversity

Soul-making arguments emphasize virtues that appear to presuppose difficulty:

• Courage seems to require genuine danger or fear.
• Compassion and mercy presuppose suffering or wrongdoing.
• Perseverance assumes obstacles or discouragement.
• Forgiveness presupposes harm or offense.

Proponents argue that such virtues are not merely intensified by adversity but are in important respects constituted by it. Hence, a world without substantive challenges might lack many of the most admirable traits of character.

Moral Development Over Time

Soul-making theodicy also stresses the temporal dimension of growth. Humans are seen as initially immature, both cognitively and morally, and as capable of learning from:

• Personal failures and repentance.
• Encounters with others’ needs and injustices.
• Long-term commitments and repeated choices.

Many defenders draw on developmental psychology and virtue ethics, which describe character as formed gradually through habit, practice, and response to environment. On this view, a morally serious world—with real stakes and the possibility of both progress and regression—is the appropriate setting for such development.

Relation to Moral Evil

The existence of moral evil (wrong acts by agents) is often seen as a byproduct of granting the kind of freedom necessary for authentic love and virtue. Some soul-making accounts closely align with free-will defenses, arguing that the possibility of misused freedom is an unavoidable risk. Others focus less on inevitability and more on how both committing and suffering moral wrongs can become sites of transformation, through remorse, forgiveness, and reconciliation, while acknowledging that such transformation does not always occur.

7. Natural Evil and the Environment for Growth

Alongside moral evil, soul-making theodicy must address natural evil—suffering resulting from impersonal processes such as disease, natural disasters, and physical limitations.

Stable Natural Order

A common claim is that a world suitable for soul-making requires a stable, law-governed natural order. Regular physical laws enable:

• Predictable consequences of actions, making responsibility meaningful.
• The possibility of long-term projects and relationships.
• Reliable environments for learning and scientific understanding.

However, the same regularities that allow benefits also permit harms: tectonic plates that enable a dynamic planet also produce earthquakes; biological processes that sustain life also permit disease and genetic defects.

Natural Evils as Contexts for Virtue

Proponents often argue that natural evils create opportunities for:

• Compassion toward the suffering.
• Self-sacrifice and heroism in rescue or caregiving.
• Solidarity in communal responses to disaster.
• Trust and hope amid vulnerability.

These are presented as goods that could not exist, or would be greatly diminished, in a world without serious natural risks and bodily fragility.

Educational and Humbling Functions

Some soul-making accounts, drawing on religious traditions, suggest that natural evils can:

• Underscore human finitude and dependence.
• Challenge illusions of self-sufficiency.
• Prompt existential reflection and reorientation of values.

These aspects are portrayed as potentially conducive to spiritual growth, though not guaranteed.

Tensions and Critiques

Critics question whether the intensity and distribution of natural suffering are plausibly necessary for soul-making, and whether the same goods might be achieved with less severe or differently structured natural harms. Soul-making proponents respond in varied ways—for example, by appealing to the systemic nature of physical laws, to the unpredictability of complex systems, or to eschatological hopes that natural evils will ultimately be redeemed—while acknowledging that natural evil remains one of the most challenging aspects for their view.

8. Soul-Making, Eschatology, and Afterlife

Soul-making theodicy is typically eschatological: it situates earthly suffering within a larger horizon that includes an afterlife or final consummation.

Incomplete Development in This Life

Proponents observe that human moral and spiritual development is often:

• Interrupted by premature death or incapacitation.
• Distorted by trauma or systemic injustice.
• Uneven, with some lives lacking clear opportunities for growth.

Given these realities, a purely this-worldly framework appears insufficient to vindicate the soul-making rationale, especially for those whose lives contain intense suffering with little apparent benefit.

Eschatological Fulfillment and Compensation

Many soul-making accounts, including Hick’s, posit that:

• Personal development continues beyond death.
• God provides further opportunities for growth, healing, and reconciliation.
• Sufferers receive some form of compensation or beatific fulfillment that can render their lives overall worth living, even in the face of severe trials.

This is sometimes termed eschatological compensation. It does not usually mean simple “balancing of accounts,” but rather the integration of past suffering into a meaningful and personally affirmed life narrative.

Universalist Tendencies

Some interpreters note that soul-making frameworks often incline toward universalism or at least hope for the eventual salvation of all or most persons. If God’s purpose is the maturation of creatures, and if God is both patient and resourceful, it is argued that:

• Persistent opportunities for repentance and growth may continue post-mortem.
• Eternal, unredeemed suffering (e.g., in a traditional doctrine of hell) would be hard to reconcile with a primarily developmental divine purpose.

Not all soul-making proponents are universalists, but many adopt at least a hopeful inclusivism or revised doctrines of judgment.

Eschatology and the Problem of Horrendous Evils

Eschatological themes are especially important for addressing horrendous evils: proponents maintain that only in a future state can such evils be:

• Thoroughly healed (psychologically and spiritually).
• Contextualized within a broader experience of joy and communion.
• Potentially transformed into occasions of deeper intimacy with God.

Critics debate whether any future good can adequately “defeat” certain horrors without seeming to trivialize them, a question that remains central to assessments of the soul-making project.

9. Comparison with Augustinian and Free-Will Theodicies

Soul-making theodicy frequently defines itself in relation to Augustinian and free-will approaches, sometimes overlapping with them, sometimes contrasting sharply.

Soul-Making vs Augustinian Theodicy

Proponents of soul-making argue that their view better fits evolutionary history and the pervasive presence of suffering prior to and independent of human sin. Augustine-inspired theodicies emphasize evil as privation and stress the moral culpability of creatures rather than divine aims in permitting suffering.

Relation to the Free Will Defense

The Free Will Defense (FWD), especially as developed by Alvin Plantinga, focuses on the logical possibility that God could not create significantly free creatures and guarantee that they always choose right. Soul-making accounts often incorporate this point but broaden the perspective:

• FWD addresses why moral evil may accompany freedom.
• Soul-making addresses why both moral and natural evils might feature in a world designed for growth.
• FWD is often minimalist, aiming only at consistency; soul-making offers a more substantive explanation of God’s purposes.

Some philosophers present hybrid positions: they accept a Plantingan free-will defense at the logical level, then add soul-making considerations to address the evidential problem and to interpret the positive value of hardship.

Variations and Overlaps

In practice, many contemporary theists draw selectively from all three traditions. For example:

• An Augustinian emphasis on sin and privation may be combined with a soul-making emphasis on redemptive use of suffering.
• Free-will considerations are frequently invoked to account for the origin of moral evil, while soul-making is used to discuss its transformative potential.

The degree to which these approaches are compatible or in tension remains a topic of ongoing scholarly discussion.

10. Horrendous Evils and Disproportionate Suffering

Horrendous evils—such as genocide, torture, severe child abuse, and atrocities that threaten a person’s sense that their life is worth living—pose a prominent challenge to soul-making theodicy.

The Objection

Critics, notably Marilyn McCord Adams and William Rowe, contend that:

• Many horrors appear to destroy rather than build character.
• Victims may be psychologically shattered, with little realistic prospect of post-traumatic growth.
• The severity and gratuitous-seeming nature of such evils render it implausible that they are necessary or proportionate to any soul-making goods achieved.

On this view, appealing to soul-making risks downplaying the radical negativity of some evils and can appear morally callous.

Soul-Making Responses

Soul-making proponents offer several lines of response:

1. Eschatological defeat (Adams’s own proposal, though not straightforwardly a defense of Hick): God can so “defeat” a horrendous evil in an individual’s life—by integrating it into a relationship with God of overwhelming good—that the person can eventually affirm their life as a whole, even while still judging the horror as intrinsically evil.
2. Non-identity and narrative considerations: Some suggest that individuals’ identities are inseparable from their histories, including suffering, so that removing the horror would result in a different person. The value of the person’s eventual character is thus conceptually tied to that specific history.
3. Epistemic humility: Other defenders concede that we cannot see how horrendous evils contribute to soul-making but argue that our limited perspective does not entitle us to conclude that no sufficient reasons exist.

Concerns about Proportionality and Consent

Even with these responses, critics question whether the costs borne by victims can be justified by alleged benefits, especially when:

• The benefits accrue to others rather than to the victims themselves.
• The victims have not consented to being subjected to such horrors.

Some argue that, if soul-making is to remain morally credible, any justification must include personal (not merely third-party) goods sufficient to outweigh the horror from the sufferer’s own eventual perspective, and that this requirement is difficult to satisfy in many cases.

The debate over horrendous evils thus represents one of the most intense pressure points for the soul-making project.

11. Unequal Distribution of Evil and Moral Luck

Another major difficulty for soul-making theodicy concerns the uneven distribution of suffering and the role of moral luck.

Unequal Exposure to Suffering

Empirically, individuals and communities experience very different levels of hardship:

• Some live through war, famine, systemic oppression, or chronic illness.
• Others enjoy relative security, longevity, and comfort.

Critics argue that, if suffering is permitted for soul-making, then:

• Those who experience extreme suffering appear to bear disproportionate burdens.
• Those spared major hardships might have fewer opportunities for certain virtues, or at least pay much lower personal costs.

This raises questions about fairness in a divinely ordered soul-making environment.

Moral Luck and Character Evaluation

The concept of moral luck—that factors beyond one’s control significantly shape one’s character and moral record—intensifies the concern. For instance:

• A person born into a violent context faces different temptations and developmental pressures than one raised in peace.
• Outcomes of actions may depend heavily on uncontrollable circumstances, influencing how agents and their souls are formed.

Critics contend that such luck undermines the idea that the world is a justly designed school of character.

Soul-Making Replies

Proponents respond in several ways:

1. Different vocations and paths: Some suggest that people are called to distinct forms of growth; not all virtues or experiences are necessary for everyone. Diversity in life circumstances may contribute to a richer corporate or communal tapestry of goods.
2. Hidden opportunities: Others argue that apparent comfort does not preclude significant moral challenges (e.g., temptation to selfishness, complacency), while harsh circumstances may offer unique opportunities for courage and solidarity.
3. Eschatological leveling: Many soul-making accounts hold that any earthly inequalities in opportunity or burden are redressed in an afterlife, where those heavily burdened may receive special healing, honor, or joy.

Remaining Tensions

Despite these responses, doubts remain about whether such justifications fully address the intuition that some endure vastly more suffering than others under a regime allegedly aimed at universal soul-making. The interplay between divine providence, randomness, and systemic injustice continues to be a central topic of dispute within discussions of soul-making and the problem of evil.

12. Non-Human Animals, Evolution, and Cosmic Soul-Making

The prevalence of non-human animal suffering and the long history of evolutionary pain present a significant challenge for soul-making theodicy, which is often centered on human moral development.

The Problem of Animal Suffering

Critics note that:

• Vast amounts of animal pain, predation, disease, and extinction occurred before humans emerged.
• Many animals seemingly lack the reflective capacities needed for the kinds of moral and spiritual growth emphasized by soul-making accounts.
• Much animal suffering appears unrelated to any human soul-making, especially in remote ecosystems.

These considerations suggest a large domain of suffering not easily incorporated into human-centered developmental narratives.

Soul-Making Extensions to the Non-Human Realm

Some proponents broaden soul-making in several directions:

1. Cosmic or evolutionary soul-making: Inspired by thinkers like F. R. Tennant and various process or evolutionary theologians, some argue that creation as a whole is in a long-term developmental process, with evolutionary struggle playing a role in the emergence of higher forms of life and eventually of moral agents. Animal suffering is then part of a larger story of value-realization.
2. Animal participation in goods: Others suggest that animals may participate in certain goods—such as enjoyment, affection, primitive trust, and perhaps some form of growth—even if not in full moral agency, and that their lives may be redeemed or completed in an eschatological state.
3. Aesthetic and ecological considerations: Some accounts appeal to the beauty, complexity, and dynamism of an evolutionary world, claiming that such a world, with its risks and cycles, has distinctive value that a static, non-painful creation would lack.

Eschatological and Reparative Proposals

Several theologians propose that:

• Animals may have a post-mortem destiny, with God healing or compensating non-human creatures in ways beyond current understanding.
• The final renewal of creation (e.g., “new heavens and new earth”) involves not only humans but the whole creation, symbolized in biblical imagery of peace among animals.

These proposals seek to mitigate worries that animal suffering is ultimately pointless.

Skeptical and Hybrid Responses

Alternatively, some soul-making advocates adopt a more skeptical posture regarding God’s reasons for allowing animal pain, treating soul-making as only one partial explanation among others. Hybrid approaches combine soul-making for humans with other theodical themes (such as aesthetic, order-related, or unknown goods) to address non-human suffering.

Debate continues over whether these strategies adequately account for the scale and intensity of animal pain within an ostensibly good creation.

13. Instrumentalization, Consent, and the Value of Persons

A frequent ethical critique of soul-making theodicy is that it appears to instrumentalize suffering individuals—using them as means to others’ moral or spiritual development—without their consent.

The Instrumentalization Objection

Critics argue that:

• If God permits a person’s severe suffering primarily so that others may develop virtues (e.g., compassion), then that person is being used as an instrument, contrary to moral principles that insist persons be treated as ends in themselves.
• This concern is particularly acute for non-consenting victims, such as infants, people with severe cognitive impairments, or those unaware of any alleged positive outcomes.

The worry extends to the sufferer’s own soul-making: subjecting someone to intense suffering they did not choose, for the sake of their own future growth, can still seem objectionably paternalistic.

Soul-Making Rejoinders

Proponents respond along several lines:

1. Primary focus on the sufferer’s own good: Many insist that, at the deepest level, God permits suffering for the victim’s own eventual benefit, not merely for that of others. Benefits to bystanders’ character are seen as secondary or incidental.
2. Eschewing specific design: Some deny that God “tailor-designs” each instance of suffering as a lesson. Instead, God creates a general environment in which suffering is possible, and then accompanies creatures within it, bringing good out of harms without having specifically assigned those harms.
3. Eschatological affirmation and consent: A number of accounts suggest that, in the eschaton, persons will be in a position to freely affirm their life stories, including their sufferings, as integrated into a larger good they personally endorse. On this view, consent is not prior but retrospective, yet genuine.

Remaining Ethical Concerns

Critics question whether retrospective affirmation can substitute for prior consent, especially in cases where the individual’s autonomy was gravely compromised by the very suffering in question. They also note that:

• Some evils irreparably damage agency in this life, casting doubt on the fairness of using those events as “means” to future goods.
• Treating suffering as a pedagogical tool can risk altering pastoral and ethical attitudes toward victims, potentially encouraging passivity or minimizing the urgency of alleviating suffering.

Soul-making proponents often respond by emphasizing that human moral duties—to alleviate suffering, seek justice, and care for the vulnerable—are not negated by the possibility that God can bring good from evil. Nonetheless, the tension between divine providence, respect for persons, and the non-consensual nature of much suffering remains a central ethical issue for theodicies of this type.

14. Hybrid Theodicies and Alternative Approaches

Many contemporary thinkers do not regard soul-making as a standalone theodicy but as one strand within more complex, hybrid accounts of God and evil.

Hybrid Theodical Strategies

Common combinations include:

• Free Will + Soul-Making: Moral evil arises from misused freedom; God permits this misuse partly because such a world can also serve as an arena for significant character formation.
• Augustinian + Soul-Making: Suffering is both a consequence of sin and providentially used by God for growth, repentance, and sanctification.
• Aesthetic / Narrative + Soul-Making: The world is compared to a story or work of art, where contrasts, conflicts, and resolutions contribute to overall beauty or narrative depth, while also facilitating soul-making.

These hybrids aim to address different dimensions of the problem of evil—origin, distribution, purpose, and ultimate resolution—without forcing one explanatory model to do all the work.

Alternative Approaches

In contrast or complement to soul-making, several other approaches are prominent:

Some critics advocate anti-theodical stances, arguing that traditional theodicies, including soul-making, risk rationalizing or trivializing suffering. Others prefer defenses rather than positive theodicies, limiting themselves to showing that theism is not logically incompatible with evil without claiming to know God’s actual reasons.

Soul-Making’s Role in the Wider Landscape

Within this diversified field, soul-making often functions as:

• A positive narrative that gives intelligible shape to the idea of a developmental creation.
• A partial explanation that may apply to some evils (e.g., mild to moderate suffering conducive to growth) but not all.
• A dialogue partner with more modest or more radical strategies, prompting reflection on the proper scope and ambition of theodicy.

Whether such hybridity strengthens or dilutes the explanatory power of the soul-making paradigm is debated among philosophers and theologians.

15. Epistemic Limits and Skeptical Theist Supplements

Discussions of soul-making increasingly intersect with skeptical theism, a position emphasizing the limits of human knowledge about God’s reasons for permitting evil.

Limits of Human Moral Epistemology

Skeptical theists contend that:

• Human cognitive capacities are finite and context-bound.
• The moral and causal web of the universe is extraordinarily complex.
• Therefore, our inability to see a justifying reason for a particular evil does not warrant inferring that no such reason exists.

This stance is often used to challenge evidential arguments from evil, which rely on judgments that some evils are “apparently gratuitous.”

Soul-Making as One Plausible Reason

Some proponents reposition soul-making not as a complete theodicy but as:

• One candidate type of reason God might have for permitting certain evils.
• A heuristic framework that suggests how some classes of suffering (e.g., manageable trials, certain relational conflicts) could be integrated into a good divine plan.

Combined with skeptical theism, this yields a more modest overall posture: where soul-making stories seem plausible, they may offer insight; where they do not, one refrains from confident negative judgments about divine justification.

Tensions Between Theodicy and Skepticism

There is debate about whether robust soul-making theodicies sit comfortably with strong skeptical theism:

• Some argue that detailed theodicies overreach, claiming too much about God’s purposes and risking presumption in the face of suffering.
• Others suggest that without some positive account like soul-making, theism becomes too mysterious to be rationally supported in the face of intense evil.

Consequently, a range of intermediate positions has developed. These may affirm:

• Partial knowledge of God’s aims (e.g., soul-making and loving communion) while acknowledging large areas of ignorance.
• The need for epistemic humility in applying soul-making explanations to concrete cases, especially horrendous or systemic evils.

Practical and Pastoral Considerations

Epistemic modesty also influences how soul-making is used in practice. Many scholars caution that even if soul-making is philosophically defensible, it may be inappropriate to offer it as a direct explanation to sufferers in acute distress. The recognition of epistemic limits thus shapes not only theoretical positions but also attitudes toward the communicative and pastoral use of theodicies.

16. Influence on Contemporary Philosophy and Theology

Soul-making theodicy has had a notable impact on philosophy of religion, systematic theology, and related fields, both as a constructive proposal and as a critical foil.

In Analytic Philosophy of Religion

In analytic circles, Hick’s formulation became a standard reference point in debates about the problem of evil. Its influence includes:

• Providing a clear alternative to the Augustinian and free-will paradigm.
• Stimulating extensive literature on virtue, suffering, and moral development.
• Shaping the contours of the evidential problem of evil, as critics targeted the adequacy of soul-making explanations for various types of suffering.

Philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga, William Rowe, Marilyn McCord Adams, Eleonore Stump, and Peter van Inwagen have engaged with soul-making themes, sometimes incorporating aspects into their own views, sometimes offering pointed critiques.

In Christian Theology

In theology, soul-making has interacted with:

• Eastern Orthodox and patristic studies, where Irenaean and Gregory of Nyssa–inspired motifs of theosis and progressive sanctification resonate with developmental emphases.
• Roman Catholic discussions of suffering, merit, and sanctification, providing another lens alongside more juridical frameworks.
• Protestant debates about the nature of salvation, sanctification, and the possibility of universal reconciliation.

Some theologians adopt soul-making as a primary lens for understanding providence and sanctification; others regard it as illuminating but insufficiently attentive to sin, grace, or Christology.

In Ethics and Virtue Theory

Because it foregrounds character formation, soul-making has natural affinities with virtue ethics and moral psychology. It has contributed to:

• Discussions on the role of adversity in moral education.
• Analysis of resilience, forgiveness, and post-traumatic growth.
• Ethical debates about whether and when it is legitimate to interpret suffering as morally or spiritually beneficial.

In Pastoral and Practical Theology

Some pastoral theologians and spiritual writers employ soul-making language to articulate a meaningful narrative of growth amid suffering. Others are wary, citing the risk of spiritualizing or justifying oppression. This tension has led to nuanced explorations of when and how developmental interpretations of suffering may be responsibly employed.

Overall, soul-making has become a key reference point in contemporary discourse, shaping terminology (e.g., “vale of soul-making”), structuring textbooks on the problem of evil, and informing cross-disciplinary dialogue about suffering and human flourishing.

17. Legacy and Historical Significance

The legacy of soul-making theodicy can be assessed both in terms of its historical retrieval of earlier ideas and its ongoing role in debates about God and evil.

Retrieval and Re-interpretation of Patristic Themes

Hick’s work and subsequent scholarship have:

• Highlighted Irenaeus, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa as sources for an alternative to dominant Augustinian narratives.
• Contributed to broader recognition of a developmental strand in Christian thought, emphasizing creation’s open-endedness and the progressive maturation of persons.
• Encouraged renewed interest in theosis and transformational understandings of salvation across confessional lines.

Even where scholars dispute Hick’s reading of particular fathers, the conversation has reshaped perceptions of early Christian theologies of evil and providence.

Reframing the Problem of Evil

Soul-making has had lasting significance in reframing the problem of evil:

• It shifted some attention from questions of guilt and punishment to questions of growth and formation.
• It introduced the now common idea of the world as a “vale of soul-making”, a phrase that recurs in both scholarly and popular discussions.
• It provided a structured template for examining how various types of evil (moral, natural, systemic, horrendous) might relate differently to divine purposes.

As a result, later theodicies and defenses often situate themselves in relation to soul-making, whether by endorsing, modifying, or rejecting its central claims.

Continuing Controversies and Developments

The view’s historical significance is also marked by the controversies it has generated:

• Debates over horrendous evils, animal suffering, and fairness have led to sophisticated refinements and critiques of theodical reasoning.
• Discussions of instrumentalization and consent have influenced ethical and pastoral sensibilities concerning how suffering is interpreted within religious communities.
• Engagement with skeptical theism and anti-theodicy positions has prompted reconsideration of the proper aims and limits of theodicy as a genre.

Broader Cultural Resonance

Beyond academic theology and philosophy, soul-making ideas resonate with wider cultural narratives that view life as a journey of growth through adversity. This has informed:

• Popular spiritual writings and sermons.
• Interdisciplinary work connecting religion, psychology, and resilience studies.
• Comparative discussions with other religious and philosophical traditions that emphasize transformative suffering.

Taken together, these influences indicate that soul-making theodicy, whether ultimately accepted or not, has played a formative role in late-20th- and early-21st-century thinking about suffering, character, and the possibility of a good God in a troubled world.