overturned: “Many that are first will be last and the last will
be first” (Mk. 10:31; Mt. 5:19).
Also running through many texts are elements of the ed-
ucative theodicy. The letter to the Hebrews and the letter of
James sound the note that suffering is sent by God as a test
and a discipline of those he loves (Heb. 12:3–13; Jas. 1:2–4,
12). Paul continues this theme, adding to it elements of a
communion theodicy. Christians should rejoice in suffering
because it produces endurance, character, and hope (Rom.
5:3–5). Suffering also presents the opportunity to imitate
Christ (1 Cor. 11:1), who has shown that power is made per-
fect not in strength but in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). This em-
phasis on Christ’s fellow-suffering is a constant theme in
Paul’s letters.
Finally, in Paul’s writings we find an important extrapo-
lation from the free-will theodicy: emphasis on the universal-
ity of sin and the universal deservedness of suffering. This
theme is not altogether new—it has deep roots in biblical
and Jewish thought—but it is radicalized by Paul, especially
in his Letter to the Romans (3:9–10, 23). The implications
of this teaching for the theodicy problem are dramatic. Since
all are sinners, what is extraordinary is not that some suffer
in a world ruled by God, but that anyone is spared the divine
wrath (Rom. 9:22–24). The fact that not all are punished is
explained in terms of God’s grace being manifest in Christ’s
vicarious suffering and in God’s willingness to suspend the
punishment for sin (Rom. 3:24). This teaching clearly builds
on dimensions of theodicy encountered in the Hebrew scrip-
tures, including the suffering servant motif (now applied sin-
gularly to Christ). Nevertheless, it has the effect of revolu-
tionizing Christian thinking about theodicy by converting
the mystery of suffering into the mystery of divine grace.
Subsequent developments. It is impossible to review
briefly all the contributions of later Christian thinking to
theodicy. Suffice it to say that the major lines of thought
build upon those established in the New Testament. Paul’s
ideas, especially, play a major role. Augustine (354–430) de-
veloped Paul’s suggestions into a fully elaborated doctrine of
original sin. According to Augustine, Adam and Eve’s trans-
gression and punishment, “sin and its penalty,” are to be
viewed as passed on to their descendants through sexual re-
production. Because everyone thus “merits” punishment,
emphasis is on God’s grace and his election of those who are
spared a just fate. Election itself is explained in terms of di-
vine predestination, in accordance with which God has eter-
nally decreed who shall be spared the punishment merited
by all.
This position clearly does not solve the theodicy prob-
lem entirely, and in some respects the problem is sharpened
in a new way. The question becomes not why human beings
have incurred suffering but why God, in his foreknowledge
and power, should have allowed the whole disastrous course
of events proceeding from the Fall to have occurred in the
first place. Sometimes the legitimacy of this question is de-
nied. In Calvinism, for example, Paul’s admonitions against
questioning the creator (Rom. 9:19–21) are expanded to a
doctrine that places God altogether beyond measurement by
human justice. With this denial of God’s accountability, the
theodicy problem is dissolved. Not all Christians, however,
have accepted this extreme view, and repeated efforts have
been made to explain and to justify God’s creation of beings
capable of sin.
In his book Evil and the God of Love (London, 1977),
John Hick argues that at least two major responses to this
question may be identified in the Christian tradition. One
is traceable to Augustine and constitutes the historically
dominant line of thinking about the problem. (A similar
view, for example, is taken by Thomas Aquinas and many
other Catholic theologians.) It begins by explaining evil in
creation not as a substantial reality in itself (as the
Manichaeans had contended) but as an aspect of nonbeing.
Thus, evil does not stem from God but represents the un-
avoidable and nonculpable absence of his goodness or pres-
ence in mere “created” things (the doctrine of evil as a priva-
tio boni). Why God should have created free human beings
is explained aesthetically in terms of the desirability of his
creating a graded hierarchy of being. Once created and given
every inducement for obedience, however, human beings
nevertheless inexplicably turned away from God toward
nonbeing. As a result, they have been justly punished, and
the suffering that results (within a retributive theory of pun-
ishment) is fitting, as is the eternal damnation of those not
rescued by God’s grace. Indeed, the whole outcome is some-
times justified by Augustine in terms of its overall moral bal-
ance and aesthetic perfection.
Contrasted with this view is a position that Hick asso-
ciates with Irenaeus (c. 130–202) but that also has resonance
in the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and
F. R. Tennant (1866–1957). It, too, traces suffering to the
abuse of freedom. But its explanation of the place of both
freedom and transgression in the divine plan is quite differ-
ent from that of the Augustinian tradition. Here the Fall is
fully within God’s intention. God has knowingly created im-
perfect beings who are distanced from the divine splendor
and destined to fall, but he is justified in doing this because
he has the moral purpose of affording these beings the oppor-
tunity for growth and free development so that they may es-
tablish a mature personal relationship with him. In this view,
the world is a “vale of soul making” and it is possible to apply
to the Fall the words of the Easter liturgy: “O felix Culpa
quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem” (“O for-
tunate crime, which merited such and so great a redeemer!”).
A further implication of the Irenaean theodicy, in Hick’s
view, is that it casts doubt on older retributive theories of
punishment that may justify the consignment of some per-
sons to eternal suffering in hell. The Irenaean theodicy sug-
gests a more generous “universalist” eschatology, which sees
all who have lived as eventually becoming “children of God.”Hick himself expresses a strong preference for this view.
While not all contemporary Christian thinkers share thisTHEODICY 9117