Exploring Theodicies
Reconciling Human Suffering and the Existence of God
“… it was hardly without reason that one of your household asked where evil comes from if there is a god, and where good comes from if there isn’t.”¹
Anicius Boethius, a philosopher from the early Middle Ages, was far from the first (or last) philosopher to probe the depths of good and evil. The presence of suffering throughout humanity has often perplexed theists and led atheists to a firmer conviction of their beliefs. The reconciliation of evil in the world with the existence of an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God is called theodicy: The argument of which is that, while there will always be immense and even unbearable pain and evil in the world, its presence does not disprove the existence of the Judeo-Christian God.
The views on theodicy over the years have been extensive. Some use a purely rational (logical arguments for or against) framework, while others argue from an experiential place (conclusions made after or during actual suffering). This article will explore the mental repercussions and consequences of theodicy through rational ideas from John Hick’s Evil and the God of Love, David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, as well as the justification of suffering in Eastern philosophy. It will also turn to the perspectives of philosophers who wrote about theodicy in the midst of or after supreme suffering: Anicius Boethius, Job, Emmanuel Levinas, and Viktor Frankl. Finally, I will present my personal position, supported by Christian perspectives on the topic through the ages.
Ancient Perspectives
One of the earliest recorded struggles to reconcile God’s omnibenevolence and omnipotence with human suffering is the Book of Job — an experiential account of intense agony. Eric Ortlund, in his 2021 analysis of the Book of Job, concludes that it demonstrates God’s sovereignty over evil. The book also shows that God is not against Job and will rescue him, indicating the possibility God is both all-powerful and all-good. Its ultimate message is that humans do not have the power to judge God and determine justice.²
Another ancient theodicy is Eastern philosophy, such as Buddhism or Hinduism, a rational line of thinking. They sometimes answer that human suffering is due to karma: In other words, there is a correlation between former sins and the suffering of the present. According to them, humans decide their own fate by their past actions. Those accepting this viewpoint believe that justice is ultimately served, and their explanation of evil places it entirely in human hands. We are not only the masters of our fate, we are the deciders of our fate.³
Muslims, on the other hand, have a more similar perspective to Job, in that God is wiser than us and ultimately knows best. According to Suleiman Hani in her extensive paper published in 2020, “The Problem of Evil: A Multifaceted Islamic Solution”, Muslims believe in the sovereignty and wisdom of God to decide evil, the soul-building benefits of suffering, and the existence of a future paradise where there will be no more evil. Suffering, they claim, also builds the human character and leads to a future heaven, or paradise, that all humans should strive for, where no evil exists.⁴
The Greeks and Romans, including Epicurus (341 BC — 270 BC) and Boethius (c. 480 AD — 524 AD), brought different rational and experiential approaches to theodicy, respectively. Anicius Boethius who wrote his work The Consolation of Philosophy in aroudn 523 AD while he was in prison on a false charge, comes to a reconciliation of his suffering and God’s goodness through a series of reasoning. He decided that happiness (which is what all men ultimately pursue) is the same as goodness. Therefore, evil does not prosper, since wicked people are so weak they fail to obtain goodness and thus, happiness. God did not make it unequal, but in fact dealt out justice in His creation.
Epicurus, however, is reputed to have put forth the Epicurean paradox, later related in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in the 1700s. Hume’s 1779 reconstruction of the Epicurean paradox represents one of the major arguments against theodicies. If God is all-powerful, Hume states, then he must have the power to stop evil, and if he is all good, then he must desire to. Yet, despite the claim that he is both all-powerful and all-good, evil still exists. His observation of the seeming contradiction between evil and the existence of a powerful, good God fueled anti-theodicies hundreds of years after his death.
Twentieth-Century Arguments
In 1966, philosopher John Hick brought a modern, rational objection to Hume, using the prior theodicies of Augustine of Hippo (354 AD — 430 AD) and Irenaeus (c. 125 AD — c. 202 AD). Hick’s argument, known as “the vale of soul-making theodicy”⁵, claims that humans were born incomplete. In order to become perfect as God wills them to be, they must overcome great suffering. Hick states that suffering has benefits in perfecting humans and leading us to God.
Hick generally refutes Hume’s contention against theodicy, but also names him in several places, saying, “Hume, Mill, and Russell… assume that the purpose that an infinitely good and powerful deity must have in creating an environment for finite persons is to produce for them a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of pain”⁶. Hick contends that the human expectation that God would want to make everything easy for us is not necessarily realistic one. An omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, Hick says, may have a reason to create a world with evil and suffering — namely to further perfect humans.
Also in the 1900s, prior to Hick, prominent Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, in his 1947 book The Problem of Pain, put forth his own theodicy. By examining many different facets of the theodicy debate, Lewis presents a mixture of ideas, including soul-building, the sovereignty of God, and, perhaps most importantly, the choice of free will as the cause of evil. God, Lewis claims, offers His love freely, but by giving us the choice to respond to that love or not, He opens the door to evil and suffering. The theodicies of both Lewis and Hick continue to be highly influential for Christians.
Another work of Lewis that touches on theodicy in a much more personal, experiential way is his book A Grief Observed, written after the death of his wife. While his rational arguments in The Problem of Pain seem compelling, Lewis’ view on theodicy in the midst of suffering is raw, vulnerable, and very different. Similar to in the Book of Job, neither Lewis or Job conclude that their pain leads to the absence of God. Both wonder at the cruelty of God — but not the lack of Him. By the end of his book, Lewis stumbles painfully to the conclusion that God, who loves us infinitely, must know that our suffering is somehow necessary.
Aftermath of World War II
The theodicy discussion took a sharp turn when the world exploded into World War II in 1939 and thousands of people were sent to the unimaginable torture of Nazi concentration camps. From the survivors, a whole new experiential conversation of theodicy was sparked. Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, one of the survivors, argues against theodicies in his 1988 essay “Useless Suffering”. Levinas finds the idea of theodicy offensive in the face of the slaughter of Jews in concentration camps. God, Levinas claims, was absent from the concentration camps, meaning that He either lacked goodness or simply did not exist. In this line of thought, Levinas represents a large portion of society.
Psychiatrist and philosopher Viktor Frankl, however, another Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search For Meaning (1946), comes to a different perspective of evil. He finds more choice in suffering, claiming that it is determined by one’s perspective and can be alleviated by certain methods and mindsets. He found that many people, by adjusting their mindset, or finding something to live for (such as love), actually made their suffering relative. While both men experienced horrific events, they were able to come out of it with different conclusions, as many in the theodicy debate have.
Conclusion
The grapple with suffering has always pervaded humanity. Some use rational reconciliation of the co-existence of suffering and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God to defend their case. The Epicurean paradox, reframed by David Hume, has been a long-standing argument against a bevy of theodicies put forth by such as Augustine, Irenaeus, Plantinga, and Hick. Others find that the experience of suffering provides the strongest perspective for their stance. Philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas, Viktor Frankl, Boethius, Job, and C.S. Lewis argue their own cases from the depths of suffering. While these philosophers barely scratch the surface of the vast multitude of ideas on the subject, they are among the most prominent and influential.
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Theodicy is a deeply human issue that touches every life on earth. Every generation has some new issue or source of suffering to grapple with. Whatever the evil in the world, we are given the choice to decide how we face it. Suffering, while perhaps the most difficult thing humans face on earth, does not disprove the existence of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, God. Against the dark blot that evil is on humanity, many see the immense beauty, goodness, and love found in this world — and believe.
From sources like Boethius (524) and Frankl (1946), I believe that humans have more choice in suffering than we think. By being given the choice to make our own meaning of it and face it courageously, humans were given tools to alleviate our suffering⁷. Like Job, I believe that God is ultimately in control. We are supposed to obey, not challenge Him⁸. That being said, I agree with Augustine, that evil is not a substance created by God, but rather a privation, or lack of, of good⁹. His omnipotence is not an indication that He has no love. In fact, as Alvin Plantinga claimed in 1965, God loved us so much He gave us freedom of will — and with that comes suffering.
Samuel Joeckel in his 2004 commentary on C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed, ends his article saying that God meets us in our suffering. When we choose to look to Him for help, He answers. Not only that, but He came to earth and suffered Himself in supreme agony. He knows our weakness and our pain.
At the end of the day, we all have to face the suffering in our lives. We may choose to try to reconcile that with the existence of a loving, powerful God — or not. After examining viewpoints on both sides, I have chosen the former path, believing, as C.S. Lewis states, “… when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all”¹⁰.
References
¹Boethius, 524/1969, p. 12
²Ortlund, 2021
³Barua, 2021
⁴Hani, 2020
⁵Hick, 1966, p. 289
⁶Hick, 1966, p. 174
⁷Frankl, 1946
⁸Gregory, c. 578
⁹Pratt, 1903
¹⁰Lewis, 1947, preface
Barua, A. (2021). The mystery of God and the claim of reason: Comparative patterns in Hindu-Christian theodicy. International Journal of Hindu Studies, 259–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-021-09306-7
Bernasconi, R. & Wood, D. (Eds.). (1988). The provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the other. Routledge. https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.crown.edu/c/l2tavl/search/details/rgcefaghdf?db=e000xna
Black, M. (1965). Philosophy in America. Cornell University Press. https://archive.org/details/philosophyinamer00blac/page/204/mode/2up
Boethius, A. M. S. (1969). The consolation of philosophy (V. Watts, Trans.). Penguin Group. (Original work published 524 AD). https://analepsis.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/boethius-the-consolation-of-philosophy-penguin-books-1999-penguin-classics-victor-watts-trans.pdf
Frankl, V. E. (1946). Man’s search for meaning (4th ed.). Beacon Press. https://archive.org/details/viktor-emil-frankl-mans-search-for-meaning
Gregory. (1844). Morals on the Book of Job (John Henry Parker, Trans.). J. G. F. and J. Rivington. (Original work written c. 578 AD). https://www.lectionarycentral.com/gregorymoraliaindex.html
Hani, S. (2020, April 20). The problem of evil: A multifaceted Islamic solution. Yaqueen. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-problem-of-evil-a-multifaceted-islamic-solution
Hick, J. (1966). Evil and the God of love. Harper & Row. https://archive.org/details/evilgodoflove0000unse/mode/2up
Hume, D. (1779). Dialogues concerning natural religion. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_E7dbAAAAQAAJ/mode/2up
Joeckel, S. (2004). Narrating pain: C.S. Lewis and the problem of evil. Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997–2016, 4. https://pillars.taylor.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1092&context=inklings_forever
Lewis, C.S. (1961). A grief observed. Faber and Faber Limited. https://archive.org/details/griefobserved0000unse_b9d6/page/40/mode/2up
Lewis, C.S. (1947). The problem of pain. The Macmillan Company. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.264598/mode/2up
Ortlund, E. (2021). Exegetical difficulty and the question of theodicy in the Book of Job. Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament, 7(2), 90–112. https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.crown.edu/c/l2tavl/viewer/pdf/skdkh6rgcn?route=details
Pratt, J. B. (1903). The ethics of St. Augustine. International Journal of Ethics, 13(2), 222–235. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2376453?seq=1
