Why Hick’s Theodicy Makes For a Better Argument

When I first read Rowe’s “Problem of Evil” I was completely convinced to accept his viewpoints and could not think of many ways to argue against what he was saying about athiesm. However, when I read Hick’s argument for thiesm, I found myself agreeing even more with his opinions and logical conclusions. Overall, I think Rowe’s argument contained more logic, but much of the logic was difficult for a new philosophy student to fully grasp whereas Hick used less logic but much of what he was saying was relatable and he put up a good defense against possible counter arguments. His argument included an explanation of what free will really means, soul-making/moral development, and how “a world without evil would be the worst of all possible worlds”. An argument against Hick’s theodicy that was brought up in class was, “If there was a God, why wouldn’t he limit the amount of evil in our world?” And in my opinion, an answer would be that you simply cannot limit evil, there either is or isn’t and since there is obviously evil present in our world, some evils will present themselves as worse than others, and some evils will seem like they are impossible to explain. The matter is – evil is evil and it is present without the full and total understanding of why exactly it is here.

Hick explains that the evil is present because of the manifestations of human sin and for soul-making purposes. There are some counter arguments for why these reasons may not be sound, but I believe more arguments could be made toward Rowe’s argument, which is why I believe Hick’s argument for theodicy makes for a better understanding of the problem of evil and the logic behind his argument and many of his claims makes the most sense.