THE BELIEF IN A MIXED CREATION
The phrase "soul-making" was originally used by the poet John Keats in a letter to his brother and sister. Keats was describing how even unpleasant experiences help develop our personalities (our 'souls').
Keats was criticising the traditional Christian view that the world is a "vale of tears" (vallis lacrimarum, Psalm 84) - a place of suffering - but Keats the Romantic looks on the bright side, seeing a place where we can grow and improve ourselves. |
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created as morally immature and imperfect beings in order to attain through freedom the most valuable quality of goodness - John Hick
intrinsically more valuable than virtues created within him ready made without effort on his own part - John Hick
Despite its attractions, the Soul-Making Theodicy is also rejected by many Christian churches. This is for two reasons:
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Prince of Egypt (1998) sets 9 of the 10 plagues to music. The 10th (the death of all the firstborn sons) calls into question the goodness of God - but might make sense with a theodicy of soul-making
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Humanity is created at an epistemic distance from God in order to come freely to know and love their Maker - John Hick
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents.
And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden who lived in a poor village in his kingdom. How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist - no one dared resist him. But would she love him? |
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For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.
The king, convinced he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend to her. Clothed as a beggar, he approached her cottage with a worn cloak fluttering loose about him. This was not just a disguise – the king took on a totally new identity – He had renounced his throne to declare his love and to win hers. |
Kierkegaard's ideas were admired by the Christian writer C.S. Lewis, who uses them in his Narnia books.
In this clip from The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader (dir. Michael Apted, 2010), Aslan tells Lucy that, though she has come to love him as the Lion, she must go back to her own world and learn to love him there "by another name". In fact, the whole point of bringing the Pevensie children to Narnia was not to overthrow witches and have adventures, it was so that they could learn to love God (which is who Aslan is). |
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The idea of God's hiddenness comes to a religious crisis in the 20th century with the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Epistemic distance explains why God does not intervene to prevent occasional crimes and perhaps even atrocities - but why would God stay hidden during a genocide?
Although many Jews kept their faith after the Holocaust, many others felt it was impossible to carry on believing in God in the same way their ancestors had. The hiddenness of God during exceptional suffering supports a Process Theodicy that views God as a "fellow sufferer" not an omnipotent Creator.
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Gottfried Leibniz developed the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), which states that there should be a complete explanation for any state of affairs. Since this world exists, there must be a reason for God having created it (rather than creating a different possible world). Since God is perfect, it follows that God must have created this world because it is "the best of all possible worlds".
Leibniz is well aware that this world has many unpleasant features. However, it doesn't have to be a perfect world, just the best POSSIBLE world - the best world out of all the worlds God could possibly have created. |
It's not clear that Leibniz is right when he says that we can never know if changes to the world would really be for the best or not. There are some features of bad design in living creatures that could surely be corrected without bringing about dreadful catastrophe. For example, in every woman's body there is a kink in the fallopian tubes in which an egg can sometimes get trapped and still be fertilised. This results in an ectopic pregnancy, which will be fatal for the mother and the foetus. This sort of 'design flaw' could surely be corrected, saving many lives, without upsetting the balance of the world. It's not hard to think of other examples (appendices! wisdom teeth!).
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Religious believers claim that evil and suffering are only for a finite time. God will bring an end to evil. God will judge evil, compensate those that have suffered and put their suffering perspective so that they understand it properly. The end times are known as the Eschaton and so justifying evil and suffering by appealing to God's judgment at the end of time is eschatological justification.
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God will eventually succeed in His purpose of winning all men to Himself in faith and love - John Hick
This links to another objection to the Soul-Making Theodicy, which is that it seems inefficient, whereas an omnipotent God has no need to do things inefficiently. However, Leibniz points out that we cannot know what God's priorities are. Evolutionary Theory states that humans evolved over millions of years and countless other species appeared then went extinct along the way (see cartoon). This seems inefficient too, but religious believers who accept evolution acknowledge that this is how God seems to work.
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He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away - Revelation 21: 4
YES
The Soul-Making Theodicy presents God as a loving father who wants his creatures to be able to grow and transform into saints. Evil and suffering are to be seen as opportunities to develop love and to perfect ourselves. Eventually, everyone will be perfected in heaven and, viewed in hindsight suffering will be seen as necessary and worthwhile.
Even if the soul-making process takes many lifetimes, it results in universal salvation, with everyone morally perfect and united with God and each other in heaven. This is eschatological justification and it shows that God is truly omnipotent because he brings about what he intends to do - turn every human soul into a saint.
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NO
As D.Z. Phillips points out, loving fathers do not torture and torment their children. The Soul-Making Theodicy presents God as "doing evil in order to do good" which goes against religious morality. In any event, there is little evidence that suffering consistently produces saints - it's just as likely to produce brutalised and embittered people.
The process of eschatological justification seems even more inefficient than soul-making through suffering. Could an omnipotent God not have come up with a quicker, more direct process? And how can future bliss make up for suffering on earth? It's morally objectionable that mass-murderers should be rewarded in the same way as their innocent victims, even if they are 'morally perfect' now.
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