Soul-making vs the logical problem on God creating us perfect

Question 1

A strength of soul-making theodicy

Answer 1

Its premise that creating us fully developed was logically impossible. A fully developed soul is one which has chosen good over evil. This requires having made a choice. Therefore, it’s logically impossible for God to create us fully developed

Question 2

How does this strength defeat Mackies logical problem

Answer 2

• Most theologians agree omnipotence does not include the power to do the logically impossible.
• So, a perfect God would create us undeveloped and allow us the freedom to choose good over evil.
• Evil is needed because it serves this good purpose of soul-making. So, evil isn’t incompatible with God’s existence. Mackie’s logical problem seems defeated.

Question 3

What is a weakness of this argument

Answer 3

An omnibenevolent God would not have created us in the first place.

Question 4

Expand on the omnibenevolent God would not have created us in the first place argument

Answer 4

The problem of evil remains, having merely been pushed back to another question. Hick fails to explain why a morally good God would have created us at all.

Question 5

Who is anti-natalist to include with this argument

Answer 5

David Benatar is an anti-natalist philosopher, meaning he argues that creating sentient beings who will suffer is wrong

Creating beings that will suffer cannot be justified by pointing to benefits of that suffering. This is because if we never existed, then we wouldn’t need those benefits. A morally good God would not create beings whose development required evil and suffering. It would be better for those beings to have never existed.

Question 6

However, why does this criticism not apply well to Hicks theology

Answer 6

Hick survives these questions about God’s decision to create us because he takes care to combine his theory with the proposal that no one ever goes to hell and that we have potentially unlimited attempts to become virtuous in an afterlife.

So, humans eventually receive an eternal good which clearly makes going through the process of suffering worth it. A perfect God thus would create humans in a world mixed with good and evil because it serves that ultimately good purpose.

Question 7

Summary of Benatars logic versus Hicks theodicy.

Answer 7

Benatar’s logic does undermine Hick’s argument. It is only once we exist that suffering becomes justified as for our development.

So, the suffering attendant on soul-making is ultimately unnecessary and an omnibenevolent God could never be motivated to bring us or it into being. So, the logical problem of evil remains.