Abstract
Hick’s soul-making theodicy defends the omnipotence, omniscience, and all-goodness of God in the face of evil. It holds that the end of the creation process is the development of human beings into children of God. In order to achieve the end, an evil-dependent soul-making process must be employed. It then concludes that, because the end is so valuable, the omnipotent and omniscient creator’s not having prevented the existence of evil is morally justified and thus not in conflict with her being all-good. In particular, God’s having created a world with evils and evil-dependent values, which may be called “an Irenaean world,” is morally justified. In the Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi holds that the actual world is, in reality, a world without evils and evil-dependent values, but with evil-independent values, which may be called “a Zhuangzian world,” while ordinary people mistakenly take the actual world to be an Irenaean world. In an insightful story in the Chapter “The Great and Venerable Teacher” of the Zhuangzi, he amounts to claiming that a Zhuangzian world is better than an Irenaean world. Without endorsing Zhuangzi’s two positions, I argue against Hick’s soul-making theodicy in this way: It is Hick’s burden to prove either that a Zhuangzian world is metaphysically impossible, or that the actual world, as an Irenaean world, is better than any Zhuangzian world. However, there are not any resources in his soul-making theodicy that can provide any such proofs. Therefore, Hick has not justified, nor rationally established, his soul-making theodicy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See, however, Mark Scott (2010) for a different view. According to Scott, the soul-making theodicy is better characterized by the views of Origen than that of Irenaeus.
Why is the soul-making theodicy a theodicy, but not just a defense? The answer can be found from the following very good and concise characterizations of theodicy and defense, respectively: “[A defense is] a negative attempt to undermine a certain [argument for the problem of evil] without offering a positive account of why God allows evil and suffering, whereas a theodicy is “a more comprehensive attempt to account for why God is justified in allowing evil and suffering” (Beebe 2016). For another very good discussion on the nature of theodicy, especially in the context of analytical philosophy of religion, see Nick Trakakis (2008: 162–4).
For the sake of convenience, in this paper, by “evils,” I always mean instances of evil. I also suppose for the sake of convenience that evils include instances of suffering.
The Zhuangzi, very likely, is not the product of a single author, but that a number of authors contributed to it during its process of composition. For the sake of convenience, in this paper, I use the name “Zhuangzi” to refer to the authors of the Zhuangzi. I am justified in doing so, because the views I consider in this paper are coherent enough such that it is very probable that they were at least originated from the same person.
I suppose for the sake of convenience that moral evil and natural evil cover all instances of evil, including suffering, in general.
Plantinga’s free-will defense has its own difficulties though. Plantinga puts forward his free-will defense in The Nature of Necessary (1974a) and God, Freedom and Evil (1974b). Its kernel is the claim that God, as an omnipotent and omniscient being, can neither weakly nor strongly actualize any of those logically possible worlds with human beings who are significantly free and always choose goods. Here, by “God weakly actualizes a state of affairs,” he means that God only brings the state of affairs into existence and is not a cause of its actualization, while by “God strongly actualizes a state of affairs” that God is the cause of actualization (see Plantinga 1974a: 173). The crucial point here is the impossibility of weak actualization. And his (see Plantinga 1974a: 189–90; 1974b: 54–5) main reason is:
(S) Every essence suffers from transworld depravity (TWD).
There are at least three difficulties. First, as pointed out by David Lewis (1993: 156), Plantinga presupposes incompatibilism and must hold the view that freedom is only libertarian freedom. So his free-will defense is wrong if incompatibilism is false. Also, the compatibilist cannot accept it. Second, Plantinga’s free-will defense is correct only if (S) is possibly true or, equivalently, this:
(S*) Possibly, every essence suffers from TWD.
But it is not obvious that (S*) is true; see Derk Pereboom (2005) for a similar point. Unless there is a strong argument for (S*), we do not need to accept Plantinga’s free-will defense. Third, Hugh LaFollette (1980) employs a theorem in S5 (modal logic) to argue that (S*) is equivalent to this:
(R*) It is logically necessary that every essence suffers from TWD.
But it is difficult to see how Plantinga can argue for (R*).
Yao and Chieh were a good ruler and an evil ruler in ancient China, respectively.
For a more detailed interpretation and discussion of the points in these two paragraphs and other related points in the Zhuangzi, see my essay “Zhuangzi’s notion of the True Master and Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigation” (Cheung 2019).
With respect to the two main interpretative views in the third point here, the interpretation that, for Zhuangzi, differences in values, things and intellectual discussions are of no reality in the dao is fairly standard. There are many similar interpretations; see, for instance, A. C. Graham (1969: 141–4/Section 3; 153–4/the translation of the “monkeys” passage) and those in the traditional commentaries selected by Brook Ziporyn (2009). For the latter, just consider an example, namely, the comments on the “monkey” passage by Lin Xiyi selected by Ziporyn: “LIN XIYI: This means that there is no right and wrong in the world; right and wrong appear only as a result of “self” versus “other” (Ziporyn 2009: 147).
The other interpretative view that values are conferred onto the world by the act of the self may be a bit controversial. I therefore refer to my essay (Cheung 2019) for its justification.
However, I would like to point out that this paper is not exegetical (of the Zhuangzi) in nature. Its novelty consists in the employment of the insights I got from my understanding of Zhuangzi’s philosophy to construct an argument against Hick’s soul-making theodicy.
Different earlier versions of this paper were presented at “The 20th International Conference in Chinese Philosophy (ISCP)” at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 3–7 July 2017, “The Singapore-Hong Kong-Macau Symposium on Chinese Philosophy 2017” at the University of Macau, 21–22 April 2017, and “The 2nd Annual East-West Philosophy Forum” at University of Edinburgh, 19–20 May 2016. I would like to thank the audience at these conferences, as well as two reviewers for Sophia, for their invaluable comments and criticisms.
References
Beebe, J. R. (2016). Logical problem of evil. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/
Cheung, L. K. C. (2019). Zhuangzi’s notion of the True Master and Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigation. In K. C. Chong & K. Y. Cheng (Eds.), Dao companion to the philosophy of the Zhuangzi. New York: Springer. (forthcoming)
Dostoyevsky, F. (1958). The Brothers Karamazov. D. Magarshack. trans. London: Penguin.
Graham, A. C. (1969). Chuang-tzu’s essay on seeing things unequal. History of Religion, 9(2), 137–159.
Hick, J. (1990). Philosophy of religion (4th ed.). NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hick, J. (1985). Evil and the god of love (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
LaFollette, H. (1980). Plantinga on the free will defense. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 11(2), 123–132.
Lewis, D. (1993). Evil for freedom’s sake? Philosophical Papers, XXII(3), 149–172.
Mackie, J. (1955). Evil and omnipotence. Mind, 64(254), 200–212.
Pereboom, D. (2005). The problem of evil. In W. E. Mann (Ed.), The Blackwell guide to philosophy of religion. (pp. 148–170.) Oxford: Blackwell.
Phillips, D. Z. (1965). The concept of prayer. London: Routledge & Kegan-Paul.
Plantinga, A. (1974a). The nature of necessary. Oxford: OUP.
Plantinga, A. (1974b). God, freedom and evil. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Scott, M. (2010). Suffering and soul-making: rethinking John Hick’s theodicy. The Journal of Religion, 90(3), 313–334.
Trakakis, N. (2008). Theodicy: the solution to the problem of evil, or part of the problem? Sophia, 47(2), 161–191.
Watson, B. Trans. (2013). The complete works of Zhuangzi. NY: Columbia University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1993). A lecture on ethics. In J. Klagge & A. Nordmann (Eds.), Philosophical occasions 1912–1951. Cambridge: Hackett.
Ziporyn, B. (2009). Zhuangzi: the essential writings with selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cheung, L.K.C. A Zhuangzian Critique of John Hick’s Theodicy. SOPHIA 59, 549–562 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0720-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0720-y