The Justification for Creating Opportunities for Virtuous Response

Abstract

Clement Dore, in his important article ‘An examination of the “Soul Making” Theodicy’, discusses at length some other objections to the solution to the problem of evil under review. One objection is that while we have explained the existence of suffering, which is redeemed by the virtuous responses it provokes, what about those sufferings nobody responds virtuously to? He claims that the world contains many instances of apparently useless suffering, that is, suffering which is not instrumental in bringing about noble actions or noble states of mind and that we require an explanation as to why God has allowed these to occur. Throughout his discussion he seems to assume that God does know beforehand how agents possessing free will are going to react in any given situation.