Evil and the God of Love

John Hick traces the two contrasting Christian responses to the facts of wickedness and suffering. The Augustinian type of theodicy looks to the past for its clue to the meaning of evil, finding this in the fall of a good creation through the misuse of human freedom. The Irenaean type, on the other...

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Bibliographic Details
Author:John Hick
Published: Fontana Library, London, 1970
Fontana Library, London, 1985
Series:The Fontana Library Theology and Philosophy
Volume:18 33L
Total Pages:XII-404
Format:Book
Status:Active
Description
Summary:John Hick traces the two contrasting Christian responses to the facts of wickedness and suffering. The Augustinian type of theodicy looks to the past for its clue to the meaning of evil, finding this in the fall of a good creation through the misuse of human freedom. The Irenaean type, on the other hand, looks to the future and to an eventual all-justifying completion of the creative process. It sees humanity as having been created, not finitely perfect, but as immature, only at the beginning of a long development from human animal to child of God. This development takes place through free human responses within a challenging world, and continues to its completion far beyond this earthly life. From this Irenaean point of view, which Hick develops in the last part of the book, evil in all forms remains a dark mystery: and yet it is possible to see that this mystery - including human and animal suffering and human malevolence - may be an aspect of an environment in and through which a person-making process is gradually taking place. Contents: Preface to the First Edition - Preface to the Second Edition - Preface to the 1985 revision - List of Abbreviations - Part 1 Introductory - The Problem in its Terms - The Two Poles of Thought: Monism and Dualism - Part 2 The Augustinian Type of Theodicy - The Fountainhead: St Augustine: Evil as Privation of Good Stemming from Misused Freedom - The Fountainhead: St Augustine: The Principle of Plenitude and the Aesthetic Theme - Catholic Thought from Augustine to the Present Day - The Problem of Evil in Reformed Thought - Eighteenth-Century 'Optimism' - Dividing the Light from the Darkness - Part 3 The Irenaean Type of Theodicy - Sin and the Fall according to the Hellenistic Fathers - The Irenaean Type of Theodicy in Schleiermacher - The Two Theodicies: Contrasts and Agreements - Part 4 Theodicy for Today - The Starting-Point - Moral Evil - Pain - Suffering - The Kingdom of God and the Will of God - Recent Works on the Problem of Evil - Index.

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