I. For Moral Evil (=moral wickedness): The Free Will Defense

• God created persons and persons by definition/nature are free to sin
• Why didn't God make persons unable to sin?
• Because that's a contradiction: persons by nature have the ability to sin.
• Doesn't this mean God is not omnipotent?
• It is no limitation on God's power to say he couldn't have made persons unable to sin, because this is a contradiction.
• That God can't do the impossible is no limitation on God's power or freedom;
• It is not a limitation to say God can't make a round square or a free being who can't sin, because there is nothing there to be done that God can't do.
• Why didn't God make persons who could sin, but in fact, never would sin?
• Omniscience allows God to survey the future possible worlds and choose to create those people who could sin, but would choose never to sin.
• But freedom is genuine openness: God can't know how persons will freely act since how they will act only becomes real in the act of choice, and only then is it knowable. Before a person freely chooses to act, there is nothing to know.
• Thus there is no limitation on God's omniscience to say God doesn't know how people will act, because there is nothing there to be known until they act.
• Why did God make persons knowing they would sin. It isn't worth it.
• A world in which there are persons (able to sin) who enter into a personal relationship with God is a better world than one without persons (and no possibility of sin)
• Thus a world in which sin is possible is part of the best possible world
• Why doesn't God intervene in the worst cases (after free choices are made)?
• This allows there to be persons who freely choose.
• Perhaps God has intervened and, in any case, the rest of Hick's theodicy handles this

II. For Nonmoral Evil (=suffering, and perhaps natural disasters like hurricanes): World is a Place of Soul-Making Where Evil is Necessary to Achieve the Infinite Future Good of the Afterlife

• World is a not a completed creation
• It is not a hedonistic paradise (one made to maximize human pleasure and minimize suffering).
• World is a place of soul making ("in which free people wrestle with the problems of existence in an attempt to become children of God") and this requires suffering.
• A world which allows for soul-making is better than a hedonistic paradise
• In a hedonistic paradise there would be no sciences, no hardships, no bad consequences of actions, no one could be harmed, no point to moral virtues like courage or fortitude
• Thus the best possible world has suffering and hardship in it
• Because all nonmoral evil and suffering must be a necessary part of fulfilling God's good purpose for creation, we need to postulate an afterlife in which soul-making continues
• There can be no wasted lives; no suffering that ends in resentment, fear, selfishness and disintegration of character, and doesn't contribute to soul making
• Is this afterlife worth all the suffering?
• Need to postulate an infinite future good that justifies all the finite suffering endured on the way to it.
• This is not a "bookkeeping view" in which proportional pleasure is given to compensate for the extent of suffering previously endured
• But all suffering will be seen to be a necessary means to achieve this infinite bliss for all