Providence and the Problem of Evil

A defence, like Plantinga's Free Will Defense, aims only to show that God and evil are logically compatible; it does not claim to explain why God actually permits evil. A theodicy, by contrast, aims to provide a plausible explanation of God's reasons for permitting evil . Swinburne offers a theodicy: he argues that God has good reasons for allowing evil, and that these reasons are sufficient to justify it. The central reason is that a world containing free creatures who can choose between good and evil, and who can develop morally and spiritually through suffering, is a better world than one without these possibilities . This is a more ambitious project than a defence, and it is therefore more vulnerable to objections, but Swinburne argues that it is the task theology must undertake.

Swinburne identifies several goods that he argues are made possible only by the existence of evil. First, free will: a world with creatures who can choose between good and evil is better than one with automata. Second, moral development: courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice are virtues that can only be exercised in the face of danger, suffering, and need. Third, soul-making: the process by which humans develop their characters and grow toward God requires resistance and challenge . Fourth, the knowledge of good and evil: a deeper understanding of the good is possible only for those who have encountered its opposite. Swinburne argues that these goods are weighty enough to justify the evils that make them possible, though he acknowledges that the calculus is not one we can fully perform.

Plantinga's Free Will Defense is a minimal logical argument: it shows only that God and evil are logically compatible, and it does not claim to know why God permits evil . Swinburne's theodicy is a substantive explanatory claim: he argues that God permits evil because it is necessary for goods like free will, moral development, and soul-making, and that a world with these goods is better than one without them. Plantinga's defence is compatible with a wide range of theodicies; Swinburne's theodicy is a specific proposal about God's actual reasons. The two are not rivals but operate at different levels of ambition. Swinburne's approach is more vulnerable to the objection that the goods he identifies do not justify the amount and distribution of suffering we observe.

Swinburne acknowledges that the problem of evil is not merely about the existence of evil but about its amount and distribution. His response is that we are not in a position to calculate the balance of goods and evils, because we cannot see the long-term consequences of suffering or the goods that may be realized in the lives of those who suffer . He also argues that a world with free creatures must contain the possibility of significant evil, because free will would be trivial if the choices were always between trivial goods and trivial harms. The objection that the suffering is excessive is, on his view, a claim that requires a God's-eye perspective we do not have. Critics have replied that this response is too convenient, and that the evidence of apparently pointless suffering remains a serious challenge.

The book was widely reviewed and acknowledged as the most systematic contemporary theodicy in the analytic tradition. Critics raised several objections. Some argued that Swinburne's calculus of goods and evils is too optimistic, and that the goods he identifies do not justify the amount of suffering we observe. Others argued that his account of free will is too libertarian, and that a compatibilist account would make the Free Will Defense unnecessary. Still others argued that the problem of evil is better addressed by a defence than by a theodicy, because a theodicy makes claims about God's actual reasons that are beyond our epistemic access. Swinburne responded to these criticisms in subsequent work, but the debate remains open, and the book is now a standard reference point for discussions of theodicy.

The most common misunderstanding is that Swinburne is claiming that the suffering of each individual is justified by some good that is realized in that individual's life. He is not making that claim. His argument is global: the existence of evil as such is justified by the goods it makes possible for humanity as a whole, not by a one-to-one correspondence between suffering and reward . A related misunderstanding is that Swinburne is offering a pastoral response to suffering, a way of comforting those who are in pain. The book is a work of philosophical theology, not pastoral care, and its arguments are not intended to console the bereaved. Readers who approach it expecting a pastoral answer will be disappointed; readers who approach it expecting a rigorous philosophical argument will find one.