The theodicies of Josiah Royce and John Hick

The purpose of this study was to examine the solutions to the problem of evil in relation to God proposed by Josiah Royce and John Hick—solutions which maintain that evil is necessary for moral and spiritual development. Hick and Royce were chosen because as strong advocates of this view, they, nevertheless, represent contrasting conceptions of God. Royce was a philosophical idealist, while Hick represents Christian theism.

I first isolated the usual problems for theism with regard to evil and considered the weaknesses of the usual explanations. Then I developed Royce's idealistic conception of God which he claimed avoided those weaknesses. Next I set forth his theodicy and critically evaluated it. Having completed my analysis of Royce, I turned to Hick's conception of God and his theodicy, comparing the latter with Royce's and critically evaluating it. Finally, I summarized the main points of the type of theodicy represented by Royce and Hick and followed this with a summary of the main problems.

Royce maintained that God suffers in order to be perfect. Moral and spiritual perfection consists not of innocence but of overcoming evil. Because human selves are fragments of God's life, God suffers in us and through us. Hick also maintained that developed moral and spiritual character is superior to a preestablished state. Therefore, God brought humans into existence in an undeveloped state and maintained an epistemic distance from them in order that they might develop freely. Thus, in both Royce and Hick, the conditions that make evil a virtual inevitability are necessary.

The major findings of this study were that the type of theodicy advocated by Royce and Hick suffers from serious weaknesses. God is absolutely good but requires evil to accomplish the divine purpose. A large degree of moral and spiritual development does not require evil, yet God who is absolutely good requires it for development. Excessive evil is admitted to be a mystery and yet this mystery is also used by God. The final outcome of the process either requires abandoning the original necessary conditions (Hick) or has no redemptive value on an individual basis (Royce).