The Problem of evil at John Hick

ABSTRACTMaster?s ThesisThe Problem Of Evil At John Hickİlhan ARIKDokuz Eylul UniversityInstitute Of Social SciencesDepartment of ManagementThere has been problem between the views of actual existence of the evilin the world and the omniponent and the perfect good God. David Hume,attributing this problem to Epicuros, says: `If God wants to prevent the evil,does he not have enough power? If so, he is not omniponent. If he has power,does not he want to prevent the evil? If so, he is not perfect good. If God is bothomniponent and perfect good, how does the evil come onto the scene?? Thisformulation of Hume has been defended insistently after him by lots ofphilosophers. Some of these philosophers stated only some inconsistenciesbetween these proposings, some of them, taking one more step, tried to acceptatheism as a challange to theism.There are two methods developed to the problem of evil. These are`defence? and `theodicy?. Defence is planned to prove the fail of theism about aformulation on the problem of evil. Theodicy tries to give the true andreasonable answer to the question; why God allows to the evil.John Hick, calling his teodicy as `soul-making?, depends on Irenaeus asa traditional resource and developed it with the modern knowledge and views.The genuine of Hick?s teodicy is this, human was created with the way ofnatural evolution, at an `epistemic distance? to God. This epistemic distancegives human beings a possibility of main freedom to God. The hard andtroubled world in which human struggles to survive, is an environment inwhich human, being a creature morally and spiritually not mature, can developto infinite perfectness. This improvement begins in this life and continues thefurther side of it. So, moral and natural evil are the obligatory specialities ofthe present level of God?s creating perfect finite humans. Furthermore, the lastresponsibility of the evil belongs to God.Key Words: 1. soul making, 2. Evil 3. Person Making, 4. Theodicy,5. Positive Value of Mystery