Non-Identity Theodicy

Abstract

Abstract This chapter develops Non-Identity Theodicy—that is, theodicy primarily claiming that our existence as the individuals we are depends on God’s policy of evil and suffering allowance. Non-Identity Theodicy suggests that God allows evil in order to create and love the specific individuals who come to exist. This theodicy is unique because the justifying good recommended is neither harm-aversion nor pure benefit. It is not a good that betters the lives of individual human persons (for they would not exist otherwise), but it is the individual human persons themselves. In order to aim successfully at the creation of particular individuals, however, God would need a control of history so complete that it might be argued to be inconsistent with beliefs about human free will that are important to some theologies. In order to avoid this problem, a second version of Non-Identity Theodicy is constructed. This version considers whether God’s justifying motivation could be a desire for beings of our type, even if it could not be a desire for particular individuals. It is suggested that God would be interested in loving those he creates under various descriptions (e.g., biological, psychological, and narrative descriptions) and that a horror-prone environment is necessary for us to be the type of being we are under these descriptions. This second version of Non-Identity Theodicy allows some version of Non-Identity Theodicy to be available to the theist regardless of her views about the existence and nature of human free will.