For ages, people have asked the question of why, if God is a God of love, evil and suffering exist in our world. John Hick proposes an answer to this question. As the Bible states, God created humans in his own image but Hicks believes that is just the beginning. [1] God created us and placed us in this world with the purpose of changing our soul so it is like him. This world is the environment God has made “in which moral creatures may be fashioned, through their own free insights and responses, into children of God”. [2] See II Corinthians 3:18. Romans 8:28-30, Ephesians 2:19-22, Ephesians 3:14-20, II Corinthians 4:16.
Hicks maintains God did not design this world to be a paradise; it is not heaven. The pleasure of humans is not God’s primary concern. [3] Evil, which is primarily produced by us humans, produces suffering but God will use this suffering to change our soul (Romans 8:28).
And this is exactly what we have taught in this blog. God’s purpose for us is not just to change our belief system, it is the renovation of our soul so it becomes like him.
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[1] John Hicks. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2010, p. 254.
[2] Hicks, p. 257.
[3] Hicks, p. 258.
