Evil and the God of Love by John Hick, and: God and the Permission of Evil by Jacques Maritain, and: The Lord of the Asburd by Raymond J. Nogar, O. P., and: Nostalgia for Paradise by Sister Sylvia Mary, C. S. M. V. (review)

444 BOOK REVIEWS Evil and the God of Love. By JoHN HicK. New York: Harper and Row, 1966, pp. 404, with index. $6.95. God and the Permission of Evil. By JAcQUES MARITAIN. Translated by Joseph W. Evans. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1966, pp. H!l, with index of proper names. $3.75. The Lord of the Asburd. By RAYMOND J. NoGAR, 0. P. New York: Herder and Herder, 1966, pp. 157. $3.95. Nostalgia for Paradise. By SISTER SYLVIA MARY, C. S.M. V. New York: Desclee, 1965, pp. £30 with index. $4.75. After one of his lectures Raymond Nogar was questioned: "If spacetime history is of the essence of man, and the making of history his free, creative and personal prerogative and obligation, how is it possible to tolerate and to justify the suffering and annihilation of so many people who suffer and are annihilated for the simple reason that their geography sets them in the pathways of history? " (p. 84). The first sentence of John Hick's book reads: " The fact of evil constitutes the most serious objection there is to the Christian belief in the God of love" (p. ix). Jacques Maritain very early in his book comments that the problem of evil, injustice, cruelty " is at the origin of many forms of atheism, at the origin also of what one could call in many the bewildered Christian conscience " (p. 3) . Sister Sylvia Mary informs us that the various mythical versions of an " original paradise, lost through some fault, are of immense importance, and they constantly recur. They reveal the fact that in the heart of man there is a perpetual nostalgia" (p. 11). All four of these books, then, deal in one way or another with the problem of evil. Hick, in an impressive work, faces it fully and attempts an historical and systematic theodicy for our times; Maritain engages only one, though crucial, aspect of it; Nogar brings the light of his studies on evolution to bear on it; and Sister traces the nostalgia for paradise through the myths of ancient cultures as a sign of God's gracious influence on men struggling in the valley of darkness. John Hick suggests for Evil and the God of Love a fuller, more descriptive title: " A critical study of two responses to the problem of evil that have been developed within Christian thought and an attempt to formulate a theodicy for today" (p. 3). The two responses he sees as Augustinian and Irenaean, and his own theodicy, though mainly Irenaean, accepts some elements from the Augustinian. Four theological and four philosophical themes dominate in the Augustinian tradition. The first four are: that creation is good; that pain and suffering are a consequence of the fall of man; that the fall was a felix culpa since it brought redemption; that there is final moral balancing in heaven and hell. The second four are that evil BOOK REVIEWS 445 is a privation, a kind of non-being; that metaphysical evil, i. e. the imperfection in aU creatures below God, is basic; that it is better to have many beings on various levels of perfection than all on the highest level (the principle of plentitude); that the universe should be looked upon as a work of art (the aesthetic principle) . Irenaeus differs from this tradition mainly on three points. He did not place an original perfection in man but saw him as created weak a.'l.d immature yet invited by God to grow spiritually. Thus, secondly, the fall was an understandable lapse and the physical evils of pain and suffering (his third point) must not be regarded as punishment but rather necessary environment in which man is to " make " his soul. To these themes Hick notes some others taken from the thought of Fredrich Schleiermacher who, while not consciously following the teaching of Irenaeus, did develop similar themes independently. "Original perfection" to Sehleiermaeher is the basic structure of human nature whereby it can come to a consciousness of God. It is " original " not in time but exists in all men as a fundamental and constitutive element. " Original sinfulness " is seen as that element in all men which impedes their...