There is a familiar determinist argument that runs: those of my actions that are most my own are those that express my character. But I did not make my character, it was made for me by heredity and circumstances. Those whose characters have been so made that they do good acts are lucky; those whose characters make them do bad acts are unlucky. Perhaps some people can change certain of their qualities, so that they act better after the change. But to have the desire and ability to make the change is simply something else about the way they are made -they are lucky. Actions that express one’s character may be chosen, but if one can do nothing about one’s character one surely cannot be blamed for it, or for what, given that one is like that, one will inevitably choose to do.

There is a curious defence of freewill which accepts nearly everything in this determinist argument. It concedes that character determines action and that character is made by other factors than one’s own choices. But it claims that in the exceptional situation where one’s moral duty requires an action that is incompatible with what one’s character would suggest one becomes aware that the self is more than one’s character, and the common or garden me that is my character can be over-ruled by the transcendent I which sees where duty lies.

This is an extreme example of a recurrent theme in philosophy—the identification of the self-observing self with the good rational self. In this version it is surely unacceptable because it implies that the capacity to see where duty lies and the strength of will that enables one to go through with it have nothing to do with the character that is formed by experience, the empirical character.

The moral aspect of the inevitable use of violence in the guerilla warfare in Rhodesia cannot be discussed without a clear perception of the institutionalised violence which marks the daily lives of Africans in that country. Given that all violence is to be deplored, there are, nevertheless, situations in which the passing phase of physical violence has to be regarded as less destructive to the human personality than that permanent violence which, disguised as lawful authority, systematically reduces 96% of the country’s population to an inferior kind of existence. To appreciate this the following historical and social facts are relevant.

Prague was once, and in time no doubt will be again, a crossroads of ideas, a carrefour of cross-fertilisation between Christians and Marxists. The effect upon such theologians as J.B. Metz and Jurgen Moltmann would not be difficult to demonstrate. In many respects now, so pervasive have a certain basic Marxist agenda and vocabulary become, Christians can no longer formulate their ideas or decide their course of action without more or less explicit reference to Marxism. This is particularly true in Latin America. It is noticeable also in Vatican documents on social policy—for example in the paragraphs on liberation in Pope Paul’s lengthy statement “Evangelii nuntiandi”, published some three weeks before the Declaration on Sexual Ethics, but, in contrast with the latter, destined to drop immediately into that oblivion of indifference reserved by conservatives and radicals in the Catholic Church for all utterances from Rome except those on sex. On a wider front, however, through the spread of sociology and allied disciplines as well as in response to urgent political situations, Christianity—and certainly Catholicism—has, willy nilly, absorbed a considerable amount from Marxism in the past twenty years, and sometimes even shown great critical resilience in the process. Doubt has remained, on the other hand as to how much a Marxist loyal to his atheism could learn from dialogue with Christians, or indeed as to how much serious work a Marxist would be ready to put into the study of Christian source-texts, in comparison anyway with the mushrooming industry of Catholic Marxologists.

In attempting to deal with the traditional problem of evil Christian theologians have had recourse to the presentation of theodicies. The two most influential kinds (though advocates of either can agree on some points) have been the Augustinian and the Irenaean and today the latter is the most popular largely as a result of its exposition by Professor John Hick. I have no distinctive theodicy to offer, nor am I sure either that one can be offered or that the Christian is bound to offer one. Perhaps, after all, what Alvin Plantinga calls a ‘defence’, coupled with an appeal to mystery is in order. I do, however, find the Irenaean theodicy in Hick’s form difficult to accept and am therefore disturbed to find it currently so influential. In what follows, and in the briefest possible manner, my aim is to indicate why others should feel the same.

The problem of evil is a problem for the theist. According to theism the following propositions are true:

The problem is how to square acceptance of these propositions with the acceptance of the facts of evil. By ‘evil’ here is meant (a) moral evil [viz. morally undesirable actions of human agents who frequently inflict suffering and harm on each other], and (b) natural evil [viz. pain producing events in the world of nature and undesirable though not necessarily pain producing natural events and states of affairs].