This is a reissue (with a new preface) of the second edition of a book which has become a modern theological classic. When it was first published it was quickly recognized as the most important work on the problem of evil to appear in English for more than a generation. It has continued to be at the centre of considerable discussion. John Hick traces the two contrasting Christian responses to the facts of wickedness and suffering. The Augustinian type of theodicy looks to the past for its clue to the meaning of evil, finding this in the Fall of a good creation through the misuse of human freedom. The Irenaean type, on the other hand, looks to the future and to an eventual all-justifying completion of the creative process. It sees humanity as having been created, not finitely perfect, but as immature, only at the beginning of a long development from human animal to child of God. This development takes places through free human responses within a challenging world, and continues to its completion far beyond this earthly life.