A POINT
Some think it is comforting to feel that suffering is discipline from God. The comfort that the discipline defence seeks to offer is unkind. It implies that God wants all who suffer to know they are going to be okay and not to despair. But that is saying that anybody that does despair has no one to blame but themselves for not responding to the divine inspirations. They are called stupid in some way. Remember how the stupid person is often considered to be as bad as or worse than an evil person. It depends.
That is yet another example of how believers in God count themselves worthy to judge other people. People should not be judged because of God for we can sense people and we cannot sense God. They may deny they judge but we know everybody does judge.
THE ARGUMENT
Against the Discipline (Soul-Making) Defence of Suffering
The discipline defence—often associated with Irenaean theology and developed in modern form by John Hick—claims that God permits suffering in order to cultivate virtue. On this view, God is not primarily concerned with human happiness but with moral and spiritual formation; suffering is therefore justified insofar as it contributes to making persons good rather than comfortable. This essay argues that the discipline defence fails because it (1) instrumentalises persons, (2) cannot account for excessive and non-productive suffering, (3) undermines ordinary moral reasoning, and (4) rests on an implausible conception of moral improvement.
1. Instrumentalisation of Persons
A central problem with the discipline defence is that it treats suffering persons as means rather than ends. If the justification for allowing someone to suffer is that others may grow in virtue by responding to their suffering, then the moral focus shifts away from the sufferer’s good and toward the moral advantage of observers or helpers. This stance is morally objectionable. We rightly regard it as perverse to value a person’s illness or injury because it provides opportunities for others to cultivate compassion. The correct response to suffering is to regard it as an evil to be relieved, not as a morally useful resource.
Even when the defence claims that suffering primarily benefits the sufferer rather than others, the problem remains. To explain suffering by appealing to its moral usefulness is to subordinate the person’s well-being to an abstract goal of character development. This conflicts with the widely held moral principle that persons possess intrinsic worth and should not be treated merely as instruments for the production of virtue.
2. Excessive and Non-Productive Suffering
If suffering is justified by its role in producing virtue, then it must at least be proportionate to that role. Yet much suffering appears to produce no corresponding moral benefit. Many people endure prolonged illness, disability, or psychological torment that severely restricts their capacity to act, to help others, or even to reflect meaningfully on their condition. Others suffer intensely and die as a result, without any evident moral transformation in themselves or others.
The discipline defence cannot plausibly explain why such suffering is necessary. If virtue is the goal, then suffering that destroys agency rather than forming it is counterproductive. A theory that justifies suffering only when it produces moral goods cannot coherently account for suffering that prevents the very goods it is supposed to generate.
3. Moral Inversion and Practical Consequences
The discipline defence risks inverting ordinary moral reasoning. If suffering is intrinsically valuable as a means of moral improvement, then alleviating suffering becomes morally ambiguous or even suspect. On this logic, reducing pain may interfere with the very process by which virtue is formed. This implication runs directly against basic humanitarian morality, which treats the prevention and relief of suffering as moral goods.
Moreover, if suffering is morally beneficial, then deliberately causing suffering could be construed as a form of moral assistance. Even if defenders of the discipline view deny this implication, the structure of the theory makes it difficult to rule out in principle. A theodicy that cannot clearly distinguish compassion from cruelty undermines the moral framework it seeks to preserve.
4. The Problem of Unlimited Moral Improvement
Some defenders of the discipline defence argue that no matter how virtuous a person becomes, further moral improvement is always possible, and therefore further suffering may always be justified. This assumes that moral perfection is a matter of indefinite quantitative increase. However, moral goodness is more plausibly understood in terms of the quality of the will and the sincerity of one’s motives, not the endless accumulation of morally demanding experiences.
A person who acts rightly for the right reasons may already be fully virtuous in the relevant sense, even if their capacities are limited. Once a person’s will is properly oriented toward the good, additional suffering does not necessarily improve that orientation. In such cases, suffering becomes gratuitous rather than formative, and the discipline defence loses its justificatory force.
5. The Failure of Alternative Formulations
Some attempts to avoid these difficulties appeal to the idea that evil is not a real entity but merely a privation or absence of good. However, this move does not solve the problem. Even if suffering is described as a lack rather than a positive reality, the question remains why God permits such severe and widespread deficiencies when they could be prevented or remedied. Appealing to privation ultimately returns the discussion to the discipline defence: suffering is allowed not to be removed but to be endured for the sake of growth. The underlying problems therefore persist.
Conclusion
The discipline defence fails to provide a morally coherent or psychologically credible account of suffering. It instrumentalises persons, cannot explain excessive and destructive suffering, distorts ordinary moral reasoning, and relies on an implausible view of moral improvement. Rather than offering comfort, it risks justifying cruelty, encouraging moral indifference, and blaming sufferers for their failure to benefit from their pain. For these reasons, suffering cannot be plausibly defended as a divinely intended means of moral discipline, and the discipline defence should be rejected.