This book, first published in 1966, was used by John Hick as a theology textbook. An detailed 5-pp Table of Contents compensates for a slim index, but his use of footnotes on each page is excellent. (For his books I've read, click on his name.) See his web site: http://www.johnhick.org.uk/.

This book was called EGOL by his philosophy/theology students. It is easily the most thorough and comprehensive discussion on this topic that has been recognized as a modern theological classic and has been viewed as the most important work on the problem of evil to appear in English in the mid 20th century. Its 17 chapters are divided into four Parts: Introductory (2 chapters), The Augustinian Type of Theodicy (6 chapters), The Irenaean Type of Theodicy (3 chapters), and A Theodicy for Today (6 chapters).

You must read the 31-pp Introductory. But, if you don’t want very thorough discussions of the Augustinian and Irenaean types of theodicy, I suggest you “skim” the two middle parts, except for Ch 11. The 5-pp Ch 11 (The Two Theodicies – Contrasts and Arguments) consists of 6 points of contrast and 6 points of hidden agreement. I strongly advise you to focus on Part IV, A Theodicy for Today, which is less historical in its coverage of some very important topics, as shown by its chapter titles: Ch 12: The Starting Point, Ch 13: Moral Evil, Ch 14: Pain, Ch 15: Suffering, Ch 16: The Kingdom of God and the Will of God, and Ch 17: Recent Work on the Problem of Evil.

At the risk of oversimplifying, there are two main theological “camps” for theodicy. The “Free-Will” camp says that God’s gift of free will means God’s creation cannot avoid moral evil. The “Soul-Making” camp, which also requires free will, says that God’s creation planned on moral evil so that a human could freely reject such evil and thus come closer to what God intended humans to become. In EGOL John Hick chose Soul-Making as the better choice. I do not know if he still holds the same view.

At the time he wrote EGOL, Hick had not yet become a strong proponent of religious plurality – not tolerance, but true acceptance of non-Christian religious views. He is now well-known worldwide for his religious pluralism stance. I did not find theodicy a major concern in his more recent books, which is why I raise the question of his current theodicy stance. Instead of EGOL, I recommend his other books, especially books 206 (The Fifth Dimension) and 215 (The Metaphor of God Incarnate) which I rank very much higher.