eBook: Meaning in Human Suffering (PDF)
Meaning in Human Suffering
by
Rasoul Rahbari-Ghazani
Book Description
Can the reality of human suffering be reconciled with belief in an all-Good, all-Knowing, and all-Powerful God? Meaning in Human Suffering brings the Persian mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi into philosophical dialogue with John Hick, one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers of religion. The book argues that their approaches complement each other. Hick’s “soul-making theodicy” explains the structural conditions—freedom, moral risk, stable natural laws, and epistemic distance—within which moral and spiritual growth becomes possible. Rumi’s “practical-phenomenological theodicy” shows how suffering may be discerned and lived, distinguishing destructive and constructive forms of hardship. Together, these perspectives form a two-tier theodicy joining rational justification with existential transformation. Attentive to excessive and apparently pointless suffering, the book neither romanticizes pain nor excuses injustice. This study offers scholars, students, and thoughtful readers a rigorous and existentially responsive exploration of human suffering, moral responsibility, divine Wisdom, love, and hope within contemporary philosophy, theology, and spiritual life.
Keywords: human suffering; problem of evil; Rumi; John Hick; soul-making theodicy; philosophy of religion; Islamic mysticism; Persian Sufism; divine Goodness and Justice; moral responsibility; spiritual transformation; apparently gratuitous suffering.
Upon purchase, you will immediately receive a digital copy of the book in PDF format.
- Publisher: Immortal Echoes Press, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- Publication Year: 2026
- ISBN: 978-1-9195486-8-5 (Hardcover)
- ISBN: 978-1-9195486-7-8 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 978-1-9195486-6-1 (PDF eBook)
