 According to soul-making theodicy, then, by undergoing the soul-making process we develop the traits required for true friendship with God, in the only way that is suitable for humans. Some might object that God could have created virtuous people without their having to go through the troubles that afflict our present existence, that dispositions to good behavior need not be established through suffering (Mackie 1955, 205–06). Theists can respond, though, that this objection fails to grasp the nature of soul-making. Human virtues are not mere behavioral dispositions, of the kind found in the inanimate world. There are, no doubt, natural dispositions of patience, courage, kindness and the like — behavioral propensities we are born with, and that vary in strength from one individual to another. But these are not what we have in mind when we speak of moral virtue in the proper sense. True virtue has to be tested and refined. Someone with the virtue of patience must have tasted affliction and disappointment, and seen things through; the courageous person has to have endured danger and risk; the compassionate must have struggled with temptation, sorrow and hardship. The point of such experiences is not merely to strengthen our tendency to act rightly. Virtue is much more than an abiding behavioral propensity. It is a matter of practical wisdom. It requires that we know trial and suffering, and human weakness in the face of them, in the only way they truly can be known: through experience. Suffering, like sin, cannot be understood in the abstract. Only first hand awareness of the world’s pain enables us to comprehend fully the options for good and ill in the situations we face, to judge correctly what action is called for, and to perform it with an attitude of humble submission to God, and loving concern for others. In short, true virtue requires knowledge of good and evil — not just as they are manifested in our own struggle with sin, but as they are played out in the travail of the whole world. As we gain this knowledge, we become more suited for God’s friendship; indeed, the process of gaining it is the beginning of the friendship. For to address virtuously the hardships of life is not only to improve ourselves; it is to take up the role God has planned for us in the crucial creative enterprise of overcoming natural evil.