Animal suffering constitutes perhaps the greatest challenge to rational belief in the existence of God. Considerations that render human suffering theologically intelligible seem inapplicable to animal suffering. In this book, Dougherty defends radical possibilities for animal afterlife that allow a soul-making theodicy to apply to their case.
"The soul-making position that Dougherty defends here is interesting, subtle, and bold. It represents the first serious and sustained defense of a position that, as I noted, most have written off in a sentence or two. I suspect that this book represents the beginning of a trajectory of scholarship defending soul making theodicies for animal pain and as a result is an important text for philosophers interested in the topic to read with care." (Michael J. Murray, International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 78, 2015)