Irenaeus' ideas were first formed into a complete Theodicy by John Hick. A theodicy is a theory that attempts to explain why an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient god allows suffering in the world (The problem of the Inconsistent Triad) His theodicy is as follows: God created human beings as imperfect (In his likeness) so that they could grow into his image and become moral, spiritual and intelligent beings who would love him. They were created with an epistemic distance (a distance in the dimension of knowledge) so that God would not force belief upon them.