The Problem of Evil — The Best Arguments on Both Sides

The problem of evil is the most serious philosophical challenge to theism. Taking it seriously requires understanding exactly what it argues — and what the best responses actually are, rather than the weak versions most people encounter.

The Argument

Logical and evidential versions — stated precisely

The logical problem of evil (Mackie, 1955) argues that the simultaneous truth of these three propositions is logically inconsistent: God is omnipotent; God is omnibenevolent; evil exists. If God could prevent evil and wanted to, evil would not exist. Since evil exists, either God cannot prevent it or does not want to — which contradicts omnipotence or omnibenevolence respectively.

The evidential problem (Rowe, 1979) is more modest and more difficult to answer. It argues not that theism is logically impossible but that the amount and distribution of evil — particularly gratuitous suffering that serves no apparent higher purpose — constitutes evidence against theism. Even if some evil is explicable, the sheer scale of suffering in nature and history raises the probability that no omnibenevolent omnipotent God exists.

The Best Responses

What philosophy has actually produced

—The Free Will Defense (Plantinga): Libertarian free will — the capacity for genuine self-determination — logically requires the possibility of choosing evil. A world with genuine agents is more valuable than a world of deterministic automata. God could not create free beings who were guaranteed never to choose evil without eliminating their freedom.
—The Soul-Making Theodicy (Hick): Virtue, character, and genuine moral development require the conditions in which they can be challenged and built. A world without difficulty is a world without courage, compassion, or genuine goodness.
—The Epistemic Distance Argument: Genuine relationship with God requires free response, which requires that God not be so overwhelming present as to compel acknowledgment. Epistemic distance — the hiddenness of God — makes genuine faith and love possible rather than coerced.
—Skeptical Theism (Wykstra, Bergmann): Given the epistemic gap between finite human cognition and the perspective of an omniscient God, we should not expect to be able to see the reasons for all permitted suffering even if they exist.

The Framework's Position

What a derived account of God's nature contributes

The Infinitely Simple framework does not dissolve the problem of evil — it takes it seriously as a genuine challenge. But it offers a precise account of the constraints under which creation occurs. The creature must be genuinely other than God — genuinely distinct, with genuine agency — or the relational properties of God's nature cannot be expressed in creation. Genuine otherness requires genuine freedom. Genuine freedom requires the real possibility of misalignment.

The framework also holds that creation is freely chosen in its specific form. The question of why this creation rather than another — with this distribution of suffering — remains genuinely open and is not closed by logical argument. The honest position is that the problem of evil is difficult, the best responses are substantial, and neither dogmatic theism nor dogmatic atheism is warranted by the argument alone.

The framework behind the practice

Infinitely Simple derives the nature of reality from first principles — no assumptions, no tradition, no faith required. The guided practice applies it to the brain and body. Free on YouTube.

The Foundation Free Guided Practice