Evil · Objection
Why doesn't God stop evil and suffering?
Why people find it persuasive
It is the deepest objection to Christianity and it is usually asked from pain, not from a debating position.
Important distinctions
- • Logical problem of evil vs. evidential problem of evil.
- • Defense (showing compatibility) vs. theodicy (explaining reasons).
- • Moral evil vs. natural evil vs. animal suffering.
Christian response
- • Begin pastorally. Do not answer a grieving person with a syllogism.
- • Distinguish the logical and evidential forms; they need different responses.
- • Present the free-will defense, soul-making considerations, and the Christian claim that God enters suffering.
Strongest version of the objection
Why doesn't God stop evil and suffering?
Christian counterresponse
Defenders appeal to skeptical theism about our access to God's reasons, and to the cross as evidence that God does not stand aloof from suffering. Many Christian philosophers regard this as the strongest objection.
Remaining questions
Whether skeptical theism concedes too much about moral knowledge is contested among Christian philosophers.
For further study
Primary and secondary sources on both sides of this question. Reading the strongest opposing case is part of the work, not a concession.
God, Freedom, and Evil — Alvin Plantinga
The short book that ended the logical problem of evil as a formal disproof; still the place to start.
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? — David Bentley Hart
A theological rejection of tidy theodicies that still refuses to concede the argument from evil.
The Evidential Argument from Evil — Daniel Howard-Snyder (ed.)
The core academic exchange on evidential (not logical) arguments from evil, with Rowe and Wykstra in dialogue.
Wandering in Darkness — Eleonore Stump
A book-length treatment using biblical narrative rather than abstraction to address suffering.
Arguing about Evil — William Rowe (collected papers)
The best atheistic evidential argument from apparently pointless suffering, stated by its foremost defender.