The problem of evil

Moral and natural evil; the concept of evil#

FoundationAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Kinds of evil and kinds of response

Fig. 1Evil divides into moral and natural; responses into defences (compatibility) and theodicies (justification).

The problem of evil is the challenge that the evil and suffering in the world are incompatible with, or count as strong evidence against, the existence of the God of classical theism — an omnipotent, omniscient and supremely good being. It is widely regarded as the most powerful argument for atheism, and, unlike arguments about the concept of God, it starts from a datum both sides accept: that terrible suffering exists. The force of the problem is that God's three key attributes each seem to entail that God would prevent evil: an omniscient God would KNOW of all evil, an omnipotent God would be ABLE to prevent it, and a supremely good God would WANT to prevent it — yet evil exists.

It is standard to distinguish two kinds of evil. MORAL evil is the suffering and wrongdoing caused by the free choices of moral agents — murder, cruelty, theft, war, deceit. NATURAL evil is the suffering caused by natural processes independent of human choice — earthquakes, diseases, floods, famines, the predation and pain woven into the natural order. The distinction matters because the two kinds call for different responses: the free-will defence addresses moral evil directly (it is the price of free choice), but has more difficulty with natural evil (which is not obviously caused by anyone's free choice), so a full theodicy must account for both.

It is also useful to distinguish the QUANTITY and DISTRIBUTION of evil from its mere existence. Even if some evil could be justified (as a means to a greater good), the sheer amount of suffering, and its apparently gratuitous and unfairly distributed character — the suffering of children, of animals, of the innocent, suffering that seems to serve no purpose — sharpens the problem. The evidential version (later) focuses precisely on this: not that ANY evil is incompatible with God, but that the specific pattern of pointless, horrendous suffering we observe is powerful evidence against God.

Two clarifications frame the debate. First, the theist's concept of 'supreme goodness' must be moral goodness (God wills the good, is perfectly loving and just), since it is moral goodness that seems to require preventing suffering; a purely metaphysical 'goodness' (completeness of being) would not generate the problem. Second, a response to the problem can take two forms: a DEFENCE, which aims only to show that God and evil are logically COMPATIBLE (that there is no contradiction), without claiming to state God's actual reasons; and a THEODICY (from Greek theos, God, and dikē, justice), which aims to JUSTIFY God — to give a plausible account of WHY a good God actually permits evil. Plantinga's response is a defence; Augustine's and Hick's are theodicies. Keeping this distinction clear is essential, because a defence and a theodicy are answering different versions of the problem (logical and evidential respectively), as the next sections show.

Worked example

Why the attributes generate the problem

Show how omnipotence, omniscience and supreme goodness each contribute to the problem of evil.

Omniscience
An all-knowing God knows of every instance of suffering, so ignorance cannot explain God's inaction.
Omnipotence
An all-powerful God can prevent any evil (any logically possible state), so inability cannot explain it.
Supreme goodness
A perfectly good God would WANT to prevent suffering, so indifference cannot explain it.
The tension
Yet evil exists; so either God lacks one attribute, or has a morally sufficient reason to permit evil — which the theodicies try to supply.

Result: The three attributes jointly seem to entail that God would prevent evil; since evil exists, the theist must either revise an attribute or show God has a morally sufficient reason to allow it.

Typical mistakes

Treating all evil as moral evil; natural evil (earthquakes, disease) is not caused by free choices and is the harder case for the free-will response.
Confusing a defence (God and evil are logically compatible) with a theodicy (a positive justification of why God permits evil); they answer different versions of the problem.

Active revision

Explain the difference between moral and natural evil, and between a defence and a theodicy. (5-mark AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

The logical problem: Mackie's inconsistent triad#

StandardAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Mackie's inconsistent triad

Fig. 2Omnipotence, perfect goodness and the existence of evil cannot all be true, given the added premises.

The LOGICAL problem of evil claims that the existence of God and the existence of evil are logically INCOMPATIBLE — that the theist holds an internally contradictory set of beliefs, so God cannot exist. Its ancient root is Epicurus' trilemma (as reported by Lactantius): if God wishes to prevent evil but cannot, He is impotent; if He can but will not, He is malevolent; if He both can and will, whence then is evil? J. L. Mackie ('Evil and Omnipotence', 1955) gives the modern form as an 'inconsistent triad': the three propositions (1) God is omnipotent, (2) God is wholly good, and (3) evil exists cannot all be true — any two entail the falsity of the third. Given that evil manifestly exists (3), one of the theistic claims (1) or (2) must be given up.

Mackie makes explicit the additional premises needed to generate the contradiction, since (1), (2) and (3) are not by themselves formally inconsistent. He adds: (4) a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can, and (5) there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do. Given (4) and (5), an omnipotent, wholly good God would eliminate evil entirely; so if such a God existed, no evil would exist; but evil does exist; therefore no omnipotent, wholly good God exists. Mackie's argument is a valid deductive argument, so the theist must reject one of its premises — and since (1), (2) and (3) are the theist's own commitments, the natural targets are the added premises (4) and (5).

Mackie anticipates the theist's replies and argues they are 'fallacious solutions'. Against the reply that evil is necessary as a counterpart to good (we could not know good without evil), he objects that this limits God's power (why could God not make a world with good but no evil?) and that in any case a little evil would suffice as contrast, not the vast quantity we see. Against 'evil is a necessary means to good', he objects that this too limits omnipotence (an omnipotent God needs no means). His most important target is the free-will defence, considered next: he argues that if God is omnipotent, God could have created free beings who ALWAYS freely choose the good — since it is logically possible for a person to freely do right on any given occasion, it is logically possible for them to do so on EVERY occasion, and an omnipotent God could have actualised this possibility; so free will does not explain why God permits moral evil.

Evaluation of the logical problem centres on whether the added premises are true. Premise (5) is standardly rejected via the logical-possibility restriction on omnipotence (omnipotence is power over the logically possible, not the impossible), which opens the door to the free-will defence: IF it is logically impossible to have genuinely free creatures who never do wrong, then even an omnipotent God could not create such creatures, and (5) is false. Premise (4) can be challenged too: a good being does not eliminate every evil unconditionally, but only evils it has no morally sufficient reason to permit — a good parent permits some suffering (a painful vaccination) for a greater good. The theist's task against the LOGICAL problem is only to show that (1), (2) and (3) are logically COMPATIBLE — that there is no contradiction — which requires exhibiting a POSSIBLE morally sufficient reason God might have, not the actual reason. This is exactly what Plantinga's free-will defence provides, and it is widely thought to defeat the logical problem, shifting the debate to the evidential version.

Worked example

Locating the target premise

Show why the theist's best response to the logical problem targets premise (5), that omnipotence has no limits.

The added premises
(4) a good being eliminates evil as far as it can; (5) an omnipotent being can do anything — together they force the contradiction.
Restrict omnipotence
Omnipotence is power over the logically POSSIBLE; it does not include doing the logically impossible.
Apply to free will
If it is logically impossible to create free creatures who NEVER do wrong (Plantinga), then even omnipotence cannot do it, so (5) is false as Mackie uses it.
The result
With (5) false, an omnipotent good God might permit moral evil as the unavoidable cost of free will, dissolving the alleged contradiction.

Result: The theist defeats the logical problem by rejecting premise (5) via the logical-possibility restriction, opening the free-will defence: God cannot have both genuine freedom and guaranteed rightness, so evil and God are logically compatible.

Typical mistakes

Presenting the triad as formally inconsistent without the added premises; (1), (2) and (3) contradict only given 'a good being eliminates all the evil it can' and 'omnipotence is unlimited'.
Thinking the theist must explain WHY God permits evil to answer the LOGICAL problem; a defence need only show COMPATIBILITY (a possible reason), not the actual reason.

Active revision

'God and evil cannot both exist.' Assess this claim. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

The evidential problem: Hume and Rowe#

AdvancedAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Rowe's evidential argument

Fig. 3If there is gratuitous evil (the fawn), which a good God would prevent, then God does not exist.

The EVIDENTIAL (or probabilistic, or inductive) problem of evil is more modest in form but arguably more powerful. It does not claim that God and evil are logically incompatible (conceding that a possible morally sufficient reason, as the free-will defence supplies, blocks the logical problem); rather, it claims that the SPECIFIC evil we observe — its quantity, its intensity, its apparently pointless and unfairly distributed character — is strong EVIDENCE against the existence of God, making God's existence improbable even if not impossible. The shift is from 'God cannot coexist with any evil' to 'God probably does not exist, given the evil we actually see'.

Hume, through Philo in the Dialogues, presses the evidential problem by pointing to the sheer scale and character of suffering: the natural world is a scene of pervasive struggle, predation and pain, in which creatures are 'incessantly' consuming one another, and human life is beset by disease, anxiety and misery. Philo argues that while such a world is not strictly incompatible with a good God, it is not what we would EXPECT such a God to create, and it gives us no positive reason to infer one; the mixed, largely painful character of the world is better explained by a cause indifferent to good and evil than by perfect benevolence. The evidence, in short, does not support the God of theism.

William Rowe gives the argument its sharpest modern form using the idea of GRATUITOUS (pointless) evil. His argument: (P1) there exist instances of intense suffering that an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some equally bad or worse evil (i.e. gratuitous evils). (P2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent any suffering it could, unless doing so would lose a greater good or permit a worse evil. Therefore (C) there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. Rowe's famous illustration is the fawn burned in a distant forest fire, dying in agony over several days, unseen by any human — suffering that appears to serve no greater good and to be preventable at no cost. If even ONE such gratuitous evil exists, God does not.

The debate centres on P1 — whether there really are gratuitous evils. The theist's main reply is 'sceptical theism': we are not in a position to judge that an evil is gratuitous. Given the vast gulf between divine and human understanding, our inability to SEE a greater good served by an instance of suffering is weak evidence that there IS none — the goods and the connections may be beyond our ken (the 'noseeum' inference from 'I see no reason' to 'there is no reason' is unreliable when the reasons might well be undetectable by us). Rowe replies that this scepticism, consistently applied, would undermine much of our ordinary and moral reasoning, and that the appearance of gratuitousness is at least SOME evidence (the fawn's suffering really does look pointless). Evaluation weighs whether sceptical theism successfully blocks the inference from apparent to real gratuitousness — a strong reply, but one that some argue purchases God's compatibility with evil at the cost of a corrosive scepticism about our ability to make ANY moral judgements — or whether the sheer weight of apparently pointless horrendous suffering makes theism improbable on the evidence, as Rowe and Hume contend. A balanced judgement notes that the free-will defence and soul-making theodicy (next sections) are the theist's attempts to show the evil is NOT gratuitous by identifying the greater goods it serves, so the evidential problem and the theodicies are directly engaged: the theodicies succeed against the evidential problem only to the extent that they plausibly show the observed evil is not pointless.

Worked example

Sceptical theism assessed

Explain sceptical theism as a response to Rowe, and one objection to it.

Rowe's premise
There exist evils (the fawn) that appear to serve no greater good, so are gratuitous.
The reply
Given the gulf between divine and human understanding, our failing to SEE a justifying good is weak evidence that there is NONE ('noseeum' inferences are unreliable here).
Why it helps
It blocks the inference from APPARENT to REAL gratuitousness, so Rowe's P1 is not established.
The objection
Consistently applied, such scepticism would undermine ordinary moral reasoning and our confidence in God's goodness too — if we cannot judge an evil pointless, how can we judge anything good or bad?

Result: Sceptical theism is a strong reply that blocks Rowe's inference, but at the risk of a corrosive scepticism about moral judgement generally — so the evidential problem is contained rather than dissolved, and the theodicies remain needed to show the evil is not pointless.

Typical mistakes

Treating the evidential problem as claiming a contradiction; it claims evil is EVIDENCE against God (improbability), conceding logical compatibility.
Ignoring the concept of GRATUITOUS evil; Rowe's argument turns on evils that serve no greater good, which is what sceptical theism disputes we can identify.

Active revision

'The amount of suffering in the world makes the existence of God improbable.' Discuss. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

The free-will defence (Plantinga)#

AdvancedAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

The free-will defence

Fig. 4Free will is a great good; genuine freedom entails the possibility of moral evil; so moral evil is the cost of freedom.

The free-will defence is the most influential response to the LOGICAL problem of evil. Its core idea, with roots in Augustine, is that moral evil is the price of free will: God gave humans genuine libertarian freedom because a world containing free creatures who can choose to love and do good is more valuable than a world of automata who cannot; but genuine freedom entails the possibility of choosing wrongly, so a world with free creatures is a world in which moral evil is possible. God cannot both grant genuine freedom AND guarantee that it is never misused, so moral evil is the unavoidable cost of the great good of freedom. God is therefore not culpable for moral evil: it flows from the free choices of creatures, not from God.

Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom and Evil, 1974) gives the defence its rigorous modern form, specifically to refute Mackie's claim that God could have created free beings who ALWAYS freely choose the good. Plantinga argues this is not within God's power, because whether a free creature does right on a given occasion is up to the CREATURE, not God: God can create free creatures and place them in circumstances, but cannot DETERMINE their free choices (that would negate their freedom). It is logically possible that every creature God could create suffers from 'transworld depravity' — that in any world in which they are free, they would go wrong at least once. If so, then even an omnipotent God could not actualise a world containing free creatures who always do right, because which choices they would freely make is not up to God. So it is at least POSSIBLE that God could not create a world with moral good but no moral evil — which is all the defence needs to refute the LOGICAL problem.

The crucial dialectical point is what the defence needs to achieve. Against the LOGICAL problem, Plantinga need only show that '(1) God is omnipotent and good' and '(3) moral evil exists' are logically COMPATIBLE — that there is no contradiction — and for that it suffices to describe a POSSIBLE state of affairs (free creatures whom God cannot make always do right) in which both hold. He need not claim it is TRUE, or even probable, only possible; a single consistent possibility defeats a claim of contradiction. On this modest task, the free-will defence is very widely regarded as successful: it shows God and moral evil are not logically incompatible, so the logical problem of evil fails.

Two major objections remain, and they show the defence's limits. First, NATURAL evil: earthquakes, disease and animal suffering are not caused by human free choices, so the free-will defence does not obviously cover them. Plantinga's controversial reply invokes the POSSIBILITY that natural evil is caused by the free choices of non-human agents (fallen angels/demons) — a suggestion he offers only to show LOGICAL compatibility (it need only be possible), not as a plausible theodicy; critics find it desperate, and most theists prefer to fold natural evil into a soul-making theodicy (next section) or to argue that a law-governed natural order (which requires the possibility of natural harm) is itself a necessary condition of free, responsible agency. Second, Mackie's original challenge can be pressed further: even granting libertarian freedom, could God not have created only those free creatures He foreknew would freely do right (if there are any such), or intervened to prevent the WORST misuses of freedom without destroying freedom entirely? The defender replies via transworld depravity and via the value of a freedom robust enough to permit real moral stakes. A balanced verdict is that the free-will defence decisively answers the LOGICAL problem of moral evil (it establishes possibility), but that it is much weaker against the EVIDENTIAL problem (it does not show the ACTUAL quantity and distribution of evil is not gratuitous) and struggles with natural evil (its demon hypothesis is a bare logical possibility, not a credible theodicy) — which is why a full theistic response typically supplements it with a soul-making theodicy.

Worked example

Plantinga's reply to Mackie

Explain how Plantinga answers Mackie's claim that God could have made free beings who always do right.

Mackie's claim
Since it is logically possible for a person to freely do right on any occasion, it is possible on every occasion; so God could have created free beings who never sin.
Plantinga's move
Whether a free creature does right is up to the CREATURE; God cannot determine free choices without destroying freedom, so God cannot GUARANTEE the outcome.
Transworld depravity
It is possible that every creature God could create would, if free, go wrong at least once (suffers transworld depravity); then no world of free creatures who always do right is available to God.
What it shows
This is only POSSIBLE, but that suffices: it shows 'God is omnipotent and good' and 'moral evil exists' are logically compatible, defeating the logical problem.

Result: Plantinga answers Mackie by showing that guaranteeing right free choices is not within God's power, so the coexistence of God and moral evil is logically possible — the logical problem of moral evil is thereby defeated.

Typical mistakes

Presenting the free-will defence as a full theodicy explaining WHY God actually permits evil; Plantinga offers a DEFENCE — a possible reason showing mere compatibility.
Assuming the defence covers natural evil straightforwardly; natural evil is not caused by human free choice, and the fallen-angels reply is offered only as a logical possibility.

Active revision

'The free-will defence solves the problem of evil.' Is this claim true? Defend your answer. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

The soul-making theodicy (Hick)#

AdvancedAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Hick's soul-making theodicy

Fig. 5The world's hardships enable free moral development, at an epistemic distance, completed for all by universal salvation.

John Hick's soul-making theodicy (Evil and the God of Love, 1966), developing themes from Irenaeus, is a full THEODICY — it aims to justify why a good God actually permits evil, not merely to show compatibility. Its central claim is that the world is a 'vale of soul-making': God's purpose is not to create ready-made perfect beings, but to create immature creatures who, through freely facing and overcoming challenges, DEVELOP into mature moral and spiritual beings fit for relationship with God. On this view humans are created 'in the image' of God but must GROW into His 'likeness' through their own free effort — and this growth requires a world containing genuine hardship, suffering and moral challenge.

The theodicy explains both moral and natural evil as necessary conditions of soul-making. A world without suffering — a hedonistic paradise — would be a poor environment for developing virtue: courage, compassion, patience, generosity and self-sacrifice can only develop in response to real danger, real need and real suffering. These 'second-order goods' (virtues) logically require 'first-order evils' (hardships) to be exercised against; a world with no suffering would be a world with no occasion for moral growth. Natural evil, on this account, is not a problem but a requirement: a stable, law-governed natural order that operates 'as if there were no God' (Hick's 'epistemic distance') provides the genuine challenges and the freedom from coercion that soul-making needs.

Two further features are central. First, EPISTEMIC DISTANCE: God remains hidden, not overwhelmingly evident, because if God's existence and will were obvious and undeniable, humans could not freely choose to become good — they would be coerced by the sheer presence of God. The ambiguity of the world, in which God is not forced upon us, preserves the free space in which authentic moral and spiritual development is possible. Second, and controversially, Hick embraces UNIVERSAL SALVATION: because the soul-making process is often not completed in this life (many suffer terribly and die unfulfilled), Hick holds that it must CONTINUE beyond death, and that ultimately ALL will be brought to the intended fulfilment — for otherwise the suffering of those whose soul-making fails would be pointless, and God's purpose would be defeated. Only universal salvation, he argues, can justify the immense suffering of the world by guaranteeing that it all serves the good end for everyone.

Evaluation weighs the theodicy's strengths against serious objections. Its strengths: it engages both moral and natural evil directly (both serve soul-making), it takes human freedom and development seriously, and it offers a positive purpose for suffering rather than mere compatibility. Its difficulties are grave. First, the objection from the QUANTITY and DISTRIBUTION of evil (D. Z. Phillips, and the evidential problem): much suffering seems FAR in excess of what soul-making could require, and much is soul-DESTROYING rather than soul-making — it crushes, embitters and dehumanises rather than ennobling; the Holocaust and the suffering of small children and animals do not obviously 'make souls'. Second, the objection that using people's suffering as a MEANS to soul-making (their own or others') treats them as means, and that a good God could surely achieve moral maturity by a less brutal route. Third, universal salvation raises its own problems: it seems to make moral effort pointless (all are saved regardless), it strains justice (the torturer and the tortured reach the same end), and it is a large, unargued theological commitment. Fourth, Phillips objected that it is morally corrupting even to CONTEMPLATE justifying horrendous suffering as a divine teaching tool. A balanced judgement is that the soul-making theodicy is more ambitious than the free-will defence — it addresses the evidential problem and natural evil, and gives suffering a purpose — but that it is correspondingly more vulnerable: it strains against the sheer quantity of gratuitous, soul-destroying suffering, and its reliance on universal salvation and on treating suffering as instrumental are serious costs. Whether it succeeds depends on whether one finds the goods of freely-achieved moral maturity great enough, and the eventual fulfilment certain enough, to justify the actual horrors of the world — a judgement on which the topic turns.

Worked example

The soul-destroying objection

Explain the objection that much suffering is soul-destroying, not soul-making, and a possible reply.

Hick's claim
Suffering enables the development of second-order virtues (courage, compassion), so it serves God's purpose of soul-making.
The objection
Much suffering does not ennoble but crushes — it embitters, traumatises and dehumanises; the suffering of murdered children or tortured victims makes no souls.
Distribution too
Suffering is vastly excessive and unfairly distributed relative to any developmental need, which soul-making cannot explain.
Hick's reply
Universal salvation ensures the process is completed BEYOND death for those crushed here, so no suffering is ultimately wasted — but this relies on a large, unargued eschatological claim.

Result: The soul-destroying and distribution objections are powerful: much suffering does not obviously make souls, and Hick can answer only by leaning on universal salvation (completion beyond death), which carries its own heavy costs — so the theodicy is strained by the evidential problem it set out to meet.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the soul-making (Irenaean/Hick) theodicy with the Augustinian free-will theodicy; soul-making sees evil as developmentally NECESSARY, not as a fall from an original perfection.
Omitting universal salvation and epistemic distance; both are essential to Hick's account (the first to justify uncompleted suffering, the second to preserve free development).

Active revision

'Suffering is necessary for the development of virtue, so a good God permits it.' Assess this claim. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

Do the theodicies succeed?#

AdvancedAQA 7172 3.3 Metaphysics of God — The problem of evilDfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Matching responses to problems

Fig. 6The free-will defence answers the logical problem; the theodicies and sceptical theism engage the evidential problem.

A final judgement must match each response to the version of the problem it addresses. Against the LOGICAL problem (evil and God are incompatible), the free-will defence is very widely regarded as SUCCESSFUL: Plantinga shows it is at least logically possible that God could not create free creatures who always do right, so God and moral evil are not contradictory. Since a defence need only exhibit a possibility, the logical problem of evil is generally conceded to fail, and few philosophers now press it. The live debate is therefore over the EVIDENTIAL problem — whether the observed evil makes God improbable — where a mere possibility is not enough and the theist must show the actual evil is not gratuitous.

Against the EVIDENTIAL problem, the responses are weaker and more contested. The free-will defence does not by itself address the QUANTITY and distribution of evil (it shows moral evil is possible, not that its actual extent is justified) and struggles with natural evil. The soul-making theodicy is more ambitious — it gives suffering a purpose and covers natural evil — but is strained by the sheer amount of apparently gratuitous, soul-destroying suffering and relies on the contested doctrine of universal salvation. Sceptical theism offers a different route: it grants we cannot SEE how the evils are justified but denies that this shows they are unjustified, blocking Rowe's inference at the cost of a scepticism some find corrosive. The theist's strongest overall position combines these: the free-will defence for the logical problem, a soul-making or greater-good framework plus sceptical theism for the evidential problem.

The atheist's rejoinder is that this combination, while not refuted, is not what we should EXPECT if a perfectly good, omnipotent God existed — the world looks far more like the product of indifferent natural forces than of perfect benevolence (Hume's point), and each theistic move (transworld depravity, fallen angels, universal salvation, sceptical theism) is an increasingly elaborate and ad hoc epicycle to protect a hypothesis the evidence strains. The evidential problem, on this view, does not prove God's non-existence but tilts the probabilities against theism, and forms the atheist's side of the cumulative case that the arguments for God (design, cosmological) form the theist's side. Which cumulative case is stronger then depends on how much weight the problem of evil is allowed to carry against the considerations in God's favour.

For an A-Level judgement, the defensible position states its standard clearly. If the question is the LOGICAL problem, the honest verdict is that it fails — the free-will defence succeeds in showing compatibility. If the question is the EVIDENTIAL problem, the verdict is genuinely contested: the theodicies and sceptical theism block a proof of God's non-existence, but the quantity and character of gratuitous, horrendous suffering remain powerful evidence against theism, so a candidate may reasonably conclude that the problem of evil, while not a disproof, is the strongest consideration against God's existence and shifts the burden onto the theist. What earns the marks is engaging the specific responses (not just asserting 'evil disproves God'), distinguishing the two problems, and defending a judgement that names its standard and acknowledges the strongest opposing move (sceptical theism or soul-making).

The topic is the hinge of the whole metaphysics-of-God unit. It presupposes the concept of God analysed in the concept-and-nature topic (the attributes that generate the problem), and it is the decisive weight on the atheist's side of the cumulative case that the ontological, teleological and cosmological arguments build on the theist's side — so a judgement here interacts with judgements there. It also connects to moral philosophy (the free-will defence assumes libertarian free will, contested in the metaphysics of mind and in debates about determinism) and to religious language (whether 'God is good', in the face of such suffering, remains a meaningful, truth-apt claim). The problem of evil is thus where the concept of God, the arguments for God, and the meaning of religious language all converge under maximum pressure.

Worked example

Model 25-mark plan: does the problem of evil disprove God?

Plan an essay defending a judgement on whether the problem of evil shows God does not exist.

Thesis
The logical problem fails (the free-will defence answers it), but the evidential problem is powerful; evil does not DISPROVE God but is the strongest evidence against theism.
AO1
Distinguish the logical (Mackie) and evidential (Rowe) problems; state the free-will defence and the soul-making theodicy.
Logical problem
Concede it fails: Plantinga shows God and moral evil are logically compatible (possibility suffices).
Evidential problem
The quantity of gratuitous, soul-destroying suffering strains the theodicies; sceptical theism blocks a disproof but at a cost; the theist's moves look increasingly ad hoc.
Judgement
Conclude that evil does not logically disprove God, but tilts the cumulative case against theism; whether it is decisive depends on the weight of the arguments FOR God (design, cosmological).

Result: A defensible judgement: the problem of evil does not disprove God (the logical problem fails), but the evidential problem is a powerful, unrefuted consideration against theism whose weight is settled only within the wider cumulative case.

Typical mistakes

Concluding 'evil disproves God' without engaging the free-will defence and theodicies; the logical problem is generally conceded to fail, so the real target is the evidential problem.
Failing to distinguish the two problems in the judgement; a response that defeats the logical problem (possibility) may leave the evidential problem (probability) untouched.

Active revision

'The problem of evil shows that God does not exist.' Is this claim true? Defend your answer. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

Key points

Why the attributes generate the problem

Key points

Locating the target premise

Key points

Sceptical theism assessed

Key points

Plantinga's reply to Mackie

Key points

The soul-destroying objection

Key points

Model 25-mark plan: does the problem of evil disprove God?

Sources

The problem of evil

Key points

Why the attributes generate the problem

Key points

Locating the target premise

Key points

Sceptical theism assessed

Key points

Plantinga's reply to Mackie

Key points

The soul-destroying objection

Key points

Model 25-mark plan: does the problem of evil disprove God?

Sources