The Problem of Evil

When talking to non-academics, everyday Christians usually set aside complex theological jargon and focus on practical, personal, and scriptural explanations.

The most common ways everyday Christians explain pain, suffering, and the state of the world include:

1. "Human Free Will & Choice"

• The Phrase:"God didn't cause this; human choices did."
• The Idea:God gave humanity real free will so that love and choice could be genuine.However, that freedom comes with the ability to make bad, selfish, or evil decisions.
• Everyday Example:"If someone drinks and drives and causes a crash, God didn't cause that crash—the driver made a terrible decision that hurt an innocent person."

2. "We Live in a Fallen World"

• The Phrase:"The world is broken right now, but it won't always be."
• The Idea:Because of original sin (the Fall), the natural world itself is corrupted. Sickness, natural disasters, cancer, and death aren't necessarily God targeting individuals; they are just part of living in a damaged, imperfect world.
• Everyday Example:"Storms and diseases happen because this world isn't Paradise anymore. We're living in a broken place."

3. "God Has a Bigger Plan We Can't See"

• The Phrase:"God works all things together for good" (quoting Romans 8:28) or "God's ways are higher than ours."
• The Idea: Human beings see life like looking through a tiny keyhole, while God sees the entire picture. Pain that feels useless to us might be building character, helping someone else down the road, or preventing a bigger tragedy.
• Everyday Example:"It’s like a child getting a painful shot at the doctor’s office. The kid thinks their parent is being cruel, but the parent knows it's saving their life."

4. "God Walks With Us Through It"

• The Phrase:"God doesn't always stop the storm, but He stays in the boat with you."
• The Idea: Instead of explaining why bad things happen, this response shifts to relational comfort. Christians point out that God isn't distant—Jesus suffered personally on the cross, so God deeply understands human pain and grieves alongside us.
• Everyday Example:"God didn’t make you sick, but He is right there in the hospital room holding your hand."

5. "This Life Isn't the End of the Story"

• The Phrase:"Heaven will make sense of everything."
• The Idea:An eternal perspective makes temporary earthly suffering relatively short by comparison. Any injustice, disease, or tragedy experienced on Earth will eventually be healed, judged, and set right in Heaven.
• Everyday Example:"Eternity is long. The pain we go through here is real, but it's just the first page of a story that ends in absolute peace."

6. The "Mystery" Answer

• The Phrase:"Honestly, I don't know why, but I trust Him."
• The Idea:Pointing to biblical figures like Job, many Christians openly admit that humans simply don't have all the answers.Rather than offering a neat explanation, they fall back on personal faith and trust in God's character despite the confusion.

To avoid special pleading, an argument must not simply invent a one-time, arbitrary pass for God or a premise (e.g., "Rules of logic apply to everything, except God when He faces a contradiction"). Instead, valid responses modify the core definition, accept consistent trade-offs, or point out logical overreaches in the problem itself.

Below are the primary ways philosophers address the Problem of Evil without committing special pleading:

1. Alvin Plantinga’s Free Will Defense (Logical Solution)

Instead of creating a special exception, this response uses basic modal logic to show that the coexistence of God and evil is not a logical contradiction.

• The Argument:True moral free will requires the genuine capacity to choose between good and evil.It is logically impossible even for an omnipotent being to force a creature to freely choose only good.
• Why it isn't Special Pleading: It does not claim God gets an "exception" to omnipotence. Rather, it applies the consistent rule that omnipotence means the power to do everything that is logically possible. Creating a "forced free choice" is a self-contradiction (like a square circle), not a limitation of power.
• PS I do not believe free will exists in the sense that most people do. I fall along the lines of a Sovereign God predestining things.

2. The Skeptical Theism Response (Epistemic Solution)

This approach targets the hidden assumption in the problem rather than giving God a pass.

• The Argument: The Problem of Evil often relies on the premise: "If I cannot see a good reason for this suffering, then no good reason exists". Skeptical theism applies a standard principle of cognitive humility: a finite mind should not expect to comprehend every variable known to an infinite mind.
• Why it isn't Special Pleading: It applies a standard rule of evidence (known as the Nosceutum inference). For example, a doctor not seeing bacteria with the naked eye does not mean bacteria aren't there. Pointing out human cognitive limits is a consistent rule of logic, not an ad-hoc excuse.

3. Re-defining the Premise (Structural Solutions)

Special pleading occurs when you keep a rule but arbitrarily exempt one subject. These responses avoid the fallacy by outright changing or rejecting one of the starting premises for all cases:

• Process Theology / Open Theism: Re-defines "omnipotence" universally. It posits that God operates through persuasion rather than absolute causal control over every event. Because God lacks unilateral control over all outcomes by definition, the existence of evil is consistent across the board.
• The "Privatio Boni" (Privation of Good): Formulated by Augustine, this argues that evil is not a created "thing," but rather the absence or corruption of good (like cold being the absence of heat). Since evil is a deficit rather than a substance, God did not create a "thing" called evil.

How to Spot the Difference