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This chapter and the next explore explanations of animal suffering in which the overriding goods arising from the permission of animal suffering do not accrue to animals themselves. The most common theistic explanation of natural evil holds that it is a byproduct of an outweighing good feature of the world, namely, that the world is governed by stable, regular laws of nature (‘nomically regularity’). If such regularity has (natural) evil as a byproduct (perhaps including animal pain), those byproducts are morally permissible as long as the good of nomic regularity is outweighing. While it can plausibly be argued that nomic regularity is a good feature of the world, even one that outweighs substantial evil byproducts, it is implausible to hold that the animal pain and suffering in our world is a necessary consequence of such a good. The chapter argues that explanations of this sort ultimately fail on their own either because they cannot explain the reality of pre-human animal suffering and/or the existence of animals with mental capacities that render them liable to pain.

Despite the complacent reaction of many theologians, Darwinism remains a dangerous idea for any religion that embraces a doctrine of creation. In particular, the evolutionary perspective—especially Darwin's fundamental insight about the inevitable role of natural selection—presents a profound challenge to explanatory Christian theodicy. This chapter addresses the ways in which our understanding of natural and moral evil needs to be reassessed in light of an evolutionary view of nature and of human beings as a part of nature. But it goes beyond this cognitive task to discuss the appropriate spiritual attitudes that Christians might adopt to help them cope with their own and others' sufferings and sins in an evolutionary framework. The chapter also touches on God's action in the world, the doctrine of the Fall, the origins and status of human virtue, and the importance of theological humility.

Muslims, like other peoples of faith, have struggled to reconcile God‘s omnipotence with the persistent evils of the world, including the pain and suffering that attend illness. This chapter treats the problem of theodicy in the context of Islamic biomedical ethics. The purpose of raising the issue of suffering in the context of disease and death is not to provide a definitive solution to the problem, nor is it to absolve God of responsibility for evil by granting it a separate ontological status. The main objective in this chapter is to demonstrate the importance of understanding religious and cultural attitudes among Muslims that influence their choices in health-care and medical treatment. It addresses the relationship between theology and medicine in Islam to probe the sociological and psychological dimensions of the problem of suffering as it relates to a bioethical principle such as, “No harm, no harassment.” This principle has become the major source of bioethical decisions in the Muslim community and obliges an active response to unparalleled medical advancements in prolonging the lifespan of terminally ill patients.

The chapter begins with an examination of three philosophical theses about free will, each of which would, if true, refute Theist's attempt to reply to the argument from evil by employing the free-will defence: compatibilism; the incompatibility of free will and divine foreknowledge; and the existence of ‘middle knowledge’. It is shown how Theist can cast sufficient doubt on these theses to block Atheist's attempt at conversion. The body of the chapter is devoted to Atheist's contention that the free-will defence cannot account for ‘natural evil’. Theist is represented as employing a version of the free-will defence that postulates a primordial separation of our remote ancestors from God, and as defending the conclusion that according to this story, the suffering of human beings that is caused proximately by natural evils might also be remotely caused by the abuse of free will.

How is evil—and so much of it—possible if God, as conceived in classical theism, is sovereign in the universe? This chapter explains how moral evil (wrongdoing) can occur under God—given human freedom as a crucial element in understanding that evil—and how such natural evils as suffering in earthquakes are possible, given some plausible assumptions about the kind of universe one might think God would create. The explanation proceeds in the light of a theory of value and related points concerning the understanding of God’s possible relations to the universe conceived as divinely created.

This chapter sets forth a theodicy of natural evil. General characteristics of theodicy are discussed, including the distinction between general‐policy theodicies and specific-benefit theodicies. There is also consideration of the relationship between theodicy and different theories of providence, including Augustinianism, Molinism, and open theism. It is argued that the ‘skeptical theist defense’ against the problem of evil should be rejected because it leads to an unacceptable moral skepticism. A theodicy of natural evil is presented, and it is argued that open theism makes the prospects for such a theodicy better than they are for either Augustinianism or Molinism

The ‘higher‐order goods’ defence claims that natural evils (bad states caused by processes over which humans have no control) give humans the opportunity to react to them in the right way by actions, which otherwise they would have little opportunity to perform. Humans can show courage and sympathy in response to suffering, and by doing such good actions in difficult circumstances, gradually form their characters for good. It is good too that animals should have some opportunity for heroic actions.

The opportunity to study natural processes that produce good and bad effects gives humans the opportunity to acquire knowledge of how to produce good and bad effects themselves, and thus to make the efficacious choices, which the ‘free will defence’ sees as such a good thing. If God gave us this knowledge in some other way, this would give us too evident an awareness of his presence.

Social evil—pain and suffering caused by game-theoretic interactions among agents—has recently received attention as a newly recognized and potentially problematic kind of evidence against theism. After an initial introduction to social evil and discussion of why it might be thought to constitute evidence against theism, I argue that social evil is in fact much rarer than it might initially appear to be, at least when we adopt a Christian ethical framework. In addition, I argue that the genuine social evils that remain after scrutiny do not provide significant new evidence against the existence of God.

This chapter takes up Leibniz’s theodicy to show that while he agrees with Descartes that God’s creation is linked to His will, Leibniz claims that God’s will is an effect of His knowledge. This is not arbitrary, which would call into question the notion of ‘truth,’ but is based on the Idea that defines the unchanging essence of each thing. God must, then, create in accordance with the Idea of each particular thing, meaning that there is determinacy to His actions. God is further constrained in what He can create by virtue of His goodness: He must create the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz supports this through the introduction of a number of conceptual innovations, namely the distinction between natural, moral, and metaphysical evils and that between God’s antecedent and consequential wills. The result is a conception of evil that holds it to be a necessary part of God’s plan for existence, which admits the least amount of evil required for God to create the best of all possible worlds.

Social evil is any pain or suffering brought about by game-theoretic interactions of many individuals. This chapter introduces and discusses social evil. It begins with social evil brought about by game-theoretic interactions of rational moral individuals. The problem social evil poses for theism is distinct from the problems of natural and moral evils. Social evil is not a natural evil because it is brought about by the choices of individuals. But social evil is not a form of moral evil because each individual actor does not misuse his free will. Traditional defenses for natural and moral evil fall short in addressing social evil. The final section discusses social evil and virtue. It is argued that social evil arises even when all the participants are truly virtuous. The conclusion of this chapter is that social evil is problematic and provides new ground for exploring the conceptual resources of theism.

This chapter investigates how historical developments within the natural sciences—specifically, the emergence of mathematical physics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of evolutionary biology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—shaped European thought about evil. The chapter also considers how the problem of evil takes on different forms and elicits different responses as a result. The first section describes how laws of nature became fundamental to science in the early modern period and then shows how that development influenced conceptions of both moral and natural evil. The second section turns to evolutionary biology and describes the evolutionary problem of evil in its terms. The third section considers Charles Darwin’s position on the problem before examining broadly Darwinian theodicies in the fourth section.

The chapter examines philosophical approaches to the problem of evil. The philosophical arguments for the existence of God, given the presence of evolutionary evil and suffering, can in some sense be largely included under one heading: in spite of evil a greater good will be the result or is the case. Thus some argue that the high freedom of humans requires the presence of evil in the evolutionary process; others argue that a greater good as yet unknown to us will come of all the evil. Together with this argument is the argument that this world is the best of all possible worlds. This chapter accepts that there are few consistent ways forward other than to accept the paradoxical situation of good and evil we see around us, but it notes that theology has more resources to bring to this situation than does philosophy alone.

This reflection offers an overview of the development of Kant’s thought on evil from a Leibnizian starting point to his definitive stance in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. It was a journey with two significant milestones along the way. First, his recognition that what he termed “physical evil” was not evil at all but rather just the workings of nature with harmful consequences. Second, that evil, despite its negative results, is ontologically positive. The journey’s final destination was reached when Kant concluded that there is only one real evil, moral evil—the evil that we do to each other and which comes from within.