A Divine Love Theodicy

Addressing James Sterba’s and Erik Wielenberg’s Problem of Evil Arguments

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Abstract: James Sterba claims my Divine Love Theodicy does not address the working parts of his new logical problem of evil. In this paper I summarize Sterba’s new logical problem of evil, respond to it with an explanation of my Divine Love Theodicy, and point out how my theodicy does address the working parts of his logical problem of evil in that it satisfies the moral requirements he lays out. In addition, I will show that my Divine Love Theodicy also defeats Erik Wielenberg’s revised version of Sterba’s problem of evil argument which was published in 2022 in the journal Religions.

Introduction

James Sterba, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, has made a tremendously strong claim. He has not claimed that ‘because there is horrendous suffering, it is difficult to believe God exists.’ I could sympathize with that sort of sentiment. But no, instead he has claimed that ‘because there is horrendous suffering, it is logically impossible for God to exist.’ While this type of logical problem of evil was popular around the middle of the twentieth century, even many atheist philosophers came to recognize it is incredibly difficult to defend such a strong claim. This is due in large part to philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, who pointed out that all one has to do to refute such a claim is provide a possible explanation for how God and evil could both exist. It does not even have to be the actual correct explanation because, since the claim—it is impossible for both God and evil to exist— is so strong, all that is required to refute the claim is a possible scenario where God and evil both exist. If something is at least possible, then, by definition, it is not impossible.

Because the logical problem of evil faces this formidable hurdle, today many consider it to be a dead argument. Atheist William Rowe, Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, wrote “[s]ome philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of … God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim.”¹ Has Sterba successfully resurrected this logical problem of evil? Hardly. Even atheist Erik Wielenberg, Professor of Philosophy at Depauw University, wrote “[Plantinga’s] basic strategy can be used to defeat Sterba’s newer logical argument from evil….”² Wielenberg himself even proposed a possible model where God exists and permits horrendous suffering. He explained “[i]f this model is logically possible, then the first premise of Sterba’s argument is false…. Thus, Sterba’s new logical argument from evil succumbs to a modified version of Plantinga’s old free will defense.”³ It should be noted that Wielenberg went on to revise Sterba’s argument and thus proposed his own problem of evil argument which I will discuss below.

In my debate with Sterba at the University of Nebraska in April 2024, I responded to his problem of evil argument with Plantinga’s basic strategy by presenting what I called a Divine Love Theodicy.⁴ In our debate Sterba claimed my response did not address the working parts of his problem of evil argument. In this paper I will point out how my theodicy does address the working parts of Sterba’s argument in that it satisfies his proposed moral requirements. I will also address Wielenberg’s revised version of Sterba’s argument and thus argue that both Sterba’s and Wielenberg’s arguments should not lead us to conclude God does not exist.

Sterba’s Problem of Evil Argument

Sterba argues that the “horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions,”⁵ which I will refer to as horrendous suffering, is incompatible with the existence of God. As for what he means by horrendous evil, he has in mind Marilyn Adams’ definition, that is, evils “the participation in which (that is, the doing or suffering of which) constitutes prima facie reason to doubt whether the participant’s life could (given their inclusion in it) be a great good to him/her on the whole.”⁶

Sterba often begins his argument, as he did in our debate, by laying out the following three moral requirements concerning goods God could provide to us:

Prevent horrendous evil consequences when one can easily do so without violating anyone’s rights and no other goods are at stake.
Do not secure a good using morally objectionable means when you can easily secure the same good by using morally unobjectionable means.
Do not permit rather than prevent the infliction of especially horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions on their would-be victims in order to provide would-be beneficiaries with goods they would morally prefer not to have.

Sterba’s argument can be summarized as follows:

An all-good, all-powerful God would necessarily follow these three moral requirements.
If such a God followed these moral requirements, He would not allow horrendous suffering. In other words, God and horrendous suffering are logically incompatible.
In this world there is horrendous suffering.
Therefore, God does not exist.

One could push back on premise one by arguing that there might be reasons why God would not follow these moral requirements. Alternatively, one could push back on premise three by arguing that it is possible God has, in fact, prevented all truly horrendous suffering and all we actually experience in this world is what Sterba calls significant suffering, which he believes God would be justified in allowing, but since significant suffering is the worst we experience, we think of it as horrendous. However, I will push back on premise two by proposing a possible scenario where God does follow Sterba’s three moral requirements and yet still chooses to allow horrendous suffering.

My response to the problem of evil is based on aspects of previous theodicies I have found compelling combined with ideas from my Divine Love Theory.⁷ I call my response a Divine Love Theodicy instead of Divine Love Defense because I believe this scenario, or something close to it, is what actually happened in reality. But even if I am wrong about this, all that is needed to defeat Sterba’s argument is a possible scenario (it does not have to be the actual one) where God and horrendous suffering both exist, because this would show that the two are not logically incompatible. Since I am merely describing a possible scenario, I will often use phrases like might be…, may have…, and it is possible that….

Sometimes we think God could have created any set of circumstances we can imagine. People often refer to these different ways circumstances could play out as ‘possible worlds’ but I prefer the term ‘timelines,’ where each timeline includes everything that would happen from creation through eternity future. We could use the term ‘imaginable timelines‘ to refer to all the timelines we, or God, could imagine, which would be a large number indeed. For example, we can easily imagine a timeline where no one freely chooses to do evil that causes horrendous suffering, but it may be the case that this timeline would never actually happen. In other words, it very well could be that not all imaginable timelines are actually viable.

Why would some timelines not be viable? It might be the case that God imposed constraints on Himself which limited the number of timelines He could choose from. For example, He may have decided to create human beings with free will and constrain Himself from forcing them to do what He wants because that would violate their free will. Why would God impose this sort of constraint on Himself? One possible reason is that free will is required to experience the greatest good, that is, loving relationships with God and with others (this includes relationships in this life and the eternal afterlife).⁸ Since love requires free will, if God forced us to love, then that would not be real love; we would just be puppets doing what God forced us to. Nobody wants to be in a relationship with someone who is forced to love them; rather, we want to be in relationship with someone who chooses to love us.⁹

If God chose to constrain Himself from forcing us to do what He wants, then this would have limited the timelines He had to choose from. For example, let us say it is the case that I would never freely choose to wear blue shorts under any circumstances in which God would place me. If that were true, then, even though we could imagine timelines where I would freely choose to wear blue shorts, none of those timelines would actually be viable since I would never freely choose to do that, and therefore God could not choose those timelines. Of course, God could force me to choose to wear blue shorts, but if He decided not to violate our free will, then those timelines where I freely chose them would not be available for God to choose from, i.e., they would not be viable. As a side note, readers familiar with the literature on this topic will notice that what I am calling imaginable timelines and viable timelines have historically been called possible worlds and feasible worlds, respectively. I am using these different terms because they better communicate the ideas I am trying to explain, they are easier for laypeople to understand, and I figure that people who are more familiar with the older terms should be able to easily follow along.¹⁰

It might be the case that in every timeline in which God gives us free will, some, possibly all, will always choose to do evil that causes horrendous suffering. If this were true, then even though we could imagine a timeline where no one freely chooses to do evil that causes horrendous suffering, such a timeline would not be viable. Keep in mind that the number of viable timelines are a smaller subset of the larger number of imaginable timelines. If this was the scenario that God faced, then He would have had to choose between these three options:

Create no human beings.
Create a timeline with human puppets that look like they are enjoying loving relationships and that never choose to do evil that causes horrendous evil, but really God is just pulling their strings and forcing them to do these things, and thus there would not be any real love.
Create a timeline with human beings who have free will so that there would be true loving relationships, knowing that some, possibly all, would sometimes use their freedom to do evil which causes horrendous suffering.

It is reasonable to think God would choose the third option. Even though He knew it would involve some horrendous suffering, He also knew there would be real loving relationships, the value of which outweighs the suffering.

Now, within the third option there would be many different ways God could allow the circumstances to play out by, for example, placing people in different circumstances. If God is all powerful, surely He could have created a timeline almost like the one we are in but with less horrendous suffering, right? Maybe not. Keep in mind that the number of viable timelines would be limited because God constrains Himself from violating people’s free will. But could He not still orchestrate circumstances to minimize the horrendous suffering people caused by their evil choices? Maybe that is exactly what He did. Maybe, out of all the viable timelines within option three, He chose this timeline we are experiencing because this one had the least amount of horrendous suffering.

Additionally, it might be that if He prevented any specific horrendous suffering in this timeline, that would somehow lead to worse suffering later on. But could God not just step in and prevent that later suffering then too? Well, it might be that if God removed the horrendous consequences of our evil choices, then overall we would make many more evil choices. In other words, lowering horrendous suffering in this way might result, overall, in us making many more evil choices. Since evil choices themselves are intrinsically bad regardless of their consequences, it might be better overall to have many less evil choices and horrendous suffering than it would be to have no horrendous suffering and many more evil choices.

In addition, maybe minimizing evil choices and horrendous suffering was not God’s only goal. Maybe God had other goals in mind as well such as, for example, to maximize the greatest good—loving relationships with God and with others in this life and the afterlife. If that was the case, then, after evaluating every viable timeline, God chose the one that maximizes the quality and quantity of loving relationships for a given amount of horrendous suffering from our evil choices. That might be the timeline we are living in; we could be experiencing the best possible timeline, the one that maximizes loving relationships for a given amount of horrendous suffering. In game theory terminology, this timeline would be called a Pareto optimal scenario.

We might think God could lower the amount of horrendous suffering while keeping the quantity and quality of loving relationships the same, but that is impossible for us to know given our finite knowledge; we just cannot fathom all the ripple effects, either in this life or the next, that would come from adjusting various circumstances. It might not be the case that the quality and quantity of loving relationships are directly dependent upon evil and suffering, but it is reasonable to think that changing the circumstances to adjust the amount of horrendous suffering could have ripple effects that eventually affect the overall quantity or quality of loving relationships.

We might also think that the benefit of increasing loving relationships is not worth the cost of the extra horrendous suffering that might be entailed. But again, as finite beings, it is extremely difficult for us to do that sort of moral-tradeoff calculation. We tend to overestimate the cost of suffering, especially when we are in the midst of it. But if God is all-good and all-knowing, then He would know exactly how to calculate the best tradeoff and how to maximize the quantity and quality of loving relationships for a given amount of horrendous suffering.

Since this discussion is so conceptual, it might be helpful to walk through a specific hypothetical example to consider the process of how God may have chosen the particular timeline we are experiencing. Though it would be difficult to quantify, for the sake of thinking this through, let us assume we can measure the amount of horrendous suffering in a timeline on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the least amount of such suffering and 100 being the most. Let us assume we can also measure the quality and quantity of loving relationships of a timeline on a similar scale of 0 to 100.

Of all the many imaginable timelines, consider timeline #42 where loving relationships are at maximum level of 100 and horrendous suffering is at the minimum level of zero. Clearly timeline #42 would be preferable to the timeline we are experiencing, but let us say this timeline, while it is imaginable, is not viable, because if God gave us free will, there are just no circumstances in which we would all make such free choices that would result in these levels. To keep things manageable in this illustration, let us suppose, because God constrained Himself from violating our free will, that there were just a few timelines that were actually viable from which God could choose from. Consider then these six timelines:

Timeline Imaginable Viable Loving Relationships Suffering

#4 Yes Yes 30 4

#8 Yes Yes 77 21

#15 Yes Yes 98 94

#16 Yes Yes 64 18

#23 Yes No 77 20

#42 Yes No 100 0

All other timelines Yes No

Presumably, there were many more viable timelines God could have chosen from, but I will be able to illustrate the type of constraints God might have faced by limiting the list to just these. After all, it is possible, though unlikely, God only had these four viable timelines to choose from. And, keep in mind, all that is needed to defeat Sterba’s logical problem of evil is a possible explanation.

Let us say God chose timeline #8 with loving relationships at level 77 and suffering at level 21. This seems reasonable considering the other viable options He had to choose from. We, and God, could certainly imagine a timeline such as #23 in which God orchestrated the circumstances (which would include Him stepping into history at times to prevent some horrendous suffering caused by our evil choices) such that there would be slightly less suffering, level 20 instead of 21, and yet loving relationships would stay at 77. However, let us say that this timeline was not possible because changing these circumstances would cause ripple effects (I am mostly thinking here of changes to our free will choices in response to these changed circumstances) that would lower the level of loving relationships.

God may have considered #15 since it would have a much higher level of loving relationships, 98 instead of 77, but it seems reasonable that He would not choose that option because it also drastically increases the level of suffering from 21 to 94. Similarly, God may have decided against timeline #4 because, even though suffering would drop from 21 to 4, loving relationships would drop from 77 to 30.

God could have chosen a timeline, say #16, in which He orchestrated the circumstances such that the level of suffering would be lowered from 21 to 18. But let us say that because the ripple effects of these changes would lower the loving relationships from 77 to 64, God would choose not to actualize this timeline.

In this scenario, if God did choose timeline #8, would He violate any of Sterba’s three moral requirements? Consider his first moral requirement that God should prevent horrendous evil consequences when He can easily do so without violating anyone’s rights and no other goods are at stake. God would not be violating this moral requirement because, though He could easily prevent some horrendous suffering by choosing another timeline, say #16, there are other goods, namely the level of loving relationships, that are at stake if He would do so.

Next, consider Sterba’s second moral requirement that God should not secure a good using morally objectionable means when He can easily secure the same good by using morally unobjectionable means. Sterba might be begging the question here by assuming that it is morally objectionable for God to allow horrendous suffering in order to secure a good. If so, then he needs to defend, and not just assume, his contention that it is morally objectionable for God to allow horrendous suffering in order to secure a good. Regardless, God would not be violating this moral requirement because, first, I would argue that it is not morally objectionable to choose timeline #8 to secure a good (loving relationships at level 77) even though it involves allowing people’s evil choices to cause horrendous suffering at level 21. Second, God could not secure the same good (that high of a level of loving relationships) using other means (choosing a timeline with the same level of loving relationships but a lower level of horrendous suffering) because no such timelines were viable.

Lastly, consider Sterba’s third moral requirement that God should not permit the horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions on their would-be victims in order to provide would-be beneficiaries with goods they would morally prefer not to have. In order for God to violate this proposed requirement within my Divine Love Theodicy, there would have to be some people who enjoyed the good of loving relationships with God and others who, once they know all the facts involved, preferred God had not chosen the timeline in which they had these relationships because it involved God allowing some to suffer horrendous evil consequences from people’s evil choices. First, because the morality of a decision is not dependent on people’s finicky preferences about the decision, it is highly questionable why God would have to follow this proposed requirement. In other words, I think it can be successfully argued that God would be justified in choosing #8 even if not all of the beneficiaries in that timeline would have preferred God make that choice.

Second, Sterba is making the large assumption here that there would be people who enjoy these loving relationships who, once they know all the facts involved, would prefer not to have these goods because the timeline which enabled such goods included God allowing people to suffer horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions. In other words, in order to show God would fail this moral requirement, Sterba would have to establish that that there would be such people who, once they know all the facts involved, have this preference. However, it is impossible for Sterba to know if there would be people with such preferences once they know all the facts involved. It is plausible, and at a minimum at least possible (which is all that is required to defeat Sterba’s logical problem of evil), that if my Divine Love Theodicy, or something close to it, is true and something similar to timeline #8 is the actual scenario we are experiencing, then when everyone fully knows all the facts involved, there will be no people with such preferences, and so God would not violate this moral requirement either. In conclusion, my Divine Love Theodicy shows it is at least possible, and I would argue quite plausible, that God could follow Sterba’s third moral requirement and still allow horrendous suffering.

Some might think the hypothetical scenario I have presented here is not probable or even plausible. I respectfully disagree. Regardless, it does not have to be probable or plausible; it only has to be possible in order to defeat Sterba’s claim that God and horrendous suffering are logically incompatible. And there is no good reason to think this scenario is impossible. Therefore, by providing a possible scenario where God and horrendous evil both exist, I have shown that Sterba’s logical problem of evil argument fails in its attempt to argue that God does not exist.

Erik Wielenberg’s Revised Version of Sterba’s Problem of Evil Argument

As I noted above, atheist philosopher Erik Wielenberg agreed that “[Plantinga’s] basic strategy can be used to defeat Sterba’s newer logical argument from evil….”¹¹ However, Wielenberg developed a revised version of Sterba’s argument which he formulated into a dilemma for theists. In this section I will address Wielenberg’s proposed dilemma.

Wielenberg began by defining a certain category of horrendous suffering he called prima facie life-ruining (pf-life-ruining for short) as suffering which is so bad that unless it is outweighed by some vastly better good, it renders the lives of those who experience it worse than no life at all.¹² He then described God facing an Omelas situation as follows:

Suppose, then, that God faces the following dilemma: He can actualize a world in which a great many free creatures attain the great good of eternal loving union with Him only if He permits there to be one free creature that undergoes pf-life-ruining evil and that this creature not attain eternal loving union with God (or any other good that vastly outweighs the pf-life-ruining evil). In this imagined scenario, God faces what we may call an Omelas situation after Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Le Guin describes a city, Omelas, in which all the citizens save one live incredibly happy and joyous lives. However, their happiness and joy depend entirely (for reasons never fully explained) on the suffering of a single, feeble-minded child locked away in a small chamber somewhere beneath the city. Toward the end of the story, Le Guin explains that a tiny minority of Omelasians, upon coming to understand the conditions of happiness in Omelas, decide to leave Omelas altogether. Le Guin’s idea seems to be that these “ones who walk away from Omelas” correctly recognize the injustice of Omelas and their walking away symbolizes their rejection of the unjust arrangement.¹³

Wielenberg suggested that God would face a similar Omelas situation if the only option He had to create a world with free creatures who enjoyed eternal loving union with God also included at least one free creature that experiences pf-life-ruining suffering and never acquires the good which vastly outweighs that suffering, i.e., eternal loving union with God.

Wielenberg argued that if a morally perfect God faced such an Omelas situation, He would choose not to create any free creatures at all because consigning one creature to such pf-life-ruining suffering in order to attain ultimate happiness for many others is deeply unfair. He wrote that this would be “treating the sacrificed creature as a mere means, using it like a pawn in chess” and that “[d]ivine justice is incompatible with God sacrificing some creatures in order to attain salvation for other creatures.”¹⁴ He maintained it would be morally appropriate to create such a world with free creatures that experience pf-life-ruining suffering so as long as those who experience such suffering would eventually share in the vastly better good that outweighs the suffering, i.e., eternal loving union with God. In this regard he proposed the following (its name is a reference to Romans 3:8):

“Agent-Relative Pauline Principle: It is incompatible with God’s moral perfection for God to intentionally permit person P to experience pf-life-ruining evil in order to attain some good—unless that good vastly outweighs the pf-life-ruining evil, can be attained in no other way, and accrues to P.”¹⁵

After defining unredeemed pf-life-ruining evil as suffering that is not followed by a vastly greater good within the existence of the person who experiences it, he then put forth his revised version of Sterba’s argument:

Necessarily, if God exists, then God does not intentionally permit unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils.
Necessarily, if God exists and there are unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils, then God intentionally permits unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils.
So: necessarily, if God exists, then there are no unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils.
However, there are unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils.
Therefore, God does not exist.¹⁶

Wielenberg anticipates that theists would most likely challenge premise four, the notion that there are unredeemed pf-life-ruining evils, by arguing that such evils are surely redeemed somehow in the afterlife. However, he points out that if such theists are correct that premise four is false, then this has the absurd result of turning common-sense morality upside down. This absurdity follows because it would cause us to have powerful reasons to inflict pf-life-ruining evils on people in order to force God’s hand to compensate them with tremendous goods in the afterlife. He explained that a “highly effective way of carrying out such a program would be to focus on children, who are particularly vulnerable and innocent: inflict pf-life-ruining evil on a child, kill the child, and you have guaranteed a great good for the child, a good in comparison with which your evil acts are insignificant.”¹⁷ Thus he concludes by attempting to push the theist into a dilemma—either accept premise four and conclude there is no God or reject premise four and abandon commonsense morality by guaranteeing people a great good by inflicting upon them pf-life-ruining evils.

Instead of challenging premise four, I would push back against premise one which states that God does not intentionally permit unredeemed pf-life-ruining suffering. In other words, I argue that it would not be incompatible with God’s moral perfection for Him to allow unredeemed pf-life-ruining suffering in the lives of some people as long as He provides such people the opportunity to freely choose to experience a vastly better good that outweighs the suffering, i.e., eternal loving relationships with God and others. According to my Divine Love Theodicy, this is exactly what happened; though God knew not everyone who experiences pf-life-ruining suffering would choose to experience these loving relationships, He provided them the opportunity to freely choose such relationships, and thus He was morally justified in allowing such suffering. Wielenberg’s Omelas analogy breaks down because in the Omelas story the child who experienced pf-life-ruining suffering never had the opportunity to freely choose a vastly better good that would outweigh his suffering.

This first premise of Wielenberg’s argument that I am contesting is based on his Agent-Relative Pauline Principle, but I argue that this principle is mistaken because it is incomplete. This principle should be adjusted as follows:

Adjusted Agent-Relative Pauline Principle: It is incompatible with God’s moral perfection for God to intentionally permit person P to experience pf-life-ruining evil in order to attain some good—unless that good vastly outweighs the pf-life-ruining evil, can be attained in no other way, and, here is the adjustment—God gives P the free choice to receive that good or reject it.

This adjusted principle takes into consideration the choice of those who experience such suffering to freely receive or reject the outweighing good of loving relationships with God and others. In other words, God would not violate His perfect moral nature if He created a world where some free creatures experience pf-life-ruining suffering as long as God gives them the free choice to receive or reject the good that vastly outweighs the pf-life-ruining evil, namely, loving relationships with God and others.

Thus, my position accepts that there is unredeemed pf-life-ruining suffering but puts the final determination of that state into the hands of the free creatures. If their suffering is unredeemed, then it is ultimately because of their free choice, not God’s. According to my Divine Love Theodicy, even though God chooses to actualize this particular timeline, it is our choices that ultimately determine whether or not we experience loving relationships with God and others.¹⁸

To summarize, I am arguing that it is compatible with God’s moral perfection for Him to intentionally permit person P to experience pf-life-ruining suffering in order to attain some good as long as that good vastly outweighs such suffering, can be attained in no other way, and God gives P the choice to receive that good or reject it. And this is exactly what my Divine Love Theodicy proposes—that God has given us free will, which allows the possibility of pf-life-ruining suffering, in order for people to potentially enjoy loving relationships with Him and others, a good which vastly outweighs such suffering, that there was no other way to attain this good, and that God gives everyone, including those who experience such suffering, the free choice to participate in these loving relationships or reject them.

Conclusion

I am thankful that James Sterba is interested in exploring whether or not there is a God. I have enjoyed getting to know him and Erik Wielenberg personally as we have shared meals, interacted, and debated this important issue. While I appreciate their thoughtfulness, and that they are drawing people’s attention to this conversation about God, I have tried to show in this paper that their problem-of-evil arguments against the existence of God fall short.

Because horrendous suffering due to our evil choices is very real and utterly devastating, I sympathize with those who struggle to believe in God because of it. However, in this paper I have proposed a Divine Love Theodicy as a possible explanation for why God might allow this horrendous suffering. In this proposed scenario God allows horrendous suffering without violating Sterba’s three moral requirements. Therefore, at a minimum, this scenario demonstrates that horrendous suffering is not logically incompatible with the existence of God as Sterba has argued. In addition, I used my Divine Love Theodicy to show how Wielenberg’s revised version of Sterba’s argument failed to consider that God provides people the opportunity to freely choose to experience a vastly better good that outweighs their pf-life-ruining suffering. Lastly, if my Divine Love Theodicy, or something close to it, is what actually happened in reality, and I believe it has, then it helps us better understand God’s purposes in creating us and giving us free will so we can enjoy the greatest good—loving relationships with Him and with others.

While my Divine Love Theodicy relies on insights from previous free will defenses and theodicies, there are some unique aspects to it I pulled from my previous work in metaethics. In addition, hopefully I was able to explain my Divine Love Theodicy in a way that will help non-specialists understand free will defenses and theodicies and possibly shed more light on the issue even for specialists. Lastly, the most novel aspect of this paper is that it shows how a free will theodicy can address two recent attempts to revive the problem-of-evil argument.

Footnotes

[1] William L. Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335.

[2] Erik J. Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” Religions 13.782 (2022): 5.

[3] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 5–6.

[4] The debate can be watched or read at https://convincingproof.org/without-god-can-there-be-an-objective-ethics-debate/.

[5] James P. Sterba, Is a Good God Logically Possible? (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 7n1.

[6] Sterba, Is a Good God Logically Possible?, 14. Sterba quoted this from Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and Goodness of God, Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. William P. Alston (Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999), 26.

[7] Adam Lloyd Johnson, Divine Love Theory: How the Trinity Is the Source and Foundation of Morality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2023).

[8] Christian theologians have often described the greatest good we can experience as some sort of union, fellowship, communion, or friendship with God. Though it would take us beyond the scope of this paper, elsewhere I have argued that loving relationships with God and others are the very purpose and meaning life. I have also argued that loving relationships with God and others are our greatest good because, if good just is that which resembles God, such relationships resemble the ultimate good in God—the inner-trinitarian loving relationships. Johnson, Divine Love Theory: How the Trinity Is the Source and Foundation of Morality, 56–57, 154–57.

[9] The topic of free will is deep and broad. The type of free will I have in mind here has historically been called ‘agent-causal libertarian free will.’ Though it is beyond the scope of this paper, an important issue facing free will defenses such as my Divine Love Theodicy is specifically how babies, children who die young, and mentally challenged individuals meaningfully exercise freedom.

[10] In my live debate with Sterba, I actually used the term ‘possible timelines’ instead of ‘viable timelines’ for the smaller subset because I thought it would be even more understandable for laypeople, but I recognize now that using the term possible timelines for the smaller subset may cause confusion among those who are familiar with the older terms because historically the term ‘possible worlds’ was used to refer to the larger set. Oh my jargon!

[11] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 5.

[12] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 6.

[13] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 6.

[14] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 7.

[15] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 7.

[16] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 7.

[17] Wielenberg, “Sterba’s Logical Argument from Evil and the God Who Walks Away from Omelas,” 8.

[18] Because it is beyond the scope of this paper, I am only assuming, and not arguing for, the proposition that everyone does, in fact, have the option to freely choose a relationship with God. Though I hold the position that everyone does have this option, I acknowledge that this is debated within Christian theology between those, for instance, who affirm humans have libertarian free will and those who hold to a more deterministic understanding of God’s sovereignty. Certainly at a minimum we can say that it is at least possible that God gives everyone this choice.