The strongest argument against faith, stated at full strength. What the usual replies do and do not achieve, and what Scripture actually does with it.
The argument known as Epicurus God good and evil is the oldest serious objection to faith there is, and it deserves to be stated at full strength rather than knocked down.
Is God willing to prevent evil but unable? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then where does evil come from.
We are not going to pretend that has an easy answer. What we will do is show where it is weakest, where it is strongest, and what Scripture actually does with the question, which is not what most apologetics does.
The wording reaches us through a Christian writer around AD 300, in his book On the Anger of God, where he sets it up in order to argue against it.
Lactantius credits it to Epicurus, who died around 270 BC. Scholars debate whether Epicurus framed it this way or whether Lactantius is reworking a later sceptical source.
He did not deny that gods exist. He held that they exist in perfect tranquillity and take no interest in human affairs, which is a different position from atheism.
The argument stands or falls on its own. Pointing out that the attribution is uncertain is a footnote, not a rebuttal, and using it as one is dishonest.
Notice who preserved it. The clearest surviving statement of the strongest argument against God was written down by a Christian, on purpose, so it could be engaged with.
Four answers are usually offered. Two are strong, one is partial, and one should be retired.
Love that cannot be refused is not love, so a world with genuine choice must permit genuine harm. This handles evil people do. It does not handle earthquakes.
Some goods, like courage and compassion, cannot exist without hardship. True as far as it goes, and it does not scale to a child dying of cancer.
We are not positioned to rule out reasons we cannot see. Logically sound, and useless as comfort, which is why it should almost never be said out loud to a grieving person.
This one should be retired. It is not in Scripture, it makes God the author of the harm, and it has done more damage at funerals than the argument it is answering.
Every honest version of these admits the same thing: they reduce the pressure, they do not remove it. Anyone claiming to have fully solved this is overselling, and the people who have actually suffered can tell.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
This is the part that surprises people, and it is the reason we can hold the question without flinching.
The Bible contains a whole book on this, and God does not answer the question in it. Job demands an explanation for thirty-seven chapters. God finally speaks, and Kathryn Schifferdecker's summary is accurate: “God does not even acknowledge Job's suffering”. He asks Job about wild goats and ostriches instead.
And the friends, who spent the whole book constructing explanations, are the ones God is angry with. Job 42:7 says they have not spoken what is right about Him, and Job, who accused God to His face, has. That should be sobering for anybody who has ever tried to explain somebody's tragedy to them.
The same pattern runs everywhere. Psalm 88 ends in darkness with no resolution, and it stayed in the hymnbook. Habakkuk opens by asking how long God will not listen. Jesus quotes Psalm 22 from the cross, and that psalm begins with the question rather than answering it.
So we do not teach that this has been solved. We teach that Scripture treats the question as legitimate, gives it space, and refuses to defend God with an explanation. That is a far more honest position than the one where every hard thing gets a reason attached to it, and it is the position the Bible itself takes.
In the book of Job, who does God say spoke wrongly about Him?
Job 42:7. God's anger is directed at the three friends because they have not spoken what is right about Him, as Job has. The explainers are wrong and the man who protested is right.
Given all that, what is left? The answer is not an argument. It is a claim about where God was.
“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”
Isaiah 53:3Whatever else Christianity claims, it does not claim God stayed outside it. The central image of the faith is an execution.
Jesus wept, at a funeral, knowing He was about to raise the man. The grief was not made unnecessary by the outcome, and He did not skip it.
The whole creation has been groaning. Paul calls the present situation broken and does not explain it away, in the same chapter where he says nothing can separate us.
He will wipe every tear. The promise is that it ends, not that it made sense. Those are different consolations and Scripture offers the first.
That is not a logical solution to the trilemma and we are not presenting it as one. It is a different kind of answer to a different question, and the question people are usually asking is the second one.
There are two versions of this question and they need completely different responses, which is where most Christians go wrong.
One is philosophical, asked calmly, usually by somebody who wants to think it through. That one deserves the arguments, laid out honestly, with the weaknesses admitted. It is a good conversation and it can go for hours.
The other is asked at three in the morning by somebody whose child has died. That one is not a request for a position. Answering it with free will and soul-making is not just unhelpful, it is a category error, and it is what Job's friends did.
The friends, incidentally, got the first week right. Job 2:13 says they sat with him on the ground for seven days and nights and nobody said a word, because they saw how great his suffering was. Everything went wrong when they started talking.
So if somebody brings you this question, work out which one it is first. And if you are the one asking it from the second place, you are in good company, and the Bible has a lot more room for that than most churches do.
For related ground, see what sovereign means, the attributes of God, Jehovah Rapha, why have you forsaken me, who Satan is, judgement day and whether animals go to heaven.
The argument is genuinely strong and reaches us through a Christian who wrote it down to engage it, the usual answers reduce the pressure without removing it, Scripture never explains suffering and is angry at the men who tried, and the Christian claim is about where God was rather than why.
Then this page has not answered your question, and no page could. What happened to you was not a lesson and it was not sent. You are allowed to be angry about it, and the Bible has whole books written by people who were. Send it to us and a real person will sit with it, and nobody will try to explain it to you.
This one is worth more than a page and we are happy to have it properly. Send your questions in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will work through them with you.
Is God willing to prevent evil but unable, in which case He is not all-powerful? Is He able but not willing, in which case He is malevolent? Is He both able and willing, in which case where does evil come from? It is the oldest serious objection to faith and it deserves to be stated at full strength rather than caricatured.
The wording reaches us through Lactantius, a Christian writer around AD 300, in his book On the Anger of God, where he sets it up in order to argue against it. He credits Epicurus, who died around 270 BC, and scholars debate whether Epicurus framed it this way. The argument stands or falls on its own either way, so the attribution is a footnote rather than a rebuttal.
Free will, which handles evil people do but not earthquakes. Soul-making, which is true as far as it goes and does not scale to a child dying of cancer. Limited vantage point, which is logically sound and useless as comfort. And everything happens for a reason, which is not in Scripture, makes God the author of the harm, and should be retired.
No, and that is worth knowing. Job demands an explanation for thirty-seven chapters, God finally speaks, and never addresses the question. Psalm 88 ends in darkness with no resolution. Habakkuk opens by asking how long. Jesus quotes Psalm 22 from the cross, which begins with the question rather than answering it.
The friends. Job 42:7 says they have not spoken what is right about Him, as Job has. The men who spent the book constructing explanations for his suffering are the ones in the wrong, and the man who accused God to His face is not. They got the first week right, sitting in silence for seven days, and everything went wrong when they started talking.