Skip to content
Back to the question

Evidence record

Why does a good God allow suffering?

Every sentence on the exploration belongs to at least one claim below. Each says what kind of statement it is, what it rests on, what the evidence does not establish, and how far it was checked. Nothing here is a score, and none of it is a verdict on a belief or a theory.

Last checked 23 September 2026.

  • Source checked: 33
  • A judgement, not a fact: 24

If something here is wrong, misquoted, out of date or unfair, write to support@unknownoceans.com and give the claim number, which does not change.

What the question takes for granted

A philosophical and theological question, asked of a God whose existence is itself in dispute. The page separates what the ancient texts say, what philosophers argue and what the churches teach, and files the question of whether there is a hidden reason as unsettled.

  • There is a God whose reasons could be asked about

    Open

    The question is conditional for anyone who does not already believe. The page’s passage on what follows if there is no God takes the other branch.

  • God could prevent the suffering

    Contested

    Classical theism holds that God is omnipotent, and the argument depends on it. Conceptions of God that deny it dissolve the problem, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes the cost of that move for worship.

  • A good God would want to prevent it

    Contested

    This is the premise every theodicy on the page disputes: that no good could require the evil, or its possibility. The Stanford entry treats it as the point on which the abstract form of the argument turns.

  • If there is a reason, someone suffering could see it

    Open

    Evidential arguments assume that what we can see is a fair guide; skeptical theists deny it. The page now reports that disagreement rather than taking the skeptical side as settled.

How the question is labelled

Claim: The problem of evil

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Suffering

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The question

Claim: An objection older than Christianity, and one Christians have argued over since the second century.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: that argument also of Epicurus is done away.

    The earliest Christian witness to the argument names a pre-Christian philosopher as its author.

  • Supports

    Epicurus, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§1, Life

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Epicurus died from kidney stones around 271 or 270 B.C.E.

  • Supports

    St. Irenaeus, in the Catholic Encyclopediaarticle text, on his life and his lost writings

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: He was born in Proconsular Asia , or at least in some province bordering thereon, in the first half of the second century ... addressed to the Roman priest Florinus "On the Monarchy, or How God is not the Cause of Evil" (fragment in Eusebius)

    A work on the origin of evil by Irenaeus, who the same article says was a priest at Lyons in 177 or 178 and afterwards its bishop.

What this does not establish

That the argument is Epicurus’ own rests on Lactantius’ attribution; this audit read nothing on whether it survives in Epicurus’ own remains.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The oldest objection to Christianity, and the one Christians have argued about longest.” Two superlatives nothing supports. The objection is not the oldest objection to Christianity: Lactantius himself attributes it to Epicurus, who died around 270 BCE, so it predates Christianity rather than being aimed at it first. “Argued about longest” is a comparison no source makes. What can be shown is that Christians have argued it since Irenaeus in the second century.

Claim 1 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The argument was set out in four clauses in antiquity, and philosophers now argue a newer, evidential form of it alongside the old one.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.

  • Supports

    The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy§1.2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: the argument from evil can instead be formulated as an evidential (or inductive/probabilistic) argument for the more modest claim that there are evils that actually exist in the world that make it unlikely ... that God exists.

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§8

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: It is now widely agreed that this intuition is correct. Current discussions of the problem focus on what is called “the probabilistic problem of evil” or “the evidential problem of evil.”

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The argument was set out in four clauses in antiquity and has not changed shape since.” Both encyclopedias distinguish the logical (incompatibility) form from evidential forms, and the IEP reports that current discussion focuses on the evidential one. The shape has changed.

Claim 2 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: No evidence has settled either the answers or the objection, which is why this page is about what each position actually costs.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

A description of the state of the debate, and the page’s reason for its own shape.

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§6, Conclusion

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Although it might therefore be premature to declare any one side to the debate victorious, it can be concluded that, at the very least, Rowe’s evidential argument is not as easy to refute as is often presumed.

Other readings

Proponents of evidential arguments, including the authors of both encyclopedia entries cited here, hold that the evils there are do count as evidence against theism, even if the debate is not over.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Neither the answers nor the objection can be settled by evidence, which is why this page is about what each position actually costs.” “Cannot be settled by evidence” takes a side in a live dispute: evidential arguments from evil hold that evidence bears on exactly this. What is true is that nothing has settled it.

Claim 3 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A child dies of something nobody could have prevented. That sentence is the whole argument, and everything below it is an attempt to say something honest afterwards.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

A concrete case stated as the argument’s core, as the concrete formulations in the literature do.

Claim 4 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It is not a modern objection and it is not an outsider’s objection.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Follows from the next two claims: it is in the Bible and in early Christian writers.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument

    Ancient, and troubling to those who believed in providence.

Claim 5 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It is stated most sharply in the Bible itself,

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 9:22-24

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. ... If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. ... The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?

What this does not establish

Job’s complaint is an accusation addressed to God, not the four-clause argument. “Most sharply” is the page’s judgement.

Claim 6 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and argued over by Christian writers from the second century onward.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    St. Irenaeus, in the Catholic Encyclopediaarticle text, on his life and his lost writings

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: sent him (177 or 178) to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleutherius concerning Montanism ... addressed to the Roman priest Florinus "On the Monarchy, or How God is not the Cause of Evil" (fragment in Eusebius)

  • Supports · ANF, tr. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut

    Against Heresies, book 4, chapter 39Against Heresies IV.39.1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: But how, if he had no knowledge of the contrary, could he have had instruction in that which is good?

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Irenaeus of Lyon (c.130-c.202 CE)

What this does not establish

Irenaeus is the second-century witness read here. The letter to Florinus survives only in fragments, which were not read.

Claim 7 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: People still name it among their reasons for leaving.

Kind
Present-day figure. A count, survey or report finding, as the named source gives it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

One qualitative study of thirty-six people, most of them former clergy in the United States. It shows that the problem of evil is among what people who left weighed, not how often it is the reason, or that it is the commonest one.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “People still leave over it.” Uncited. The one study reachable here supports the narrower statement, that people who left name the problem of evil among what they weighed.

Claim 8 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What the argument is

Claim: What the argument is

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The argument is old, and its form has changed

Claim: The argument is old, and its form has changed

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The argument has a fixed form, and it is old” The form is not fixed: the SEP and IEP both distinguish the ancient logical form from the evidential forms that now dominate discussion.

Claim 10 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Writing early in the fourth century, the Christian author Lactantius quotes it in order to answer it, and attributes it to Epicurus, who died more than five centuries before him.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, in the Catholic Encyclopediaarticle text, on his works

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: his great work "The Divine Institutions" (Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII), written between 303 and 311. ... Another treatise, "De Ira Dei", directed against the Stoics and Epicureans, is supplementary to the "Divine Institutions"

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: that argument also of Epicurus is done away. ... but having examined the matter, we easily do away with this formidable argument.

  • Supports

    Epicurus, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§1, Life

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Epicurus died from kidney stones around 271 or 270 B.C.E.

What this does not establish

On the Anger of God is not dated to a year. The Catholic Encyclopedia places it after the Divine Institutions (303 to 311); the c. 313 in the source list is a conventional date.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “and attributes it to Epicurus.” Added so that the subtitle’s “older than Christianity” is shown on the page. The date of the treatise was also uncited; the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Lactantius is now cited for it.

Claim 11 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: "God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able."

Kind
Quotes a source. The words of a named text, checked against the source.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.

What this does not establish

An English translation of Lactantius’ Latin, which was not read.

Claim 12 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: He then works through each branch: unable is feeble, unwilling is envious, neither is both, and if God is both willing and able,

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God

Claim 13 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: "from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?"

Kind
Quotes a source. The words of a named text, checked against the source.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 14 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Lactantius records that many of the philosophers who defended providence were troubled by the argument, and almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Lactantius goes on to answer it: God permits evils because without them there would be no wisdom and no virtue.

  • Supports · ANF, tr. William Fletcher

    On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredchapter 13

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument, and are almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything, which Epicurus especially aims at

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Lactantius records that the argument troubled the philosophers who defended providence, and that some were driven by it toward saying God takes no interest in anything.” Lactantius says “many of the philosophers”, not the philosophers generally, and says they were “almost” driven to the conclusion, not that some reached it.

Claim 15 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Its form has since changed. In 1955 J. L. Mackie argued that God and evil are logically inconsistent; after Alvin Plantinga’s reply, Mackie conceded in 1982 that the argument does not show that, and discussion moved to evidential versions, which argue that the evils there are make God unlikely.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: In the second half of the twentieth century, atheologians (that is, persons who try to prove the non-existence of God) commonly claimed that the problem of evil was a problem of logical inconsistency. J. L. Mackie (1955, p. 200), for example, claimed,

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§8, quoting Mackie 1982, p. 154

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: we can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another.

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§8

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: It is now widely agreed that this intuition is correct. Current discussions of the problem focus on what is called “the probabilistic problem of evil” or “the evidential problem of evil.”

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§8

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: this is precisely the message that many philosophers took away from the debate between Plantinga and the defenders of the logical problem of evil.

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Evidential arguments from evil seek to show that the presence of evil in the world inductively supports or makes likely the claim that God (or, more precisely, the God of orthodox theism) does not exist.

What this does not establish

Mackie conceded consistency, not the argument: in the same passage he doubts that Plantinga’s defence “offers a real solution”. Tooley, in the SEP, criticises Plantinga for having focused on the abstract form at all.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Seventeen centuries later, the form of the argument is unchanged.” Contradicted by both encyclopedias cited on the page: the modern debate concedes that the logical form fails as stated and has moved to evidential forms.

Claim 16 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Job does not answer it either

Claim: Job does not answer it either

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The passage’s thesis about the book of Job, argued below.

Other readings

Other biblical books do offer explanations: retribution in Deuteronomy and Proverbs, discipline in Hebrews 12. Whether any of them answers the argument is a theological question; the page no longer says the Bible as a whole is silent.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The Bible does not answer it either” The passage is about Job only, and the Bible contains other responses to suffering (retribution, discipline). A claim about the whole Bible was not carried by one book.

Claim 17 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Job is a book about exactly this, and it is remarkable for what it refuses to do.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Introduces the reading argued in the rest of the passage.

Claim 18 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Job’s friends offer the standard explanations, that he must have deserved it, that suffering instructs,

Kind
Describes a Bible passage. What a biblical passage says, in this page’s words. A fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 4:7 (Eliphaz)

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 22:5 (Eliphaz)

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 5:17 (Eliphaz)

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.

What this does not establish

The instructive reading is also Elihu’s (Job 33 and 36), and Elihu is not among those God rebukes in 42:7.

Claim 19 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and at the end God tells the first of them “my wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has”.

Kind
Quotes the Bible. The words of a biblical text, in the translation named. That the text says it is a fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 42, World English BibleJob 42:7

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 2:11 and 4:1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite ... Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

    Eliphaz is named first and speaks first.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right”.” The quotation stopped mid-sentence, before the clause that says Job did speak rightly, which is the verse’s point and the one the page relies on later.

Claim 20 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: When God finally speaks, out of a whirlwind, the reply is not an explanation.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 38, World English BibleJob 38:1-3

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind, “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me!

Claim 21 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It is a series of questions: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?", and then the sea, the stars, the wild animals, none of which Job made or understands.

Kind
Quotes the Bible. The words of a biblical text, in the translation named. That the text says it is a fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 38, World English BibleJob 38:4, 8, 31, 39

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. ... “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb, ... “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion? ... “Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

Claim 22 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The reader has been told one thing Job never is: in the opening chapters his suffering begins as a test, allowed in order to show whether he fears God “for nothing”.

Kind
Quotes the Bible. The words of a biblical text, in the translation named. That the text says it is a fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 1:9 and 1:12

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? ... Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 3 to 42, WEB, searched for “Satan”: it occurs only in Job 1 and 2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

What this does not establish

The prologue gives the reader a reason for Job’s suffering in the story. Whether that amounts to a justification is the reader’s question; it is not offered to Job.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “” Selective without it. The passage said the book refuses to explain, and did not mention that its prologue tells the reader why the suffering began. The added paragraph states that, and that the explanation is never given to Job.

Claim 23 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: God does not mention it from the whirlwind.

Kind
Describes a Bible passage. What a biblical passage says, in this page’s words. A fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job, World English BibleJob 38:1 to 42:6, WEB, searched for “Satan”, “test” and “tried”: none refers to the wager

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

Claim 24 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A theodicy is an argument that squares suffering with a good God.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 25 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Job’s reply at the end does not supply one:

Kind
Describes a Bible passage. What a biblical passage says, in this page’s words. A fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 42, World English BibleJob 42:1-6, read in full

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Then Job answered Yahweh: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained. ... I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

What this does not establish

A statement about Job’s last speech, 42:1-6. Whether the speeches from the whirlwind amount to an answer of some other kind is argued among interpreters, and the page does not settle it.

Other readings

Some readers take the divine speeches as an answer of a kind, pointing Job to an order in creation larger than human justice; others read the prologue and the restoration in Job 42 as the book’s own theodicy.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Whatever the whirlwind is, it is not one: a text that wanted to justify suffering had its opportunity here and did something else.” Owner’s rule: only what a credible source verifies is shown. Whether the speeches from the whirlwind amount to a theodicy is contested among interpreters of Job, and the audit read the text, not the commentaries; the sentence was marked for a theologian. Narrowed to what the text shows: Job’s own reply offers no argument, in his words. The quotation is claim 66.

Claim 26 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: “I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.”

Kind
Quotes the Bible. The words of a biblical text, in the translation named. That the text says it is a fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Added with the correction recorded on claim 26.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 42, World English BibleJob 42:3

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.

Claim 66 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What the answers cost

Claim: What the answers cost

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The standard answers, and what each one costs

Claim: The standard answers, and what each one costs

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The free will defence, in Alvin Plantinga’s form, holds that a world containing genuine choice must permit its misuse, and that the good of freedom outweighs it.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4, quoting Plantinga 1974, pp. 166-167

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: A world containing creatures who are sometimes significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. ... To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, he must create creatures capable of moral evil

  • Supports

    The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy§7.2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: because of the great value of libertarian free will, it is better that God create a world in which agents possess libertarian free will, even though they may misuse it, and do what is wrong, than that God create a world where agents lack libertarian free will.

What this does not establish

As a defence, Plantinga’s argument claims only that this is possible, which is enough against the logical form; it does not claim to give God’s actual reason.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The free will defence holds that a world containing genuine choice must permit its misuse, and that the good of freedom outweighs it.” Attributed to its proponent, as the encyclopedias attribute it. “Defence” is Plantinga’s term.

Claim 30 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It speaks to cruelty, though critics ask why freedom should rule out ever stepping in, and it reaches earthquakes only through a suggestion Plantinga and C. S. Lewis both made, that free creatures other than us might be behind them.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy§7.2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: the fact that libertarian free will is valuable does not entail that one should never intervene in the exercise of libertarian free will.

  • Supports

    The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy§7.2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Thirdly, many evils are caused by natural processes, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and other weather conditions, and by a wide variety of diseases. ... Some writers, such as C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, have suggested that such evils may ultimately be due to the immoral actions of supernatural beings

  • Supports

    The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§6

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: So, the objection goes, even if Plantinga’s Free Will Defense explains why God allows moral evil, it does not explain why he allows natural evil.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It addresses cruelty well and earthquakes not at all.” “Well” was the page’s verdict on a point the SEP names as the defence’s most important objection. “Not at all” overstated: Plantinga and Lewis did extend it to natural evil, by a suggestion most critics find implausible.

Claim 31 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Soul-making, the theodicy John Hick developed from Irenaeus, holds that a world with real stakes is the only kind in which anything is grown or earned.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Inspired by the thought of the early Church Father, Irenaeus of Lyon (c.130-c.202 CE), John Hick has put forward in a number of writings, but above all in his 1966 classic Evil and the God of Love, a theodicy that appeals to the good of soul-making

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4, quoting Hick 1966, p. 362

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: there are obstacles to be overcome, tasks to be performed, goals to be achieved, setbacks to be endured, problems to be solved, dangers to be met

  • Supports

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: for only a world containing great dangers and risks, as well as the genuine possibility of failure and tragedy, can provide opportunities for the development of virtue and character.

  • Context · ANF, tr. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut

    Against Heresies, book 4, chapter 39Against Heresies IV.39.1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: Wherefore he has also had a twofold experience, possessing knowledge of both kinds, that with discipline he may make choice of the better things.

What this does not establish

Irenaeus did not write a theodicy in Hick’s sense; Hick drew on his picture of humanity as unfinished and learning through experience.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Soul-making holds that a world with real stakes is the only kind in which anything is grown or earned.” Attributed to its proponent and its source, as the encyclopedias give them.

Claim 32 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: It is weakest in the cases where a person is destroyed rather than formed, and in the cases of animals and infants, where no soul is being made.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy§7.1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: a soul-making theodicy provides no justification for the existence of any animal pain ... the soul-making theodicy also provides no account of the suffering that young, innocent children endure ... Others endure suffering so great that it is virtually impossible for them to develop those moral traits

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It is answerable in the cases where a person is destroyed rather than formed, and in the cases of animals and infants where no soul is being made.” “Answerable” reads as “able to answer”, the opposite of what was meant and of what the SEP says: these are the cases the theodicy does not account for.

Claim 33 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Skeptical theism, argued by Stephen Wykstra among others, holds that a finite mind is not in a position to rule out reasons it cannot see,

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Skeptical theism holds that a finite mind is not in a position to rule out reasons it cannot see,” Attributed to a proponent, as the encyclopedias give it.

Claim 34 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: which is close to what the whirlwind says.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

  • Context · WEB

    Job 38, World English BibleJob 38:2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Claim 35 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Its critics reply that the modesty cuts both ways: if we cannot judge what God would allow, we cannot judge what God would do either.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Skeptical Theism, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§5a

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: if skeptical theism undercuts arguments against the existence of God by highlighting the fact that we know very little about how God would act (all-things-considered), then by parity of reasoning it also undercuts arguments for the existence of God.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It is internally consistent and it buys that consistency by making the goodness of God unfalsifiable, which cuts both ways.” “Internally consistent” was the page’s verdict, not a finding of the sources. The objection is now attributed to the critics and stated as the IEP gives it.

Claim 36 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: None of these is a proof, and the serious versions of each concede what they do not reach.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Other readings

Some philosophers, Swinburne among them, are more optimistic that a theodicy can be given.

Claim 37 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What follows if there is no God

Claim: What follows if there is no God

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The problem is sometimes presented as a reason to drop the question, on the grounds that suffering in a universe with no intentions behind it requires no explanation.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

“No explanation” means no justification: suffering still has causes, but nothing has to answer for it.

Claim 39 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: That is true, and it is a real difference: nothing has to be reconciled.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

  • Qualifies

    The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: one who accepts either a divine command theory of ethics or non-realism in ethics is in no position to raise the problem of evil

    Some argue that without God there is a different difficulty: what makes suffering evil at all.

Claim 40 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: What it does not do is make the suffering smaller. It resolves an argument about consistency and leaves the thing the argument was about exactly where it was.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Follows from the preceding claim.

Claim 41 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Both positions have to live in the same world afterwards.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 42 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

The part no evidence settles

Claim: The part no evidence settles

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Section title, stating the conclusion of the passage it heads.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The part with no evidence either way” Evidential arguments hold that the evils there are are evidence. What is true is that the evidence has not settled the question.

Claim 43 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Whether there is a reason

Claim: Whether there is a reason

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Evidential arguments, William Rowe’s among the most influential, hold that the evils anyone can see make it unlikely that hidden reasons lie behind them.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Nothing anyone can examine distinguishes a world with hidden reasons from a world with none.” The sentence stated the skeptical theist position as a fact, in a passage presenting the question as open. Rowe’s argument, which both encyclopedias treat as central, denies it. The page now reports both sides.

Claim 45 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Skeptical theists answer that a reason of the kind being proposed is just the kind a person in the middle of the suffering could not expect to see.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Skeptical Theism, in the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIntroduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: If there is a God, he knows much more than we do about the relevant facts, and thus it would not be surprising at all if he has reasons for doing or allowing something that we cannot fathom.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “A reason of the kind being proposed would be, by definition, one a person in the middle of the suffering could not see.” Attributed to those who hold it, and “by definition” removed: skeptical theists argue that such reasons would not be surprising to miss, not that they are invisible by definition.

Claim 46 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: That is not a temporary limit awaiting better instruments: the disagreement is over what can be inferred from what is seen, and nothing still to be found would settle it.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The dispute is about an inference, which new observations do not change.

  • Supports

    Skeptical Theism, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy§4

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: The crucial question then becomes whether or not any of us have good reason to think that our sample of goods, evils, and the connections between them is suitably representative.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “That is not a temporary limit awaiting better instruments.” Restated so that it follows from the two positions now reported.

Claim 47 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: So the honest position is that no finding will decide this, and the confident answers on both sides are doing something other than reporting one.

Kind
Disputed. A contested point, where the page reports a side or the disagreement.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Other readings

Rowe, Tooley and Trakakis hold that the evidence we already have tells against theism; skeptical theists hold that it does not. Each would call the other’s confidence misplaced.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “So the honest position is that this is not a question evidence decides, and the confident answers on both sides are doing something other than reporting a finding.” “Not a question evidence decides” denied the evidential argument’s premise outright. The narrower claim is the page’s own judgement, marked as disputed.

Claim 48 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What is held instead

Claim: What is held instead

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Given the chance to justify Job’s suffering, God asks him about the sea.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

  • Supports · WEB

    Job 38, World English BibleJob 38:8

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb,

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “Given the chance to justify Job’s suffering, the book asks him about the sea.” The book does give the reader a reason, in its prologue. It is the speech from the whirlwind that asks about the sea.

Claim 27 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What Christianity says beyond an explanation

Claim: What Christianity says beyond an explanation

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “What Christianity says instead of an explanation” Christian teaching does explain: the Catholic Catechism gives freedom, an unfinished creation and good drawn from evil before saying no quick answer suffices. “Instead of” was contradicted.

Claim 50 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Christian teaching does offer explanations, Lactantius’ among them.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “The central Christian response is not an argument, and this is worth being exact about rather than paraphrasing charitably.” The page quoted Lactantius’ rebuttal and then said the Christian response is not an argument; the Catholic Catechism also gives reasons. The passage now says what the teaching explains and quotes what it says about the limits of that.

Claim 51 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Catholic Catechism names freedom, a creation still “in a state of journeying”, and good brought out of evil, and then says that “no quick answer will suffice” and that “only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer”.

Kind
A church’s teaching. What the named tradition teaches, from its own documents. Evidence of what is taught, not proof that it is true, and not what every Christian holds.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

What this does not establish

The Catechism teaches for the Catholic Church. Other churches were not read here and are not described by it.

Claim 52 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The whole it means includes “the goodness of creation”, “the redemptive Incarnation of his Son” and “the power of the sacraments”.

Kind
A church’s teaching. What the named tradition teaches, from its own documents. Evidence of what is taught, not proof that it is true, and not what every Christian holds.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.
Held by
Catholic

What this does not establish

Three items from a longer list in §309, which also names sin, the covenants, the Spirit, the Church and the call to a blessed life. The Catechism teaches for the Catholic Church.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “At the centre of that whole is not an argument, and this is worth being exact about rather than paraphrasing charitably.” Owner’s rule: only what a credible source verifies is shown. Saying what stands at the centre of the Christian response to suffering characterised every tradition, and only the Catholic Catechism was read; the sentence was marked for a theologian. Replaced with what the Catechism itself says the whole is.

Claim 53 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Within it is the claim that God entered the suffering: a crucifixion, which many Christians read as God’s own answer to the question of where God is when it hurts.

Kind
Statement of belief. What Christians named here hold by faith. Historical method cannot settle it either way.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.
Held by
Churches confessing the Nicene Creed

  • Supports

    Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 309 to 314: providence and the scandal of evil§312

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more", ... brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption.

    The Catholic Church reads the cross as the greatest good drawn from evil; the “where is God” reading is a modern devotional one.

What this does not establish

How far the divine nature itself suffers is answered differently across traditions and theologians.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “It is the claim that God entered the suffering rather than explaining it: a crucifixion, which the New Testament presents as God’s own answer to the question of where God is when it hurts.” The New Testament does not frame the crucifixion as an answer to “where is God when it hurts”; that is a later Christian reading and is now attributed to those who hold it. “Rather than explaining it” was contradicted by the Catechism, which does both.

23 September 2026. Previously: “It is the claim that God entered the suffering:” The sentence before it (claim 53) no longer names a centre, so this one now places the claim within the whole the Catechism lists.

Claim 54 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whether that is an answer depends entirely on whether it is true, which is a different question.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Claim 55 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: As a response to the problem it is a strange one, because it does not reduce the amount of suffering in the account by anything at all. It adds to it.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

What this does not establish

True of the crucifixion taken alone. The Christian account goes on to the resurrection and a promised end of suffering, which the page does not weigh here.

Claim 56 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What people actually do with it

Claim: What people actually do with it

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: In practice believing does not wait on a theodicy.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “In practice most believers do not hold a theodicy.” “Most believers” is a count, and there is no survey behind it. What the sources carry is that faith, in the teaching read here, does not require the question to be answered first.

Claim 58 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: What the Bible gives believers for this is closer to Job’s complaint than to Lactantius’ rebuttal: a relationship in which the question stays open.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

Complaint addressed to God, as in Job and the Psalms, rather than argument about God.

  • Supports · WEB

    Psalm 13, World English BiblePsalm 13:1

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “They hold a relationship in which the question stays open, and a great deal of Christian devotional writing is closer to Job’s complaint than to Lactantius’ rebuttal.” A claim about the body of Christian devotional writing, with nothing read behind it. Narrowed to the biblical texts the passage cites.

Claim 59 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The Psalms are full of people asking how long:

Kind
Describes a Bible passage. What a biblical passage says, in this page’s words. A fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Psalms, World English BiblePsalms 1-150, WEB, searched for “how long”: addressed to God in Psalms 6, 13, 35, 74, 79, 80, 89, 90 and 94

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

  • Supports · WEB

    Psalms, World English BiblePsalm 89:46

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?

Claim 60 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: one of them asks it four times in two verses.

Kind
Describes a Bible passage. What a biblical passage says, in this page’s words. A fact about the text, separate from whether an event happened.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports · WEB

    Psalm 13, World English BiblePsalm 13:1-2

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026

    The source reads: How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? [2] How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

Claim 61 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: And people have left over it, having found the answers inadequate.

Kind
Present-day figure. A count, survey or report finding, as the named source gives it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

One qualitative study; it does not say how many people leave for this reason.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “And a great many people have left over this, having found the answers inadequate to something that happened to them.” “A great many” is a count nothing supports, and the one study read describes reflection on the argument rather than a triggering event. Narrowed to what it shows.

Claim 62 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Those are not two kinds of people who failed to think it through. They are two things a person can do with a question that has no demonstration on either side.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s conclusion, following from the claims that the question is unsettled.

Corrected

23 September 2026. Previously: “They are the two things a person can do” The page itself describes a third, holding a theodicy; “the two things” excluded it.

Claim 63 · checked 23 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What was read

  • On the Anger of God, chapter 13: the argument of Epicurus, quoted and answeredLactantius, Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 7, New Advent · On the Anger of God, chapter 13 in full, tr. William Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 7, New AdventThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Public domainNew Advent spaces some punctuation after linked words; excerpts use ordinary spacing.
  • Job 38, World English BibleeBible.org, public domain · World English Bible, eBible.orgThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • Job 42, World English BibleeBible.org, public domain · World English Bible, eBible.orgThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • The Problem of Evil, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyMichael Tooley, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Problem of Evil”, by Michael Tooley; first published 16 September 2002, substantive revision 3 March 2015Read in full, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; quoted brieflyThe author is himself a proponent of evidential arguments from evil, and his assessments of the theodicies are critical. Sections 1, 2, 5.1 and 7 were read closely.
  • Psalm 13, World English BibleeBible.org, public domain · World English Bible, eBible.orgThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, in the Catholic EncyclopediaPatrick Healy, Robert Appleton Company, New Advent · Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), article by Patrick Healy, New AdventRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Public domainGives the Divine Institutions as written between 303 and 311 and On the Anger of God as supplementary to it, without a year of its own.
  • Epicurus, in the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyTim O’Keefe, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Epicurus”, by Tim O’Keefe, §1 (Life)The cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; quoted briefly
  • The Logical Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyJames R. Beebe, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Logical Problem of Evil”, by James R. BeebeRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; quoted brieflyThe author judges Plantinga’s defence successful against the logical problem; that is his assessment, reported as such.
  • Job, World English BibleeBible.org, public domain · World English Bible, eBible.org verse-per-line edition (eng-web_vpl), Job 1 to 42 read and searchedRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • The Evidential Problem of Evil, in the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyNick Trakakis, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Evidential Problem of Evil”, by Nick TrakakisRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; quoted brieflyThe author concludes that Rowe’s argument is resilient and that the skeptical theist objection is inadequately supported; used here for what the positions are, not for his verdict.
  • Skeptical Theism, in the Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyJustin P. McBrayer, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Skeptical Theism”, by Justin P. McBrayerRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; quoted briefly
  • Against Heresies, book 4, chapter 39Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1, New Advent · Against Heresies IV.39, tr. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1, New AdventThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • St. Irenaeus, in the Catholic EncyclopediaAlbert Poncelet, Robert Appleton Company, New Advent · Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), article by Albert Poncelet, New AdventRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 309 to 314: providence and the scandal of evilThe Holy See · Catechism of the Catholic Church, English text, vatican.va, paragraphs 309 to 314 in fullThe cited passage was read, 23 September 2026 · Copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana; quoted brieflyThe vatican.va text prints footnote numbers inline; excerpts skip them with “...”.
  • Psalms, World English BibleeBible.org, public domain · World English Bible, eBible.org verse-per-line edition (eng-web_vpl), Psalms 1 to 150 searchedRead in full, 23 September 2026 · Public domain
  • How Do Religious People Become Atheists? Applying a Grounded Theory Approach to Propose a Model of DeconversionSergio Pérez and Frédérique Vallières, Secularism and Nonreligion · Secularism and Nonreligion 8 (2019), article page at secularismandnonreligion.org, read in fullRead in full, 23 September 2026 · CC BY 3.0Qualitative: thirty online testimonies of former clergy, mostly in the United States, and six interviews recruited through Atheist Ireland. It ranks no reasons and counts nothing.