PY407-5-SP-CO: Philosophy and Religion – The Problem of Evil

Assessment Brief

Institution: University of Essex

Module code: PY407-5-SP-CO

Module title: Philosophy and Religion

Level: Undergraduate, Level 5

Study session: Spring 2026

Assessment type: Essay plan plus final research essay

Weighting: Essay plan 30 percent; final essay 50 percent; Moodle quizzes 20 percent

Final essay length: 2,000 words, excluding reference list

Essay plan length: Two pages

Referencing style: Harvard or APA 7th edition, as directed by the module supervisor

1. Assessment Context

This brief sets out the requirements for the University of Essex module PY407-5-SP-CO Philosophy and Religion, specifically the essay plan and the 2,000-word final essay on the problem of evil. The University of Essex publishes the assessment structure as two Moodle quizzes worth 20 percent, a two-page essay plan worth 30 percent, and a 2,000-word final essay worth 50 percent[reference:0]. The module examines formulations of the problem of evil and the main lines of response, including free will, theodicy, trial, sin, and redemption[reference:1]. The task rewards precise reconstruction of arguments and sustained critical evaluation, not a survey of every theodicy in the literature. Students who attempt to cover too many positions without analysing any of them in depth will lose marks under the critical evaluation criterion. The essay plan exists to force early decisions about argument structure and source selection before the final essay is drafted.

2. Task Description

Part A: Essay Plan (30 percent)

Submit a two-page plan for the final essay. The plan must contain five elements:

1. A clear thesis statement answering your chosen question.
2. An outline of the argument in numbered premises or bullet points.
3. A list of at least six scholarly sources you will use, with one sentence explaining what each source contributes to the argument.
4. A short paragraph identifying the strongest objection to your thesis and how you will address it.
5. A provisional reference list in the citation style specified by the module supervisor.

The plan is not a draft. It is a structural document. Marks are awarded for clarity of argument, feasibility of the proposed structure, quality of source selection, and evidence that you have identified the main counterargument.

Part B: Final Essay (50 percent)

Write a 2,000-word essay answering one of the following questions:

1. Assess the claim that the logical problem of evil is a decisive objection to classical theism.
2. Evaluate John Hick’s soul-making theodicy against the Augustinian privation theory of evil.
3. Does skeptical theism provide an adequate response to the evidential problem of evil?
4. Critically examine the claim that horrendous evils render standard theodicies inadequate.
5. Assess the relationship between free will, moral evil, and divine omnipotence in contemporary philosophy of religion.

Structure the essay around a single argument. State your thesis in the first paragraph. Reconstruct the positions you engage with charitably before criticising them. Address at least one serious objection to your own position. Conclude by stating what your argument establishes and what it leaves unresolved. Do not use the essay as a catalogue of every theodicy you have encountered. Depth beats coverage.

3. Requirements

• Cite at least eight scholarly sources in the final essay. Peer-reviewed journal articles, academic monographs, and chapters from university presses count toward the eight. Course textbooks may be cited but do not count.
• Engage at least two primary texts or positions from the module reading list. Examples include Augustine’s account of evil as privation, Hick’s soul-making theodicy, Plantinga’s free will defence, or Adams’s work on horrendous evils.
• Do not use the essay as an occasion for confessional advocacy. The task is philosophical analysis, not defence of a preferred religious position. Evaluative judgements are permitted where they follow from argument, but the essay must not read as a sermon.
• Submit the essay plan and the final essay through the module’s Moodle submission point. A similarity score above 20 percent, excluding references, will be reviewed before grading.
• Keep the final essay within 10 percent of the word limit. Footnotes and the reference list are excluded from the count.

4. Marking Rubric

5. Sample Answer Writing Help

The strongest essays on the problem of evil begin by refusing the temptation to treat every theodicy as interchangeable. John Hick’s soul-making theodicy and the Augustinian privation theory answer different questions, and conflating them produces an essay that scores poorly on reconstruction. Hick asks why a good God would permit a world containing evil at all, and he answers that soul-making requires a stable environment of challenge and risk. Augustine asks what evil is, and he answers that it is not a substance but a privation of good, a turning away from God by creatures with free will. The two accounts can coexist, but they cannot substitute for one another. Brian Earp’s argument that Hick’s theodicy cannot justify the amount and type of evil we observe presses this distinction hard: [why soul-making won’t suffice](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175623000301) as a response to horrendous suffering, even if it explains why some evil is necessary for moral and spiritual growth[reference:2]. An essay that recognises this limit and builds its thesis around it will outperform an essay that simply rehearses Hick’s position as though it settled the matter.

A second marker of quality is the treatment of the logical and evidential problems as distinct arguments with distinct burdens of proof. The logical problem claims that the existence of evil is inconsistent with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. The evidential problem concedes logical consistency and argues instead that the amount and distribution of suffering make belief in such a God unreasonable. Plantinga’s free will defence responds to the logical problem by showing that a possible world with free creatures and evil is not logically impossible. That defence does not address the evidential problem, which is why essays that invoke Plantinga against Rowe’s fawn argument miss the point. The rubric rewards students who keep this distinction visible throughout the essay and who explain why a response to one problem may leave the other untouched.

Where the essay plan earns its marks

The essay plan is not a preliminary formality. It is the point at which the argument either becomes feasible or collapses under its own ambition. A plan that lists six theodicies and promises to evaluate all of them will produce an essay that does none of them justice. A plan that selects one argument, identifies the two or three sources needed to reconstruct it, and names the strongest objection before the first draft is written will produce an essay with a spine. The 10 percent allocated to the plan is small, but the feedback it generates shapes the 50 percent essay. Students who treat the plan as a compliance exercise tend to submit final essays with structural problems that the plan would have exposed.

Common misconceptions about the evidential problem

A recurring error in student essays is the assumption that the evidential problem of evil requires atheism. It does not. The evidential problem claims that certain facts about suffering constitute evidence against the existence of God, not that they prove God’s non-existence. This distinction matters because it changes what a successful response must show. A response that demonstrates logical consistency, such as Plantinga’s free will defence, does not address the evidential claim. A response that appeals to unknown greater goods, such as skeptical theism, does address the evidential claim but at the cost of limiting what humans can know about God’s reasons. The essay that scores highest explains why the evidential problem is a probabilistic argument and evaluates responses on those terms.

Why horrendous evils change the debate

Marilyn McCord Adams’s work on horrendous evils shifts the discussion from quantity to kind. Her argument is not that there is too much evil, but that certain evils are so severe that they threaten to defeat the meaningfulness of a person’s life altogether. Standard theodicies that appeal to soul-making or free will may explain why some suffering is justified, but they struggle to explain how participation in God could defeat the damage done by horrors such as genocide or the abuse of children. Joshua Thurow’s critique of the compensation model shows that the philosophical difficulty lies not in the abstraction of evil but in the particularity of the victim’s experience[reference:3]. Essays that engage this literature demonstrate a level of scholarly depth that essays relying solely on Hick and Plantinga do not reach.

6. Conclusion

The problem of evil rewards essays that narrow their focus and deepen their analysis. I would choose a question that allows me to reconstruct two positions in detail and put them into genuine conflict, rather than a question that invites a survey. The essay plan is the place to test whether the argument has a spine; if the plan reads as a list of topics rather than a sequence of premises, the final essay will read the same way. Building the essay around one objection and one response, with a clear statement of what the response achieves and what it leaves unresolved, is a more reliable route to a high mark than attempting to cover the whole field. The rubric is designed to detect depth, not breadth.

7. References

Earp, B. D. (2024). God and the problem of evil: Why soul-making won’t suffice. Think, 23(66), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175623000301

Echazú, G. (2024). Non-ideal theory in the philosophy of religion: Exploring implications of non-ideal theorising for the problem of evil. Religious Studies, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412524000611

Hendricks, P. (2022). Causal connections, logical connections, and skeptical theism: There is no logical problem of evil. Religions, 13(7), 668. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070668

Thurow, J. C. (2020). Problems with compensation: Gleeson on Marilyn McCord Adams on evil. Sophia, 59(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0721-x

Wood, W. (2022). Compassionate theodicy: A suggested truce between intellectual and practical theodicy. Religions, 13(10), 930. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100930

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Does Skeptical Theism Provide an Adequate Response to the Evidential Problem of Evil?

Introduction

Skeptical theism gives a partial but not fully adequate answer to the evidential problem of evil. It can block a particular kind of inference: the claim that, because humans cannot see a morally sufficient reason for some suffering, no such reason exists. However, it does not explain why God permits the suffering, and it risks weakening moral judgement, trust in divine goodness, and ordinary reasoning about what people ought to do. The central argument of this essay is that skeptical theism is adequate as a defensive reply to Rowe-style “noseeum” arguments, but inadequate as a complete response to the evidential problem because it leaves the moral and religious significance of horrendous suffering unresolved.

The evidential problem differs from the logical problem. The logical problem claims that God and evil cannot coexist; the evidential problem claims that widespread, severe, or apparently pointless suffering makes theism unlikely (Hendricks, 2022). Plantinga’s free will defence may address the former, but it does not meet the latter. Skeptical theism therefore matters because it tries to answer the probabilistic challenge directly: it asks whether limited human knowledge can justify the inference from apparent pointlessness to actual pointlessness.

The Evidential Problem

William Rowe’s classic argument begins with an example of apparent gratuitous suffering: a fawn burns slowly in a forest fire and dies without any apparent good resulting from its pain. Rowe argues that an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God would prevent such suffering unless there were a morally sufficient reason to allow it. Since no such reason appears available, Rowe concludes that the suffering probably is gratuitous and therefore counts against theism (Perrine, 2022).

The argument depends on an epistemic move. It does not prove that the fawn’s suffering serves no purpose. Rather, it claims that, given human cognitive limits, the absence of a visible reason makes it reasonable to believe that no reason exists. Philosophers call this a “noseeum” inference: we cannot see a morally sufficient reason, so there probably is none. The strength of the argument lies in its modesty. It asks not for proof of atheism but for a judgement about what the facts of suffering make reasonable.

Skeptical theism responds by denying that human cognitive limits support that inference. If God’s knowledge and moral reasons greatly exceed human understanding, then humans should not expect to recognise every reason God may have for permitting evil. The absence of an apparent reason may therefore reveal little about whether a reason exists.

Skeptical Theism and CORNEA

Stephen Wykstra’s CORNEA principle supplies the main structure of skeptical theism. In rough terms, CORNEA asks whether, if a morally sufficient reason existed, a person in our epistemic position would probably be able to see it. If not, then failure to see such a reason does not justify belief that there is none. Wykstra and Perrine develop this principle as a constraint on inductive arguments from evil, arguing that Rowe-style reasoning moves too quickly from human ignorance to metaphysical conclusion (Wykstra & Perrine, 2012).

The response has force. Human beings possess limited knowledge of the future, of distant causal networks, and of the full range of possible goods. A single act of suffering may be connected to goods or harms far beyond immediate observation. For example, preventing one person’s suffering might remove conditions necessary for later moral choices, relationships, or forms of courage that no observer could trace. Skeptical theism therefore reminds critics that apparent randomness is not the same as demonstrated purposelessness.

Perrine defends CORNEA against the charge that it collapses into global scepticism. He argues that the principle can be applied selectively: it need not imply that humans know nothing, only that they are poorly placed to judge whether God has reasons for permitting particular evils (Perrine, 2022). On this reading, skeptical theism does not deny that suffering is bad. It denies only that our inability to identify a justifying reason gives us strong evidence that no such reason exists.

Why the Response Is Only Partial

The difficulty is that skeptical theism answers an epistemic question while leaving a moral and theological question untouched. Even if humans cannot identify God’s reason for permitting a horror, they may still reasonably ask whether a good God would allow it. Skeptical theism says, in effect, “We cannot tell.” That reply may defeat Rowe’s inference, but it does not provide a positive account of divine goodness.

Marilyn McCord Adams presses this objection through her account of horrendous evils. These are evils whose participation threatens to destroy the meaning and value of a person’s life, such as severe abuse, torture, genocide, or the murder of children. Adams argues that general theodicies are inadequate because they treat evil in aggregate, whereas horrendous evils harm particular persons in ways that demand a good for that person, not merely a balance of goods across the world (Adams, 1999). A reason that makes the universe better overall may still fail to make the victim’s life good for her.

Skeptical theism struggles here. If God has an inscrutable reason for permitting a child’s torture, the victim still suffers the horror. The skeptical theist may say that God could defeat the evil through postmortem communion or some greater good, but this moves from scepticism about reasons to speculation about unseen remedies. Adams’s criticism is that such speculation risks ignoring what is morally knowable now: the victim’s suffering, vulnerability, and claim to respect (Adams, 2002). A response that says “God may have reasons” can appear to explain too little while demanding too much moral trust.

The Moral Scepticism Objection

The strongest objection to skeptical theism is that it threatens ordinary moral knowledge. If humans cannot know whether God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing an evil, then they may also lack grounds for judging whether they themselves should intervene to prevent it. Suppose a person sees a child being abused. Normally, the duty to intervene seems clear. But if skeptical theism says that God may permit the abuse for reasons beyond human understanding, why should the bystander not reason that intervention might frustrate a greater divine purpose?

Skeptical theists usually reply that God’s reasons do not transfer automatically to human agents. God may permit evil while commanding humans to prevent it. Divine permission and human permission are different: God, with perfect knowledge and power over all outcomes, may allow suffering; a human being, with limited knowledge and limited power, may still be obligated to protect the vulnerable. The reply has some success because it distinguishes the divine perspective from the human one.

Even so, the objection retains force. Skeptical theism weakens the link between apparent evil and moral judgement. If inscrutable divine reasons could justify any suffering, then moral perception becomes uncertain in precisely the cases where moral clarity matters most. Critics argue that this creates a “moral scepticism” problem: the theory may preserve belief in God at the cost of confidence in human moral reasoning (Simek, 2025). A successful response must show why scepticism about God’s reasons does not spread to scepticism about human duties.

A Qualified Defence

Skeptical theism can be defended if it is understood narrowly. It should not claim that every evil has a hidden reason. It should claim only that human inability to identify a reason is weak evidence against the existence of one. This narrower version avoids some excesses. It does not require belief that genocide serves a good purpose, nor does it forbid condemnation of perpetrators. It simply denies that the absence of a visible explanation settles the matter.

The narrow version also fits the structure of the evidential argument. Rowe’s case depends on a probabilistic judgement. Skeptical theism can reasonably challenge that judgement by showing that human cognitive limits make the “noseeum” inference unsafe. Hendricks argues that the logical and causal connections involved in evil are often misunderstood, and that skeptical responses can expose weaknesses in arguments that treat apparent pointlessness as strong evidence of real pointlessness (Hendricks, 2022). In that limited sense, skeptical theism is adequate.

The problem is that adequacy depends on what the evidential problem is taken to require. If it requires only the defeat of one inference, skeptical theism succeeds. If it requires an account of why a good God permits severe suffering, it fails. The latter requirement seems closer to the religious and philosophical force of the problem. A parent whose child dies painfully does not only need to be told that human beings cannot rule out a divine reason. They need some account of how divine goodness remains intelligible in the face of that loss.

Horrendous Evils and the Limits of Defence

Adams’s work shows why the evidential problem cannot be reduced to probability alone. Her concern is not simply that there is too much suffering, but that some suffering appears to defeat the value of the sufferer’s life. Standard appeals to free will, character formation, or greater goods may explain suffering in general, but they do not obviously address the victim’s particular loss (Adams, 1999). Skeptical theism inherits this weakness because it offers no positive account of defeat, healing, or compensation.

Thurow’s discussion of compensation sharpens the point. He examines whether a later good can compensate a victim for an earlier horror, and argues that the difficulty lies in the particularity of the victim’s experience rather than in abstract calculations of overall value (Thurow, 2020). If compensation must be good for the victim, then skeptical theism must do more than invoke unknown divine reasons. It must explain how an inscrutable good could restore or defeat the harm done to that person.

This does not prove atheism. It shows that skeptical theism is incomplete. It may block an argument, but it does not provide theodicy. The distinction matters because the evidential problem often functions as both. Rowe’s fawn case invites a probabilistic response, but horrendous evils invite a response concerned with meaning, relationship, and moral repair. Skeptical theism addresses the first and remains largely silent on the second.

Conclusion

Skeptical theism provides an adequate response only to a narrow version of the evidential problem of evil. It successfully challenges the inference from human ignorance of a divine reason to the conclusion that no such reason exists, especially in Rowe-style arguments based on CORNEA. However, it does not adequately address horrendous evils, because it offers no account of how God’s goodness can be good for the particular victim of extreme suffering. It also risks moral scepticism by making divine permission compatible with evils that humans are normally required to prevent.

The most defensible position is therefore qualified. Skeptical theism is a legitimate defensive strategy against overconfident noseeum arguments, but it cannot serve as a complete answer to the evidential problem. It preserves the logical possibility of divine goodness while leaving unresolved the moral and religious question that makes evil philosophically disturbing: whether a wholly good God could permit horrors without defeating the lives of those who endure them.

References

Adams, M. M. (1999). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Cornell University Press.

Adams, M. M. (2002). Horrors in theological context. Scottish Journal of Theology, 55(4), 468–479. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930602000479

Hendricks, P. (2022). Causal connections, logical connections, and skeptical theism: There is no logical problem of evil. Religions, 13(7), 668. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070668

Perrine, T. (2022). On an epistemic cornerstone of skeptical theism: In defense of CORNEA. Sophia, 61, 533–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00846-4

Simek, S. (2025). The limits of skeptical theism. Ergo, 12. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.7959

Thurow, J. C. (2020). Problems with compensation: Gleeson on Marilyn McCord Adams on evil. Sophia, 59(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0721-x

Wykstra, S. J., & Perrine, T. (2012). Foundations of skeptical theism: CORNEA, core, and conditional probabilities. Faith and Philosophy, 29(4), 375–399. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil201229441