Abstract

It’s been argued that horrendous evil—evil that’s so terrible it makes the sufferer’s life seem like it lacks meaning—is a problem for theism. It’s been argued that gratuitous evil—evil that isn’t required to produce (a) greater good(s) or (b) whose prevention would have resulted in an equally bad or worse evil(s)—is a problem for theism. It’s been argued that the distribution of evil is a problem for theism. And it’s been argued that undefeated evils—evils that don’t make the sufferer better on the whole—are a problem for theism. In this article, I consider a different issue. Namely, I consider whether the amount of evil is a problem for theism and whether the amount of evil is evidence against theism. For example, suppose we were to find out that our world contains far more evil than we currently think it does. Would that be evidence against theism? The purpose of this article is to explore this issue within the framework of Skeptical Theism. Ultimately, I argue that, given Skeptical Theism, the amount of evil just doesn’t make an evidential difference with respect to theism and atheism—or, at least, it doesn’t make an evidential difference when the typical method is used. While this conclusion might sound crazy, it’s nevertheless the right result.