The argument from evil makes a strong claim: if God were both good and all-powerful, suffering would not exist, so the presence of suffering shows that no such God exists. The argument depends on a premise it never states. It assumes that no good reason for permitting suffering could exist. Take that premise away and the argument stops being a proof. It becomes a question, and a hard one. That question also has to be held next to a fact no argument changes: for many people, suffering is not a topic. It has a name and a date.
Van Gayton, who taught apologetics to Christian high school students heading into secular universities, sets out the objection in the form its strongest defenders use. He attributes it to David Hume: “God claims to be all powerful and all loving. And if there was such an all powerful, all loving God, as David Hume said, then he would eradicate evil.” Written as premises, the argument runs like this:
- A wholly good God would want to eliminate evil.
- An all-powerful God could eliminate evil.
- Evil has not been eliminated.
- Therefore, a God who is both wholly good and all-powerful does not exist.