The Great Soul Agreement: A Pagan Theodicy
Here’s a story—not one I believe to be true, but certainly possible (for all we know)—and thus sufficient to dismantle the logical problem of evil.
Before we dive in: The following is a further development—quite substantial, I think—of the original theodicy sketch I posted earlier this week. After several philosophers, through personal correspondence, tried to viciously dismantle my beautiful masterpiece (God love them), I became determined to refine the presentation, making it more rigorous while directly addressing their—if I may, somewhat paltry—objections. (I kid, of course, and obviously thank all those who offered such substantial feedback over what was, admittedly, just a measly blog post!)
The most interesting critique, I think, involved the matter of securing not just consent but informed consent—particularly in the absence of certain qualia or experiential knowledge. I believe I have decisively overcome this concern (though, of course, that’s ultimately for the reader to judge).
Anyway, I’m seriously considering submitting this for peer review down the line (hence the more formal presentation, complete with an abstract). For that reason, I’ll be limiting this post to paid subscribers in the next few days—or possibly removing it entirely. We’ll see. That said, I stand by my original claim: While I don’t believe this theodicy to be true (I’m no pagan! See my book for what I think the true story is), it’s striking me—more and more—as a successful defense.
The Great Soul Agreement: A Pagan Theodicy
Abstract: This paper presents a theodicy—or more precisely, a defense—that describes a possible world capable of addressing the logical problem of evil. Drawing inspiration from Plato’s theory of pre-existence, it explores the idea that God creates free-willing, intellectual souls initially in a state of perfect bliss and union with the divine. While such a world lacks suffering, it also lacks certain relational and virtue-related goods which are logically dependent on adversity. To address this, God offers these souls the opportunity to incarnate in worlds characterized by genuine indeterminism and freedom, enabling the pursuit of these higher goods through challenges and trials.
This defense incorporates several key elements: a consent-based framework where souls voluntarily choose these incarnations; the possibility, but not inevitability, of suffering; and a non-interventionist divine policy that preserves the integrity of freedom and the conditions for meaningful growth.
Introduction
The following is a theodicy—or rather, a defense, as it describes a merely possible world[1]—that appears to have all the resources necessary to defeat the logical problem of evil.[2] While it has come in many different forms, the logical problem of evil ultimately asserts the strongest incompatibility between God and negative states of affairs. Historically, this challenge can be traced back at least to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, as quoted by David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:
"Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”[3]
The Great Soul Agreement: A Pagan Theodicy
Let’s suppose that something like Plato’s theory of pre-existence is at least possible —that souls exist prior to their physical incarnation.[4] (Argument: if Plato—often described as the guy to whom all of philosophy is a footnote—thought something wasn’t just possible but actual, it seems reasonable, or at least not completely silly, to think it could happen.)
Imagine, then, that God creates free-willing, intellectual souls—perhaps even an infinite number—initially in a state of perfect bliss and union with the divine; essentially, the beatific vision. This primordial creation produces a perfect world in the sense that there’s no suffering, no pain, just the joy of being in friendship with God.
But even a world with no pain or sin could lack certain kinds of goods, since some goods are logically dependent on the existence of negative states of affairs. For example, many people think overcoming adversity is a good thing, but you can’t overcome adversity unless there’s adversity to begin with—something this initial creation doesn’t have. Similarly, virtues tied to negative conditions—like empathy, compassion, self-sacrifice, and courage—would also be absent.
Finally, certain relational goods—perhaps the highest goods of all—would also be missing.[5] These include opportunities to be a great help to someone, even at your own expense, like raising a frail infant, teaching them, loving them, and making sacrifices to ensure they have a good life. Or sitting beside a spouse and enduring serious trials together, offering aid, comfort, solidarity, and faithfulness through it all. And, of course, there’s the extraordinary goods of forgiveness and reconciliation. These experiences often forge deep, profoundly loving, and transformative connections between souls—connections that (1) seem infinitely valuable and (2) are not attainable in the initial state of creation.
Realizing all this, suppose God offers these souls the opportunity to incarnate in various ways. Some of these opportunities might involve incarnating in worlds with genuine indeterminism (objective chance), where souls can actively shape these worlds, turning them into genuinely good places and experiencing certain goods—particularly relational ones—that wouldn’t otherwise be available.[6]
This incarnation, based on a pre-agreement, would naturally involve a certain “forgetting” (recall Plato’s epistemology of recollection[7]) upon entering the world. Depending on the incarnational form, these souls might also face greater cognitive limitations during their incarnational existence. Consider something like Huxley’s theory of the brain as a “cognitive reducing valve,” which suggests that the brain filters and constrains a broader—potentially infinite—range of consciousness to make physical existence manageable. These limitations are part of the agreement, enabling opportunities for growth, discovery, and relationship formation.[8] Said differently, such conditions (once again) create the possibility for unique, logically dependent goods—relationships and experiences centered on helping, teaching, protecting, forgiving, discovering (including the discovery of God and His love through cooperative efforts—a profoundly great good!), inventing, overcoming challenges, and more.[9]
Additionally, since these worlds feature real indeterminism, the theist could incorporate the hypothesis of indifference[10] often associated with naturalism, thereby matching its predictive power concerning the problem of suffering and evil while retaining the arguably greater predictive success of theism on other fronts.[11]
For example, God creates worlds that seem indifferent to particular outcomes, including whether life flourishes—because, in some real sense, they actually are.[12] This indifference enables the opportunities and goods associated with being true co-creators, world-builders, and redeemers.[13] At the same time, universes must still be fine-tuned to allow physical life at all—a feature, as many philosophers argue, much better expected if God exists than if not.[14]
Additionally, this scenario would involve a primarily “hands-off” agreement from God—a non-interventionist policy. This policy can be general rather than absolute, still allowing for the occasional miracle, but this would have to be the definite exception rather than the rule, to avoid a massively chaotic world.[15]
There is a cost, of course: this general policy would almost guarantee that many things wouldn’t go well and that many evils would appear (strongly) gratuitous. To uphold the general policy, God would have to draw the line somewhere—choosing not to prevent certain evils He could have prevented. Yet, these are justified by:
1. The consent-based pre-agreement of entering such worlds.
2. The necessity of enabling certain types of goods by avoiding a massively chaotic and allowing for genuine, rather than superficial, trials.
With these considerations in mind, this theodicy offers pithy responses to common objections:
Why didn’t God create a world free of suffering? He did.
Why didn’t God create a better world than this one? He did.
Why did God thrust us into a world of suffering against our will? He didn’t.
The rest is in the details—important, to be sure—but anyone familiar with the theodicy literature can easily fill them in as other objections or considerations arise.[16] For example, this theodicy is universalist: all things ultimately end up well, back with God, but only after stronger relationships are formed and true heroic journeys are undertaken. For those whose lives are terminated prematurely due to the chanciness of these worlds and God’s general non-interventionist policy, they could simply reincarnate into another world until they attain the original goods and experiences they sought.
Moreover, as is often suggested by theodicies, God does not directly will specific evil states of affairs but rather permits them. God wills the existence of a world-ensemble characterized by genuine indeterminism, where various unanticipated intersections of causal lines occur between entities that are, in themselves, genuinely good. In other words, God is not directly willing that you get into a car accident; rather, God wills worlds where real freedom exists—and with it, the possibility of real adversity (accidental or otherwise)—arising from the natural interactions and intersections of things with real natures and dispositions.
To reinforce this idea, it is crucial to clarify that permission does not mean God wills a particular outcome (e.g., an accident); instead, it means God refrains from willing either specific outcome—whether the accident or its avoidance.[17] In this way, God’s permission of evil or suffering entails allowing only their possibility, not their inevitability. For example, just as I may will my son to drive, I permit the possibility of an accident while neither willing to prevent that possibility (by taking away his keys) nor ensuring the accident inevitably occurs (by slashing his tires). The former, I take it, is quite morally permissible, while the latter is not.[18]
And remember, all of this is consent-based. While I do not believe that consent is a moral “magic wand” that can make absolutely anything permissible, it is uncontroversial to suggest that consent is, in many cases, a significant moral difference-maker. At the very least, in this case, it directly addresses formulations of the logical problem of evil that require God to prevent evils to which innocent parties do not consent—because, in the story here, consent has, in fact, occurred.
Ultimately, to defeat the logical problem of evil, it suffices to demonstrate one possible (for all we know!) state of affairs in which the sufferings of this world are justified. But justified according to what standard? This is where things get tricky, as skeptics must propose a specific moral linking principle—one that necessarily connects the existence of suffering and sin in the actual world with the non-existence of God. Generating such a principle that is both compelling and universally accepted (particularly by theists) has proven notoriously difficult.
The upshot of my theodicy is this: even if we accept a highly plausible moral linking principle—say, that if one is in a position to prevent the suffering or sin of another being without incurring a clearly worse cost, they should do so or else be morally at fault—this principle does not necessarily connect the existence of suffering or evil with the non-existence of God in light of the defense I have just outlined.[19]
Considering the pre-existence agreement and the logically dependent goods that souls seek to attain, it is far from clear that God should prevent the suffering or sin of such beings. In fact, one might reasonably argue that God should not prevent such suffering or sin, as doing so—if He were always to intervene— would undermine the very conditions necessary for the realization of these greater goods, violate the pre-existence agreement, or both—thus incurring costs that, by any reasonable measure, are not clearly less severe than the sufferings permitted.
This is especially true when we consider that the goods attained through these trials are everlasting, whereas the sufferings are only temporary. Surely, we should be highly skeptical of anyone claiming that the opposite can be proven or even held with substantial confidence.
The No Informed Consent Objection
There is one very important objection that can be raised against my theodicy—or two, actually, but they are closely related. The objection is this: consent alone is not enough to make these matters morally permissible; what is required is informed consent. Moreover, with an informed consent constraint, it may not suffice for God to merely propositionally explain to these souls (sans qualia or experiential knowledge) that they are agreeing to a rough ride. This means the conditions for moral permissibility may not be met.
There’s a rather straightforward response to this issue: there’s no inherent impossibility in God providing the relevant qualia or experiences to the pre-existent soul so they truly know what God is asking of them. Unfortunately, this response invites a regress problem: consent would then be required for the experiences needed to provide informed consent. Is there any way out of this dilemma?
I think so. I’ll outline five plausible solutions:
1) The Dennett Proposal
Perhaps Daniel Dennett is correct when he argues for the possibility of understanding subjective experiences through objective information. Dennett suggests that, with sufficient propositional knowledge, one could comprehend what it’s like to have experiences different from one’s own.[20] In our case, this would mean God can provide such detailed propositional information to the soul that it understands what it’s like to suffer—without actually suffering. While I remain highly skeptical of this proposal, it’s taken seriously by enough philosophers that it doesn’t seem unreasonable to put it on the table.
2) Appeal to Modes of Knowledge
Classical theism posits that God, not just by virtue of omniscience but through a radically different mode of knowledge, possesses an understanding of all experiences in a transcendent manner, even without undergoing them personally.[21] For instance, God would know what it’s like to stub a toe without having a physical body. If God can possess such knowledge, it’s possible (for all we know) that He could impart a similar understanding to souls, enabling them to grasp the nature of suffering without direct experience.
3) The Giver Solution
Recall the novel The Giver.[22] If you haven’t read it, here’s the premise: it’s a dystopian (yet seemingly perfect and painless) society where no one remembers the horrors or joys of human life—except for one person, the Receiver of Memory. A young boy, Jonas, is chosen to become the next Receiver. This selection isn’t voluntary; the community’s Elders choose him, and he is expected to accept the role.
The current Receiver, called The Giver, begins Jonas’s training by transmitting memories. He starts with pleasant ones, like sledding down a snowy hill. Over time, Jonas receives increasingly painful memories—of war, suffering, and other horrors. Despite the escalating intensity, Jonas chooses to continue his training.
My take? This gradual approach seems morally permissible. Even though Jonas didn’t choose to become the Receiver, his developing understanding and ongoing consent make the process defensible. We don’t fault The Giver for continuing to share horrific memories, presumably because Jonas reaches a point where he has enough informed consent to understand what he’s getting into. Mutatis mutandis for consenting souls who, unlike Jonas, voluntarily choose to have certain experiences or knowledge imparted to them gradually.
Taking this approach—where God either provides experiences gradually or allows souls to incarnate into increasingly indeterministic worlds step by step—aligns with two key strategies commonly recognized for addressing situations where fully informed consent appears unattainable: consent by reasonable approximation and consent as an ongoing process.
4) Denying the Necessity of Informed Consent
Another approach is just to argue that informed consent isn’t always required for moral permissibility. For example, if an expert—such as God—judges a course of action to be in the best interest of the individual, they can proceed morally, provided the action isn’t intrinsically evil, the potential goods outweigh the potential negatives, and there’s a high probability that the actual goods will surpass the actual negatives.
This view is supported by trust-based models of decision-making. Rather than requiring fully informed consent, these models focus on the relationship between the individual and the decision-maker—specifically, the trust placed in the decision-maker’s expertise, moral character, and commitment to the individual’s well-being.[23]
For God, this trust-based approach is especially plausible: God’s omniscience ensures perfect understanding of all possible outcomes, and God’s omnibenevolence guarantees that any action taken is ultimately for the good of the individual. In such cases, the need for the individual’s full experiential knowledge or informed consent diminishes—I would say, very plausibly, to the point of extinction—because the moral justification lies in the expert’s judgment and the relationship of trust.
5) Propositional Understanding Is Sufficient
Finally, one might simply deny that informed consent needs to be anything more than propositional. This seems entirely reasonable. After all, there are many cases where we believe people genuinely give informed consent despite lacking—and being unable to have—any experiential knowledge of what they are consenting to.
For instance, patients consent to amputation knowing it will permanently alter their bodies, yet they cannot fully comprehend, experientially, that is, the long-term physical and emotional consequences beforehand.
On a more positive note, consider (so-called) transformative experiences. People frequently give genuine consent to becoming parents, a decision that unlocks many incredible goods—though undeniably also many hardships and possibly profound heartbreak and trauma. Yet there is no way for anyone to fully know what it is like to be a parent until they actually become one.
These examples suggest that propositional understanding, combined with a reasonable grasp of potential outcomes, is often sufficient for meaningful and morally valid consent.
Conclusion
With that major objection out of the way, let me finish with this: While I do not believe this account to be true (I’m not a Platonist, particularly regarding the pre-existence of souls), I do think it is an account that can be reasonably assented to. It represents a “for-all-we-know” possible state of affairs that plausibly justifies the evils we are so tragically familiar with. For these reasons, I consider it a successful defense.[24]
Appendix: Confirmation of the Great Soul Agreement
While this article has focused on addressing the logical problem of evil, it’s worth briefly highlighting how the theodicy presented here also offers resources for overcoming evidential or abductive problems of evil.[25] These arguments, in brief, don’t press the issue of whether God’s existence is logically compatible with evil but instead contend that the amount, type, or distribution of evil in the world makes God’s existence seem unlikely or improbable.
Consider this: If God creates an infinite number of free-willing souls, it’s basically inevitable that at least some (in fact, an infinite number!) will choose to incarnate in worlds characterized by trials, opportunities for virtue, and seemingly gratuitous evils. Significantly, this theodicy predicts exactly the kind of world we observe—a world with a balance of soul-building challenges, relational goods, and an apparent indifference to specific outcomes.
In fact, assuming the pre-existence theory, classical theism naturally anticipates this. If God—The Good itself—aims to maximize the range of great goods (as supported by the traditional diffusiveness principle, which holds that goodness naturally seeks to communicate itself), it stands to reason that God would continue creating souls until enough (freely) agree to incarnate, making these goods not just possible but actual. The world we observe—filled with opportunities for growth, virtue, and deep relational goods—fits darn-near perfectly with what this theodicy predicts.
In brief, while standard theodicies often struggle to account for phenomena anticipated by indifference—such as seemingly gratuitous evils—indifference itself struggles to explain phenomena that theism predicts remarkably well. Specifically, a world where heroic journeys aren’t just possible but happen constantly, and where the conditions seem “just right” for acquiring virtue and undergoing morally significant growth.
The Great Soul Agreement, by contrast, accommodates all the data: it accounts for both the soul-building opportunities and the appearance of indifference, offering an impressively comprehensive explanation that earns significant confirmation compared to what seem to be the standard alternative hypotheses.
[1] A defense proposes a possible reason why God might permit evil, emphasizing that "for all we know," such a reason could exist if God does. In short, a defense says: this could be the story.
A theodicy goes further by asserting that we can identify some or all of God’s justifying reasons for allowing evil in the world. In short, a theodicy says: this is (or probably is) the story.
[2] For classic statements of the logical and evidential problems of evil, see J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind, New Series, 64, no. 254 (1955): 200–12, accessed at edX, https://courses.edx.org/c4x/MITx/24.00x/asset/MackieonEvil.pdf. For a more contemporary development, see James P. Sterba, Is a Good God Logically Possible? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
[3] David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (New York: Penguin Classics, 1990), 186.
[4] Plato. Phaedo. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977.
[5] See Collins, Robin. "The Connection Building Theodicy." Philosophy Educator Scholarship 31 (2014). https://mosaic.messiah.edu/phil_ed/31.
[6] Robert Koons offers an account of how objective chance can be squared with God’s providence in Robert Koons, “Reconciling Meticulous Divine Providence with Objective Chance,” in Abrahamic Reflections on Randomness and Providence, ed. Kelly James Clark and Jeffrey Koperski (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillian, 2021), 233-242, ebook edition.
[7] Plato. Meno. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980.
[8] Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.
[9] There might also be real value in our having a certain distance from God, at least temporarily. It is not implausible to suggest that an immediate, intimate friendship with God could be so intense that it "crowds out" other relationships. By incarnating and temporarily forgetting, we can form deeper and everlasting relationships with other beings. Through these relationships we can rediscover not only the existence of God but also the goodness and love of God. These connections—obviously of immense, if not infinite, worth—once forged, would naturally carry over into the afterlife and our ultimate union with God. (I am indebted to Matthew Adelstein for this insight.)
[10] The hypothesis of indifference posits that neither the universe nor its fundamental causes are biased toward the flourishing or suffering of sentient beings because no benevolent (or malevolent) entity is fundamentally running things. In simpler terms, the universe operates without any moral or teleological concern for sentient life—it is indifferent.
When I suggest that the theist can incorporate the principle of indifference, I mean specifically the part about the universe lacking an inherent drive toward the flourishing or suffering of sentient beings. This adjustment, it seems to me, is sufficient to neutralize the predictive game between my theistic hypothesis and mainstream naturalism.
See Draper, Paul. "Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists." Noûs 23, no. 3 (1989): 331–350. Reprinted in The Evidential Argument from Evil, edited by Daniel Howard-Snyder, 12–29. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
[11] Again, I am indebted to Matthew Adelstein for this idea. See
[12] To clarify: the idea is that this proposal anticipates evil and suffering just as well as naturalism does, given that God allows us to incarnate in indifferent universes. Of course, an objection might be that this theistic hypothesis is more decidedly complicated and therefore inherently less likely. Perhaps—but this is not directly relevant to the dialectic here, which focuses solely on the logical problem of evil rather than the evidential problem or a broader comparison of theoretical virtues across paradigms (though I have something to say about these other problems in the appendix).
Still, three points can be made in response, should the theist wish to engage in those broader debates:
1. Indifference as a Consequence of Theism:
One could argue that encountering such indifference is an inevitable or probable consequence of theism and that such consequences of a theory do not necessarily reduce its inherent likelihood. Of course, this would require providing a reason why God creating and allowing us to incarnate in indifferent worlds is an inevitable or probable outcome. However, such an argument is not implausible, given what has already been said about how indifferent worlds could enable certain types of goods that are otherwise unavailable. Since God is perfectly good, He would have reason to allow the possibility of attaining the widest range of possible goods.
2. Minimal Theoretical Complication:
Even if the incorporation of indifference complicates theism, the complication appears slight—at least not inherently disqualifying. The added complexity might not even be problematic depending on which understanding of simplicity one prioritizes. For example, this does not increase the ontological complexity of the theistic theory at the fundamental level; it seems to affect only theoretical simplicity, and it is not clear the latter is more important than the former.
3. Compensation by Total Evidence:
Any added complexity may be compensated for by the total evidence supporting theism. Evaluating this claim in detail would obviously require a much larger discussion, but the cost of this complication could be offset by the explanatory power and scope of the theistic hypothesis.
[13] Alternatively—or additionally—it could be the case that God allows certain souls to create worlds that other souls incarnate into. This would incorporate the supposed superior predictive power of the “limited god hypothesis,” as proposed by Philip Goff, who suggests that a benevolent deity with finite abilities better explains both the universe’s imperfections and its fine-tuning for life (Philip Goff, “I Now Think a Heretical Form of Christianity Might Be True,” Aeon, June 14, 2022, https://aeon.co/essays/i-now-think-a-heretical-form-of-christianity-might-be-true). At the same time, this view retains what Joshua Rasmussen argues is the more attractive ultimate explanatory feature: having a truly unlimited foundation—a perfect being that underlies all existence (Joshua Rasmussen, How Reason Can Lead to God: A Philosopher’s Bridge to Faith [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019]). More on these points in the appendix.
[14] Collins, Robin. "The Fine-Tuning Design Argument: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God." In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, 202–281. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
[15] Peter Van Inwagen defends this view, and it could easily be incorporated into the story here—in fact, it could be incorporated more easily into my theodicy than his since souls agree beforehand that they would prefer a world that is not massively chaotic to one where there is no risk or pain or loss. So, there is little question about which is more valuable, at least for the beings under consideration. Van Inwagen, Peter. The Problem of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
[16] I say "easily" because, as far as I can tell, this theodicy is compatible with any number of elements from the usual soul-building theodicies on offer. Thus, one can incorporate as many of those elements as desired to further flesh it out or to address whatever objections these defensive maneuvers are typically employed to counter.
[17] In other words, permission does not equal God willing (x), but rather God not willing either [x] or not-[x].
[18] A parent who gives their child a set of car keys knowingly accepts the risk of a serious, life-threatening accident—but we generally consider this risk justified because of the goods it enables, such as greater responsibility, personal autonomy, and the ability to assist others (e.g., driving to help a grandparent). This is fundamentally different from a parent who directly causes their child to get into an accident, such as by slashing the tires. Mutatis mutandis, the evils (and their possibility) that God permits can be seen as justified, as they are necessary to avoid a massively chaotic world that would inhibit the attainment of these goods (and surely many others), as well as by the pre-agreement of souls to enter such a world.
[19] If God were in violation of such a binding moral principle, it would imply that God is morally defective. However, as a perfect being, God cannot be morally defective by definition. Thus, demonstrating that God violates such a principle would be equivalent to proving the non-existence of God.
[20] Dennett, Daniel C. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
[21] For a defense see Dolezal, James E. "Defending Divine Impassibility." In Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God, edited by Jonathan Fuqua and Robert C. Koons, 255–271. New York: Routledge, 2023.
[22] Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1993.
[23] Indeed, there is precedent in the relevant literature suggesting that consent based on trust is not morally inferior to consent based on information. For instance, see Kongsholm, Niels N. F. Halmsted, and Klemens Kappel, “Is Consent Based on Trust Morally Inferior to Consent Based on Information?” Bioethics 31, no. 6 (2017): 432–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12342.
[24] Final suggestion for further research: With a few tweaks, this theodicy could be made broadly compatible with Christian theology. Instead of relying on the pre-existence of souls and prior consent, one might invoke a form of middle knowledge, where God knows that we would freely consent to being created in the actual world and thus only creates beings who fulfill that condition. Alternatively, an essentialist appeal could be made: God creates only beings who, by their very nature, would desire to exist—at least when all the relevant facts are considered and they are functioning properly. An essentialist appeal could also help explain our inherent ability to sin. As fallibly free beings (on the classical theistic view, only God is impeccable because only God is identical to the good as such), the possibility of sin arises from our nature. The occurrence of sin could then be attributed to God’s general policy of guiding things according to their nature—a principle reflected in the Dionysian tradition.
Universalism could also be avoided by adopting a model of hell in which those who choose separation from God genuinely receive what they desire—a perspective that aligns with certain interpretations of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce [New York: HarperOne, 2001]) and some strands of Thomistic theology (James Dominic Rooney, Not a Hope in Hell [New York, NY: Routledge, forthcoming]).
Finally, instead of appealing to other souls as creators of worlds, Christians could turn to the traditional view that angels and demons are afforded roles in the unfolding of the actual world.
To be sure, these points require further development—substantially so—but they seem initially plausible and worth exploring, particularly for Christians who reject some of the current theodicy’s commitments—such as pre-existence, prior consent, or universalism—while still recognizing its strengths in addressing the problem of evil.
[25] For different statements of these arguments (and responses) see Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. The Evidential Argument from Evil. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
[26] Moreover, while I cannot fully defend this line of argumentation here, I am sympathetic to it: classical theists argue that a limited god would fail to transcend the category of the creaturely. Such a being would be hetero-explicable rather than auto-explicable, requiring further explanation and thus being ill-suited to serve as a fundamental, ontologically independent entity. For an argument on why God must be qualitatively unlimited (including with respect to power) to explain all finite entities, see again Rasmussen, How Reason Can Lead to God.