A Defence of the compatibility of GCT with apparent flaws in the SoA.

Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
Victor Muraviev
Does the abundance of wickedness and/or suffering in the world
show that God probably does not exist?
Introduction
As with other essays, to produce a more effective answer, terms ought to be clarified further; for
the purposes of this essay: God shall be taken to mean the God of classical theism/Orthodoxy
(GCT), holding the predicates of omnipotence/omniscience and omnibenevolence and as
demonstrated by my arguments (such as the argument via perfection and singularity) (Muraviev,
2025b) be also necessary, perfect and singular contingent upon a set of mostly conventional
axioms e.g. Leibniz's Law, and conceptual validity of ideas such as perfection.
Wickedness and suffering shall be taken to mean the distaste vector as applied to morality and
sense/experience. Wickedness where relevant may be taken to mean something like agent-
caused evil (not to assert that evil has substance rather than absence of good). As such, to
distinguish these, suffering may include the distaste felt as product of so-called natural evils (not
asserting the validity of such a concept), as opposed to purely agentic evils (likewise, not
asserting the validity of such a concept).
Further, the word “probably” makes the question more interesting and substantive, as it is no
longer limited to discussion of whether evil is logically incompatible with existence of GCT,
which is virtually a solved matter, as shall be shown throughout the essay with arguments such
as Alvin Plantinga’s Transworld depravity and/or versions and improvements upon it having
been effective counterarguments to the logical problem of evil (in the sense of strict compatibility
rather than probability and also by the nature of compatibility vs probability in this sense, the
latter holding a tendency for more content by virtue of contingency and addition).
As such, with no contradiction between the existence of GCT and the alleged existence of evil in
a world containing GCT being demonstrated, the question of the probability of the coexistence
of the degree of evil (assumption) in this world and GCT is raised and provides further
substance to evaluate.
Under epistemic uncertainty (epistemic certainty itself possibly being an entirely elusive concept
such as a square circle; uncertainty may be an innate characteristic to any mind, with certainty
being perhaps a concept as incoherent as a married bachelor), certain knowledge seems
elusive, and philosophical work consists largely in the assessment of the coherence (not to say
this is entertained outside of the aforementioned uncertain epistemic lens or is somehow truly
objective) and the appeal of systems derived from axioms; if a system is demonstrated
incoherent, its convincingness tends to greatly decrease to an extent far greater than simply a
lack of appeal, whereas the issue of unappealingness is more so comparative, with such issues
being evaluated by a more nebulous appeal sense rather than the more rigidly assessable truth-
sense, and may be more easily dismissed by similar qualifications with which they are asserted.
The issue of compatibility falling under the first sort, and the issue of abundance falling under
the second sort (as shall be demonstrated), the question may seem to be more evidential (or
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
probabilistic, the two terms to be used somewhat interchangeably at points in the essay) in the
sense of Rowe (1979)1
and Draper (1989)2
, and hinges around the term of “abundance”.
Abundance being a comparative, relativistic term involving at least two ends of an issue;
something may be abundant relative to some other thing. A contention may be that the contra-
theist in the sense of this argument when made to state his baseline (“other thing” as above)
and his boundary conditions (so as to demarcate properly in order to assert that a boundary into
abundance has been crossed, or if to steelman further, even without precise demarcation to
identify that the state of evil is simply somewhere on the other side of the boundary into excess),
which the contra-theist’s own argument requires of them, if “abundance” is to serve as
something more akin to analytic evidence rather than claiming to be meaningful as some form of
imprecise exclamation more akin to continental philosophy or poetry, which shall not fall under
the scope of this essay in great detail outside of as part of part four of the essay where it is
dismissed without great elaboration; the contention being that the contra-theist seems unable to
do so in a sufficiently grounded fashion.
It is my contention that the premise of evil existing, and with the assumption of its existence, that
in this world it falls over the boundary of what may validly and sensibly be called excess or
abundance, seems unestablished; and that, once soberly analysed without overfitting to
instances of personal distaste or pain, the matter is in fact supportive of the contrary: the
suffering of the actual world is easily conceivable as minimal and, relative to conceivable
alternatives, close to zero.
The essay shall argue in several directions. First, Plantinga’s Transworld depravity establishes
the compatibility of GCT and evil and, if granted, may possibly (granting the Orthodox
relationship between morally wrong free action and suffering) provide a floor in argument
beneath which suffering cannot be driven without loss of significant freedom, to greater
detriment of the net positivity of the overall SoA (state of affairs). Second, a multiplicity defence:
why a perfect being may create at all, and why demanding creation without imperfection (sin/evil
in Orthodoxy seemingly being (weak “is/being”) or echoing hamartia a missing of the mark as
opposed to substance; “evil is nothing else than absence of goodness, just as darkness also is
absence of light” (John of Damascus, 1899)3
may be demanding an ontological impossibility by
nature of contradiction. Third, that in the set of worlds we may sensibly conceive, bound below
by feasibility and above by the limits of conceivability, the suffering of the actual world is easily
conceivable as minimal and, relative to conceivable alternatives, close to zero. Fourth, that the
proclamation “too much” is not a sufficiently meaningful proposition in an analytic philosophical
sense, asserting the exceedance of a boundary without sufficiently tangible grounds. The essay
will then cover other objections and conclude the answer to the question as probably no.
1
Rowe (1979), p. 335 n. 1. Available at:
https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
2
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
3
John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II, ch. 4 (trans.
Salmond, NPNF II/9). Available at: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33042.htm
(Accessed: 12 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
1. Issues of logical possibility and feasibility
Mackie sets out the triad as:
“In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and
yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three
propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the
same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian, it
seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.” (Mackie,
1955)4
.
The contradiction here would be contingent upon the premises: that a good being eliminates evil
as far as it can, and that omnipotence is unlimited (or at least not limited in the extent to which it
may eliminate evil). The second (if taken to extents of taking omnipotence beyond the logically
possible, with Mackie subsequently granting the restriction to the logically possible (Mackie,
1955)5
) seems to be quite simply false: omnipotence concerns the logically possible, which does
not include nonsensical phrases/statements which may seem meaningful but are not actually so
in an analytic sense e.g., as mentioned in the introduction a square circle, or less seemingly
absurdly something like epistemic certainty or the example of the question of whether God could
make an object he could not move with the answer being no, as being-movable-by-God is a
necessary predicate to all such real objects as a condition of its existence. In this line, it is also
conceivable that He could not make a creature freely do anything opposed to what it would
freely choose; so to speak a completely forced “free” act would be a contradiction in terms.
Regarding the problem of a determined free act, the issue of God’s knowledge of the free-
action-outcome, does not seem genuinely problematic if the free moral created agents’ freedom
and decision is presented atemporally (this would modify the term “action”) as shown in
Muraviev (2023a), with the following: “We see the object of X not as a temporal entity which
gains or loses predicates [at different points in time] but rather as a timeless entity which has all
the predicates at once but merely in different positions on its atemporal axis” (Muraviev,
2023a)6
. Simply, things may be “determined by the self statically via emanation; the self may be
considered atemporal” (Muraviev, 2025a)7
.
From this Plantinga (1974a; 1974b) constructs the free will defence, involving a possibly true
proposition whose conjunction with GCT seems to explain (or perhaps seems to go as far as
entailing evil) evil. Accordingly within this framework, God may strongly actualise states of
affairs excluding the free actions of creatures themselves. Obtainability would then be
contingent upon the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom; so to speak: what a creature would
freely do in given circumstances. As Lewis might say: evaluated by the nearest relevant worlds
4
Mackie (1955), p. 200. Available at:
https://courses.edx.org/c4x/MITx/24.00x/asset/MackieonEvil.pdf (Accessed: 10 July
2026).
5
Mackie (1955), p. 203. Available at:
https://courses.edx.org/c4x/MITx/24.00x/asset/MackieonEvil.pdf (Accessed: 10 July
2026).
6
Muraviev (2023a), unpublished notes.
7
Muraviev (2025a), Free Will, 21 August.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
(Lewis, 1973)89
; a world which God may weakly actualise may be called feasible. TWD may be
asserted of an essence if, in any feasible world where it is significantly free, it goes wrong at
least once. Formally: “(30) An essence E suffers from transworld depravity if and only if for
every world W such that E entails the properties is significantly free in W and always does what
is right in W, there is a state of affairs T and an action A such that
(1) T is the largest state of affairs God strongly actualizes in W,
(2) A is morally significant for E’s instantiation in W, and
(3) if God had strongly actualized T, E’s instantiation would have gone wrong with respect to A.”
(Plantinga, 1974a).10
It is quite possibly true (all the defence requires) that every essence
suffers TWD, with it then not being within “the power of omnipotence to create worlds containing
moral good but no moral evil”, the relevant world possibly being unobtainable (Plantinga, 1974a,
p. 189)11
. As stated prior: “God cannot just “create a world with as much value without evil”
because this is a reduction of 2. and protests of this reducing his omnipotence are as incoherent
as the omnipotence paradox (involving extension of potency to logical absurdities)” (Muraviev,
2024a)12
.
Otte (2009) identifies a defect in Plantinga’s original formulation, concerning worlds whose
actualised segments entail correct (or accordingly with Plantinga: “right” (not to assert that the
two terms are completely interchangeable)) choice: “it is not possible that every essence suffers
from transworld depravity” (Otte, 2009)13
. Howard-Snyder and O’Leary-Hawthorne (1998) had
already pressed “transworld sanctity” against the defence, stating on their opening page “his
defense fails”1415
. Plantinga (2009) concedes the point and amends the defence: “For every
8
Lewis (1973), p. 1.
9
On the Lewisian semantics see further Creary, L. G. and Hill, C. S. (1975) Review of Lewis,
Counterfactuals, Philosophy of Science, 42(3), pp. 341–344. Available at: university-access
copy.
10
Plantinga (1974a), ch. IX, definition (30), p. 188. Available at:
https://ia801900.us.archive.org/14/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.139529/2015.139529.The-
Nature-Of-Necessity_text.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
11
Plantinga (1974a), p. 189. Available at:
https://ia801900.us.archive.org/14/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.139529/2015.139529.The-
Nature-Of-Necessity_text.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
12
Muraviev (2024a), Agora post, 21 December.
13
Otte (2009), p. 166. Available at: https://people.ucsc.edu/~otte/articles/otte.twd.pdf
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
14
Howard-Snyder and O’Leary-Hawthorne (1998), pp. 5–6. Available at: university-access
copy (Accessed: 12 July 2026).
15
Howard-Snyder and O’Leary-Hawthorne (1998), p. 1. Available at: university-access copy
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
perfect world there is an uncooperative essence” (Plantinga, 2009)161718
. The defence used here
therefore relies upon the amended formulation. Plantinga resolving with:
“Perhaps all the free will defense shows is that it is likely, in fact, very likely, that G and E are
consistent. But to show that much would go well beyond the claim that G and E are
epistemically consistent, and if it shows that much, then, contrary to H&O, the free will defense
is both ‘convincing’ and at least “fairly compelling”.” (Plantinga, 2009)19
.
As such, the matter of validity of coexistence seems to remain, defended, with no sufficiently
strong argument against it, with Rowe granting that no formal contradiction was established and
transitioning the issue to probability (Rowe, 1979), with Rowe stating that “[n]o one, I think, has
succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim” (Rowe, 1979)20
. With this, the contra-
theist position transitions from the field of logic demonstrability to now appeal. Secondly, the
now modified and strengthened defence provides a possible floor in the argument; if possibly,
for every perfect world, there may be an uncooperative essence, then possibly every feasible
world with significantly free creatures may contain a nonzero minimum of moral evil.
Furthermore, Hick (1966) brings up that free moral response may require “epistemic distance”,
which Hick describes as “[t]he kind of distance between God and man that would make room for
a degree of human autonomy” (Hick, 1966)21
, an uncompelled ambiguity which (extending Hick,
1966) may require enough seemingly unresolved evil to preserve it. On this line of thought, the
value of faith, and as such the quantity of faith, may also be a thing holding value in-itself: faith,
ding an sich, holding value to be added to the net positivity of the overall SoA in a similar sense
to the addition of TWD beings, in the sense of the same additive calculation presented in §2 (the
multiplicity valuation, with the organic contribution of an added member set against its disvalue),
even if it brings suffering (Muraviev, 2024b; 2024c).22
As such, even with a somewhat greater
quantity of evil than a true free-compatible minimum evil, it may still be in-the-net justified, for
the greatest quantity of “positive” value of the world-set, to have a greater quantity of evil than
16
Plantinga (2009), p. 190. Available at:
https://www.andrewmbailey.com/ap/Depravity_Sanctity_Uncooperative_Essences.pdf
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
17
The earlier debate over the formulation is surveyed in Kroon, F. W. (1981) ‘Plantinga on
God, Freedom, and Evil’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 12(2), pp. 75–96.
Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40018250 (university access) (Accessed: 10
July 2026).
18
And in Esmail, K. H. A. (2002) ‘Plantinga’s Defence of the Free Will Defence in Chapter
Nine of The Nature of Necessity’, Sophia, 41(2), pp. 19–29. Available at: university-access
copy.
19
Plantinga (2009), p. 191. Available at:
https://www.andrewmbailey.com/ap/Depravity_Sanctity_Uncooperative_Essences.pdf
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
20
Rowe (1979), p. 335 n. 1. Available at:
https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
21
Hick (1966), p. 281 in 2010 Palgrave reissue (university-access copy) (Accessed: 10 July
2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
the minimum by virtue of the additive value of a greater quantity of faith which deeper epistemic
distance would elicit, therefore providing another axis for further justification of the coexistence
of “evil” in greater quantities than in simply the minimum conceivable to support coexistence of
TWD beings and GCT. Hick gives the following:
“For human freedom vis-à-vis God presupposes an initial separateness and a
consequent degree of independence on man's part. In creating finite persons to love
and be loved by Him God must endow them with a certain relative autonomy over
against Himself.” (Hick, 1966).
2. Multiplicity
The contra-theist may then grant that any creation containing free creatures contains evil; then
why create? Is not God alone the best SoA? This would seem to misunderstand perfection.
Considering Leibniz’s Law (the identity of indiscernibles; "there cannot be two objects that differ
only numerically" (Rodriguez-Pereyra, 2025)23
so to speak the non-existence of two entities
sharing all predicates), two “perfect” beings holding every predicate in common would not be
two; perfection on the aforementioned axioms is singular (Muraviev, 2025b)24
. Anything created
is, eo ipso, not-God and imperfect (in, at least, the God-sense); on these axioms, creation (at a
sufficiently large and diverse scale) is the introduction of imperfection (Muraviev, 2025b)25
. To
ask for a sufficiently large and diverse/multiplicitous creation without imperfection could be akin
to asking for a created uncreated thing (or the immovable stone) and be a member of the set of
nonsensical things, with the refusal of such an argument costing omnipotence nothing
(Muraviev, 2024a)26
.
“Contingent entities cannot exist without dependence on a necessary entity.
Contingent entities rely on external causes, and therefore, there cannot be an existing
sum of contingent things without a necessary entity. The necessary entity must be:
Partless (composition of parts means potentiality and contingency as the entity is
contingent on the set of parts’ arrangement (possibly) and the existence of all parts). If
the parts are taken to be necessary beings themselves, then it encounters a problem
(see singularity). Perfect: the necessary entity cannot lack any perfections as a lack of
perfections means the existence of potentiality, as those lacks could be fulfilled. To be
purely actual, all perfections and potentials must be realised and fulfilled (if you say
that some perfections are lacking because they are unattainable, this is still a
maximally perfect being because, again, those perfections are unattainable, and
22
Muraviev (2024b), working notes: “Belief in anything requires faith, religion (or any
convincing system pertaining to infinite or real value) is an optimal distribution of faith.”
The value-in-itself and additive development is the present essay’s. Muraviev (2024c),
further unpublished 2024 notes.
23
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. (2025) ‘The Identity of Indiscernibles’, The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/
(Accessed: 12 July 2026).
24
Muraviev (2025b), working notes.
25
Muraviev (2025b), working notes.
26
Muraviev (2024a), Agora post, 21 December.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
therefore, it is still true that this being is maximally perfect as the addition of
unattainable perfections is logically impossible). Singular: Purely necessary being
must be singular, as if there were multiple, there must be distinctions between them
(see: Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles). Any distinguishing properties
would imply a lack of properties in one that the other possesses, therefore
disqualifying these entities from being pure necessity (see: perfection).” (Muraviev,
2025a)27
As such, we may ask an axiological question; is the whole containing God alone better than that
containing God with imperfect free creatures? Were a set’s value the maximum over its
members, creation may add nothing whilst risking much; however, it is easily conceivable that
value may sensibly attach to wholes (the whole here being the overall SoA composed of God,
the free creatures, their actions and the relations among them, and other emergent properties);
importantly, a whole’s value needn’t equal the sum of its members’ values, so the whole (God
with free creatures) may exceed the value of any of its individual members, including its best
member (God alone) even where the added inferior members bring risk via the propensity or
ability to engage in evil.
A set may be individuated by its members, whilst a whole also includes the relations among its
parts; value may therefore attach to the arrangement rather than the members separately.
Moore states that “the intrinsic value of a whole is neither identical with nor proportional to the
sum of the values of its parts”28
; Moore’s (1903) “principle of organic unities”.29
Significantly free
beings may introduce a category of good which the solitary perfect being seemingly cannot
instantiate: uncompelled creaturely love of the good where evil was available. Plantinga seems
to hold that a world containing significantly free creatures is “more valuable, all else being equal,
than a world containing no free creatures at all” (Plantinga, 1974b, p. 30)30
.
“A world containing creatures who are 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. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or
determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t
significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures
capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and
He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time
prevent them from doing so.” (Plantinga, 1974b).31
27
Muraviev (2025a), Free Will, 21 August (the demonstration is quoted there from
Muraviev’s 2024 notes).
28
Moore (1903), §111 (printed p. 184; earlier exposition at §§18–22). Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53430/53430-h/53430-h.htm (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
29
Moore (1903), §111 (printed p. 184; earlier exposition at §§18–22). Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53430/53430-h/53430-h.htm (Accessed: 12 July 2026).
30
Plantinga (1974b/1977), p. 30. Available at: university-access copy (Accessed: 12 July
2026).
31
Plantinga (1974b/1977), p. 30. Available at: university-access copy (Accessed: 10 July
2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
If such beings’ organic contribution exceeds the disvalue of their depravity across feasible
worlds, the set with said creatures exceeds the value of the set with God alone, and a maximally
good being may hold reason to create despite foreseen evil, to the net positivity of the overall
SoA [the two instances of the word set used here also include the emergent properties of these
elements in time/interaction and as such mirror more closely the concept of wholes introduced
in this essay rather than a simple set containing those things exclusively without additional
effects or properties]; Leibniz’s “God has chosen the best of all possible worlds” echoes this
notion (Leibniz, 1710/1985)32
. Similarly, a defence from multiplicity, from my writing on this
subject:
“There exists a degree of “imperfections” or “evil” — from which there is a complaint of
excess evil. If this evil were reduced, there would still be a complaint of excess — if
evil exists a complaint of it may exist. There is no demarcation to what degree of evil
would be acceptable to the complainer. They may always complain about
imperfection. If evil or “imperfections” do not exist then there is no multiplicity and
there is no creation — only creator as what is perfect is also singular and is God
alone.” (Muraviev, 2025b)
Following this framework, some evil may be the metaphysical price of having anything other
than God or a sufficiently large and positively better set of things including God and things in
addition to God; and noting sentence two of the quote, the complaint of “excess” may be
formable by the contra-theist at every positive level where no demarcation is supplied
(Muraviev, 2025b)33
. As such, the case would seem to hinge upon “abundance”.
“Perhaps perfection gives rise to state of affairs which is optimally configured such
that the configuration (even though it is optimal) gives rise to certain imperfections not
because of flaw in the system but simply because the upper limit of appeal contains
within it such a multiplicity that imperfections are innate. Such that the value of a set
including God + creation exceeds that of God without creation; and we can see that
creation (multiplicity) ought to include imperfection in order to accommodate
multiplicity. Let's also ignore the issue of such a set "God without creation"; if God
exists and creation exists; due to God's perfection and unchangeability a set
containing anything other than God and creation is incomplete and may not be
possible.” (Muraviev, 2025b)34
3. Conceivability and degrees of suffering
Concerning the issue of the excess of suffering, Rowe (1979) presents:
“Taking human and animal suffering as a clear instance of evil which occurs with great
frequency in our world, the argument for atheism based on evil can be stated as
follows:
32
Leibniz (1710/1985), §168. Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17147/17147-h/17147-h.htm (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
33
Muraviev (2025b), working notes.
34
Muraviev (2025b), working notes.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being
could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some
evil equally bad or worse.
2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense
suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good
or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
[…] The argument is valid; therefore, if we have rational grounds for accepting its
premises, to that extent we have rational grounds for accepting atheism.” (Rowe,
1979).35
Draper (1989) 36
expands, with the observed distribution of pain and pleasure being claimed to
be antecedently more probable given the Hypothesis of Indifference than given theism (“the
antecedent probability of O is much greater on the assumption that HI is true than on the
assumption that theism is true” (Draper, 1989))37
, with:
“The important question, a question that David Hume asked (1980, Part XI, pp. 74-75)
but that most contemporary philosophers of religion have ignored, is whether or not
any serious hypothesis that is logically inconsistent with theism explains some
significant set of facts about evil or about good and evil much better than theism
does.” (Draper, 1989).38
Draper defines HI as the hypothesis that “neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings
on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions performed by nonhuman persons.”
(Draper, 1989)39
, continuing:
“Now let “O” stand for a statement reporting both the observations one has made of
humans and animals experiencing pain or pleasure and the testimony one has
35
Rowe (1979), pp. 335–336. Available at:
https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
36
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
37
Draper (1989), p. 333. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
38
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
39
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
encountered concerning the observations others have made of sentient beings
experiencing pain or pleasure.” (Draper, 1989).40
With the issue of abundance being quantitative in nature, the issue of relativity is easily brought
up; to what measure are things abundant/excessive? A claim of abundance would seemingly
require a threshold to be tethered to and compared against (or a more fuzzy yet still tangible
means of demarcation), and neither the contra-theist nor any other argument presented seem to
have effectively supplied either, with Draper holding that an argument ought to be provided for
his comparative claim (not to say so for the separate claim of abundance):
“The claim that P(O/HI) is much greater than P(O/theism) is by no means obviously
true. The fact that O reports observations and testimony about pleasure as well as
pain should make this clear. So an argument for this claim is needed. I will argue that
it is the biological role played by both pain and pleasure in goal-directed organic
systems that renders this claim true.” (Draper, 1989).41
Draper compares P(O/HI) with P(O/theism), dividing O as follows: “Let “O1,” “O2,” and “O3”
stand for statements respectively reporting the facts O reports about: (1) moral agents
experiencing pain or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful, (2) sentient beings that are
not moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful, and (3)
sentient beings experiencing pain or pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful.”
(Draper, 1989)42
. He seems to hold that “a biological explanation of pain and pleasure is just the
sort of explanation that one would expect on HI” (Draper, 1989)43
. The biological-role argument
would then seem to be required to establish Draper’s comparative claim, with the matter
returned to in §5; the issue of demarcation from §2, being distinct from that comparison, seems
to remain for claims of abundance.
Especially considering Draper’s point of “whether or not any serious hypothesis that is logically
inconsistent with theism explains some significant set of facts about evil or about good and evil
much better than theism does”44
, we may see that there is also the matter of the distribution of
40
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
41
Draper (1989), p. 334. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
42
Draper (1989), p. 335. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
43
Draper (1989), pp. 332–336; quoted wording on p. 336. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
44
Draper (1989), p. 332. Available at:
https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/draper-pain-and-
pleasure-an-evidential-problem-for-theists.pdf (Accessed: 15 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
faith between such hypotheses, with the adoption of any of them seeming to constitute such a
distribution:
“Belief in anything requires faith, religion (or any convincing system pertaining to
infinite or real value) is an optimal distribution of faith.” (Muraviev, 2024b)45
“In fact, action without faith cannot:
1. Be deliberate in search of an effect.
a. The idea that a cause leads to an effect is a faith position.
All actions that we are aware of so far are subject to point 1 and therefore are faith-
based decisions. Once this is demonstrated, the NEW QUESTION becomes what
DEGREE of faith is best to hold.
This is answered in my purple box argument.” (Muraviev, 2026a)46
“The hyperstitious argument for God:
Convergence of predicates in the singular GCT draws belief towards it. Assuming
1. epistemic uncertainty for the reader
2. all beliefs for the reader are hyperstitious
3. various beliefs have various value (as such there is a “better” or “worse” selection
of beliefs)
4. acceptance of the basic logical system relevant here, and other such more base-
axiomatic points
5. GCT; proof predicates
6. belief in GCT is rational and better than otherwise” (Muraviev, 2025d)47
“Hyperstition not used in strictly “fictional” sense but in epistemic hierarchy,
uncertainty sense.” (Muraviev, 2025e)48
“Could you (if you are claiming so) demonstrate why your criteria for something
constituting a proof ought to be universal or preferable to criteria which yield greater
value (even if quite tautological)?
Given that we don’t hold epistemically certain beliefs, why doesn’t it make sense to
align epistemic criteria towards maximal value, and God and value have a tautological
relationship as GCT or similar can simply be defined as a perfection, or root of value
or maximal value?” (Muraviev, 2025f)49
“You can dismiss value as non-existing, and consequently do away with this
argument, but then you have no means of asserting any X being better than any Y, so
45
Muraviev (2024b), working notes, 14 March.
46
Muraviev (2026a), Ethics U6, 2026 edition (2024 text reproduced in the 2026 edition).
47
Muraviev (2025d), unpublished notes, 20 November 2025.
48
Muraviev (2025e), unpublished note, 8 June 2025.
49
Muraviev (2025f), unpublished notes, 18 June 2025.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
you cannot really form an effective “ought” argument about anything.” (Muraviev,
2025f)50
“and with everything recursively built on the epistemically uncertain metanarrative, it
seems cognitive or epistemic hyperstitions dominate, yet as the plane of certainly
observed reality remains elusive, the greatest conceivable reality as constrained by
epistemic uncertainty is the reality within which the hyperstition affects itself.”
(Muraviev, 2025g)51
“In layspeak, this argument for objectivity or whatever one wishes to call it, is simply a
statement of acknowledging that all systems are covered by epistemic fog, no claims
to certainty are valid, no systems are provable; in a game of coherence and axiom
selection, the objectivity-God-value-axiom presented a highly appealing role as it was
one of the tautological games offering the highest value within a certain set of
parameters.” (Muraviev, 2025h)52
“1. The probability of God's existence is not zero.
2. Temporary things' value in proportion to eternal things is null or infinitesimal.
3. A great chance positing the non-existence of value or infinitesimal value will always
result in a value less than a small chance positing the existence of infinite value as
long as 1 holds true.
4. Therefore, if the existence of God is logically possible, it is worthwhile to act as if
He exists.” (Muraviev, 2023b)53
As such we may use for comparison a set of worlds e.g. a set of feasible worlds, feasibility
being contingent upon freedom, TWD and epistemic distance; and over this set, a
demonstration of excess seems, to not have been demonstrated or sensibly implied.
Without sufficiently grounded means of demarcation, arguments of excess, per §2, may seem to
be permitted at any level, which seems to be argumentatively problematic due to the issue of
complaint availability at every possible level functionally leading to a lack of demonstrated and
warranted basis for complaints of abundance and bringing us back to the virtually solved logical
complaint/problem and no identification of even one item of suffering whose removal would
demonstrably preserve all other elements of the set containing God, freedom, TWD beings and
other positive elements outweighing the negatives brought about by that item or set of items,
has been or possibly could be made within the capabilities of either side. As such, it remains
easily conceivable, and with no substantial evidence of improbability, that the actual world
contains something like the smallest amount of suffering feasible in any set of worlds containing
the other aforementioned positive elements.
Inversely, one may easily conceive of worlds containing much more suffering, including feasibly
actualisable ones in the near future, for example those involving Roko’s basilisk-type scenarios
(Yudkowsky’s counterarguments against the Basilisk also very easily fall apart, however, for
50
Muraviev (2025f), unpublished notes, 18 June 2025 [an earlier related formulation
addressing the cost of denying value].
51
Muraviev (2025g), unpublished notes, 13 October 2025.
52
Muraviev (2025h), unpublished note, 30 May 2025.
53
Muraviev (2023b), unpublished notes, 13 December 2023.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
reasons of safety and for the purposes of this essay, shall not be addressed here), where
humans are made to experience maximum feasible torture or some other similar punishment.
One could easily conceive of such a Basilisk tormenting billions of humans such that a single
human consciousness experiences more material/physical suffering (to separate from
eschatological suffering) than the sum of all prior human material suffering. One could easily
imagine billions of humans suffering the maximum feasible quantity permitted under the physical
laws of this universe, such that they are tormented until the heat death of the universe or
perhaps until the last black hole evaporates by hawking radiation in around 10^100 or 10^131
years (to oversimplify) (Adams and Laughlin, 1997)54
, which seems to be a possible sensible
limit to the material duration of human suffering in some physical, atheist frameworks.
One could also conceive of other durations or “endings” or processes to the universe in which
individuals are tortured; however, whatever limit one may feasibly conceive of here, is 1.
massively distant from the actual quantity of suffering, 2. with that massive distance in mind, it is
still immensely more distant from quantities of conceivable suffering in other conceivable but not
physically as feasible worlds. One could easily conceive of heptating (conjugation of heptation)
the quantity of suffering by googleplex, graham’s number or use whatever massive
hyperoperation one wished, yet still that quantity of suffering (which exceeds feasible suffering
massively) would be relatively close to zero relative to the quantity of suffering conceivable and
achievable by a non-benevolent God (using such a term for purposes of the argument rather
than asserting the coherence of such a term), with all of this being possible, granting the
existence of God (Muraviev, 2026b)55
. “Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a
contradiction” (Hume, 1779)56
; with the contra-theist attempting to use conceivability as the
generator for arguments such as God preventing suffering and/or evil at no cost to omnipotence
hence attacking omnibenevolence, that principle may be used in an even stronger fashion in a
directionally inverse manner, as the conception of smaller degrees of suffering whilst
maintaining the aforementioned benefits of freedom, epistemic distance and so forth, seems to
be a far more challenging matter than the conception of much greater degrees of suffering in
either framework (be that a theistic or atheistic one, suspending issues of the coherence of the
latter for the sake of argument). It may seem that up until this point, that individual suffering has
been bound to periods not much exceeding 100 years for most humans (with notable
exceptions of larger lifespans in the Christian framework such as Methuselah (Genesis 5:27.
King James Version, no date)57
, and suspending the issue of other creatures’ suffering such as
non-human spiritual beings) and that the degrees of suffering experienced during such periods
perhaps with the exception of Christ, does not seem to be tremendous; one may go so far as to
remark, after considering this, that the quantity of suffering in the world is remarkably or
miraculously low (aligning with the idea of GCT) and could truly, be the minimum (or close to the
minimum) possible in a framework holding the other aforementioned positive elements.
54
Adams, F. C. and Laughlin, G. (1997), Reviews of Modern Physics, 69, pp. 337–372.
Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9701131 (Accessed: 13 July 2026).
55
Muraviev (2026b), recorded discussion, unpublished transcript.
56
Hume (1779), Part IX (D 9.5; text as at davidhume.org, Kemp Smith numbers). Available
at: https://davidhume.org/texts/d/9 (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
57
Genesis 5:27, King James Version: “And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred
sixty and nine years: and he died.” Available at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?
search=Genesis%205%3A27&version=KJV (Accessed: 13 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
To summarise, there seems to be an asymmetry with downward degrees of conceivable
suffering being tightly constrained by feasibility and possibility alongside the existence of the
aforementioned positive elements, whereas upwards degrees of suffering are conceivably much
greater and more “probable” (used very loosely) if not guaranteed if taking a “random” non-
divine pick (however, that is not to say that this is how the universe works, nor that this line of
thought is much more than reliant on its own framework/is heavily dependent on framework-
internal logic and claims, which in themselves may be called insufficiently grounded; after all,
“the question is asked: which axioms are justifiable; however, because they are axioms, the
justification itself is an exercise in axiomatic selection, which itself would lack justification as the
justification would come from the axioms selected yet we would not have selected any axioms
with a justified reason as the reason is contingent upon the axioms chosen, and so on and so
forth” (Muraviev, 2025c)58
but suspending this, within the logically coherent framework holding
GCT and the other aforementioned elements, unjustified evil would be contradictory to the
established predicates of GCT, and alongside the arguments of the essay, it is therefore not
unreasonable to state that the degree of suffering in this world is sufficiently near the minimum
to warrant no problem in the sense that one is raised by the contra-theist).
This inverse seems to be sufficiently responsive to ideas of abundance that in combination with
the other factors mentioned in this essay, the issue/line of argument is defused insofar as it has
been brought up and illustrated here.
4. Complaints of exceedance and demarcation issues
Responding to claims of excess suffering departing from agentic-human-caused suffering, a
claim could be made that examples such as Rowe’s fawn (Rowe, 1979) seem to be too much,
unbearable or gratuitous.
“Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire.
In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days
before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn’s intense suffering
is pointless. For there does not appear to be any greater good such that the
prevention of the fawn’s suffering would require either the loss of that good or the
occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse. Nor does there seem to be any equally
bad or worse evil so connected to the fawn’s suffering that it would have had to occur
had the fawn’s suffering been prevented.” (Rowe, 1979).59
For such issues, however, as conveniently highlighted by Rowe’s phrasing (“does not appear to
be any greater good”; emphasis on “appear”), this seems to be currently incalculable to current
humanity as constrained by both compute and data, even with those two factors resolved e.g.
start-conditions of universe + sufficient compute to simulate, we also may seem to require the
universe to be deterministic rather than probabilistic (there seem to be no sufficiently convincing
arguments which attempt to conclusively demonstrate that probability as an issue isn’t simply an
epistemic issue, and there exists true randomness) (or exhaustive knowledge of the set of
possible outcomes in a probabilistic universe and exhaustive knowledge of the effects of each
upon the overall SoA), and as such the claim of the fawn’s suffering or whichever substitute
being fruitless in the sense of a greater good seems unsubstantiated and not problematic for the
58
Muraviev (2025c), unpublished essay, 7 August.
59
Rowe (1979), p. 337. Available at:
https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
probable coexistence of GCT, on the basis of the butterfly effect; the fawn’s suffering may be
conducive for a greater environment for the fruition of greater net goodness.
Proceeding to analyse whether exceedance of some form of boundary/claims of “too much”
suffering seems to actually function as a sufficiently substantive analytic premise, one could
grant that precise demarcation may not be required. However, there still seems to be a
necessity for a distinct space containing excess.
Applied to suffering, complaints of exceeding the capacity to bear seem incoherent in the
analytic sense: whatever has been suffered has, in that sense, been borne, even in the instance
of an individual ending their own life (as has been raised as an example frequently in
discussion). The apparent extremeness of such a choice seems to prompt conclusions that this
somehow appears in a separate category in the sense of suffering capacity exceedance;
however, at least in immediately apparent terms, there seems to be no evidence that such
choices are much more (in the sense of category distinction and movement to a different
capacity space/transcending categories) than an organism electing to make a choice like any
other within the constraints of its capacity and agency to undertake and bear, even considering
the great distaste it is taken under.
Granting meaning more liberally (in a language games sense; see Wittgenstein60
) Ayer writes
that an ethical term may be “used to express feeling about certain objects, but not to make any
assertion about them” (Ayer, 1936)6162
; as such suffering being “too much”, seems to be able to
function as something similarly expressive as in this sense rather than as an analytic premise.
“Gratuitous” (unnecessary, as applied to suffering) seems to require a claim concerning what
the relevant issue may in fact require; Wykstra holding that the inference from apparent
gratuitousness is available only where it seems sensible to believe that “if p were not the case, s
would likely be different than it is in some way discernible by her” (Wykstra, 1984)63
, with the
butterfly effect providing one candidate reason why no such difference need be discernible in
the fawn case. If no positive quantity which would not be “too much” is identified, the predicate
seemingly may be permitted to be applied at every positive level and does not seem to measure
the actual quantity. Adams brings up “horrendous evils”, which seem prima facie “not only to
balance off but to engulf the positive value of a participant’s life” (Adams, 1989)64
; her
immediate unit of defeat seems to be the participant’s life, used here without adopting her post-
60
Biletzki and Matar (2021), §3 (The Later Wittgenstein). Available at:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LateWitt (Accessed: 14 July 2026).
61
Ayer (1936), ch. 6, p. 67. Available at: https://people.stfx.ca/wsweet/Ayer-emotivism.pdf
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
62
Stevenson (1937), p. 23, giving a related account of emotive meaning. Available at:
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~francisp/NewPhil448/StevensonEmotiveEthics1937.pdf
(Accessed: 10 July 2026).
63
Wykstra (1984), p. 85. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00136567 (Accessed: 12
July 2026).
64
Adams (1989), p. 299; reprinted in Adams and Adams (eds.) (1990), The Problem of Evil.
Available at: https://afterall.net/papers/horrendous-evil-and-the-goodness-of-god/
(Accessed: 13 July 2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
mortem solution (not asserting any eschatology), it supplies no boundary for the world-level
quantity. Absent either a relevant boundary or a warranted inference from appearance to
gratuitousness, “too much” does not yet seem to function as the required premise.
5. Objections
One may object that worlds containing less suffering are also conceivable; however, the
conception of such worlds does not seem to demonstrate feasibility whilst preserving the other
aforementioned positive elements, whereas the upward direction seems to only require the
conception of a greater quantity, and as such this may defeat a demonstration of abundance
without demonstrating minimality.
One may object that conceivability (in some senses of the word) does not necessarily entail
possibility; Chalmers calls prima facie conceivability “an imperfect guide to possibility”
(Chalmers, 2002)65
, with the imperfection being asserted of prima facie as opposed to ideal
conceivability. As such, the construction may seem to not have been demonstrated to be
metaphysically possible; the same qualification, however, may seem to apply to the statement
that “God could have prevented this without loss”, with a defence seeming to require only a
possibly true proposition whereas the evidential argument may seem to require its relevant
claim to be demonstrated. Furthermore, one may note, that this issue concerning criticism of
distinction between conceivability and possibility is not a genuine one but rather an issue of the
English language; it seems to be a word issue where both underlying ontologically distinct terms
A, B (being different) are named in the same way: “conceivability”, whilst meaning different
things.
It may also be argued that the construction “proves too much”, with any finite quantity being
reducible towards zero against a sufficiently greater conceived quantity; the ratio, however, is
not being used to prove minimality, “abundance” being the vehicle of the contra-theist, with the
basis of that comparison seemingly being owed by the argument which asserts it. A world
containing deathless subjects in torment without exit may seem to count against minimality,
whereas the actual world does not seem to be of that sort (excluding eschatology of which a
subset of the contra-theist group typically subscribes to); mortality may at least bound duration
(though perhaps not necessarily intensity or total disvalue), seemingly demonstrating finitude
rather than the minimum.
Concerning natural evil and Draper, stable natural law e.g. fire seems to reliably burn would
seem to be a condition of meaningful agency and epistemic distance. Hick grants, even whilst
bringing up the question of quantity, that a place of soul-making “must be a world of stable
natural law in which sentient creatures sometimes feel pain” (Hick, 1966; Swinburne, 1998).66
A
defence seems to require only the possible proposition that natural evil may trace to non-human
free agency. Plantinga (1974b) writes of the “free actions of nonhuman persons”.67
No particular
measure therefore seems to follow from Draper here; O3 concerns pain or pleasure not known
to be biologically useful, though the same issue seems to remain: the possible routes of non-
65
Chalmers (2002), thesis (1), §4. Available at:
https://consc.net/papers/conceivability.html (Accessed: 10 July 2026).
66
Hick (1966), p. 309 in 2010 Palgrave reissue (university-access copy).
67
Plantinga (1974b/1977), p. 58. Available at: university-access copy (Accessed: 10 July
2026).
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
human agency and epistemic distance may be sufficient for a defence, whereas the
comparative argument would seem to need to show them antecedently improbable.
6. Weak grounds
Another important point being that delineating evil (and by extension objective disvalue of
suffering, rather than personal distaste or aggregates of personal distaste, or even perhaps
personal distaste itself if things are really reduced down to their mereological simples without
any sufficient proof of genuine emergent properties or indivisible conscious, experiential
entities), in a system absent GCT, seems possibly unavailable in an objective sense or
sufficiently substantive sense in a manner that would significantly meaningfully critique GCT,
with the contra-theist seemingly using terms of objective disvalue (not to state that some sets of
atheistic beliefs do not claim to hold non-physicalist, and not anti-realist positions, whose
evaluation shall not be the purpose of this essay), from the framework they are critiquing; under
a purely physicalist viewpoint, arrangements of mereological simples do not seem to carry
objective disvalue, and complaints of suffering may reduce to reports of distaste (or aggregates
thereof), returning the matter to the appeal-sense already covered. Furthermore, with good (in a
strong objective sense) being derivative of God (Muraviev, 2024a)68
, and evil being contingent
on the contrast against good (privation), as such for sufficient objectivity for claims of the
existence of evil, or perhaps suffering, in a true-sense, seems to be contingent upon the
existence of God, and a purely physicalist anti-realist system does not seem to provide an
alternative explanation or grounds with which to use these terms in a manner which is both:
objective, and not contingent on a not purely materialistic framework, and as such would either
fall apart or be forced to invoke some sense of God-like singular, perfection (with that idea being
then a competitor for GCT, and as such perhaps falling into the same issues as the criticism has
brought up).
“Considering its perfection, anything in alignment or derivative purely of it would be
considered acting in accordance with perfection. This alignment can be defined as a
moral function of perfection or simply “moral good.”
You cannot have a similar function to this (highest or high form of moral objectivity) or,
in fact, any form of moral objectivity without objective origin. This is a simple
tautology.” (Muraviev, 2024d)69
“Furthermore, goodness is (in any objective sense) simply a derivative of God, if we
accept the existence of contingency and necessity and basic ontological principles as
axioms. Therefore, any claim that GCT cannot be good is a logical contradiction if we
accept these axioms.” (Muraviev, 2024a)70
“There is no proof that good/evil is functionally distinct from appeal/disgust.”
(Muraviev, 2025b)71
This is not to say that these positions are the only positions available to the contra-theist nor
that this disqualifies matters of internal criticism.
68
Muraviev (2024a), Agora post, 21 December.
69
Muraviev (2024d), unpublished notes, 4 December 2024.
70
Muraviev (2024a), Agora post, 21 December.
71
Muraviev (2025b), working notes.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
Conclusion
To conclude, the logical incompatibility of GCT and evil does not seem to have been
demonstrated nor does the more probabilistic issue seem sufficiently convincing; my multiplicity
argument seems to provide a possible and sensible reason for creation containing imperfection,
evil and suffering; the suffering of the actual world seems easily conceivable as minimal or
proximal to that considering the aforementioned positive elements; the evidence provided
regarding the sense of abundance of suffering does not seem sufficiently convincing to establish
that the coexistence of GCT and the actual degree of suffering is improbable. As such, the
answer to the question is probably no.
References
Adams, F. C. and Laughlin, G. (1997) ‘A Dying Universe: The Long Term Fate and Evolution of
Astrophysical Objects’, Reviews of Modern Physics, 69, pp. 337–372.
Adams, M. M. (1989) ‘Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God’, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 63, pp. 297–310.
Adams, M. M. and Adams, R. M. (eds.) (1990) The Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ayer, A. J. (1936) Language, Truth and Logic. London: Gollancz.
Biletzki, A. and Matar, A. (2021) ‘Ludwig Wittgenstein’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LateWitt (Accessed: 14
July 2026).
Chalmers, D. J. (2002) ‘Does Conceivability Entail Possibility?’, in Gendler, T. S. and
Hawthorne, J. (eds.) Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 145–
200.
Creary, L. G. and Hill, C. S. (1975) Review of Lewis, Counterfactuals, Philosophy of Science,
42(3), pp. 341–344.
Draper, P. (1989) ‘Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists’, Noûs, 23(3), pp. 331–
350.
Esmail, K. H. A. (2002) ‘Plantinga’s Defence of the Free Will Defence in Chapter Nine of The
Nature of Necessity’, Sophia, 41(2), pp. 19–29.
Hick, J. (1966) Evil and the God of Love. London: Macmillan (page references are to the 2010
Palgrave Macmillan reissue).
Howard-Snyder, D. and O’Leary-Hawthorne, J. (1998) ‘Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga’s
Free Will Defense’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 44(1), pp. 1–21.
Hume, D. (1779) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Edited by J. C. A. Gaskin (1993).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
John of Damascus (1899) An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Translated by S. D. F.
Salmond. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9. Buffalo, NY: Christian
Literature Publishing.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
King James Version (no date) Bible Gateway. Available at:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%205%3A27&version=KJV
(Accessed: 13 July 2026).
Kroon, F. W. (1981) ‘Plantinga on God, Freedom, and Evil’, International Journal for Philosophy
of Religion, 12(2), pp. 75–96.
Leibniz, G. W. (1710/1985) Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man
and the Origin of Evil. Translated by E. M. Huggard. La Salle: Open Court.
Lewis, D. (1973) Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mackie, J. L. (1955) ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, Mind, 64(254), pp. 200–212.
Moore, G. E. (1903) Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muraviev, V. (2023a) Free Will and Omniscience — Atemporal Imaging. Unpublished notes,
November. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any academic
institution.
Muraviev, V. (2023b) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Condensed wager on acting as if God exists.
Unpublished, December. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any
academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2024a) ‘Re: What is the problem of evil?’, The Agora discussion forum,
HSA020C118A, 21 December. Unpublished coursework.
Muraviev, V. (2024b) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Notes on belief, faith and its optimal
distribution. Unpublished notes. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at
any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2024c) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Further 2024 notes on faith. Unpublished.
Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2024d) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Demonstration of monotheism and the
derivation of moral good. Unpublished, December. Note: this work was not previously submitted
for and credited at any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2025a) Free Will. Unpublished essay, 21 August.
Muraviev, V. (2025b) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Working notes on the multiplicity defence.
Unpublished. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any academic
institution.
Muraviev, V. (2025c) ‘What is the source of the “mind-body problem”? Is Descartes able
successfully to respond to this problem?’ Unpublished essay, 7 August.
Muraviev, V. (2025d) Unpublished Notes Corpus: The hyperstitious argument for God.
Unpublished, November. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any
academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2025e) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Note on the sense of “hyperstition”.
Unpublished, June. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any
academic institution.
Copyright © Victor Muraviev 2026
Muraviev, V. (2025f) Unpublished Notes Corpus: On the dismissal of value and “ought”
arguments. Unpublished, June. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at
any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2025g) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Notes on epistemic hyperstition. Unpublished,
October. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited at any academic
institution.
Muraviev, V. (2025h) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Note on epistemic fog and the objectivity-
God-value axiom. Unpublished, May. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and
credited at any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2026a) Ethics U6. Unpublished manuscript, 2026 edition. Note: this work was not
previously submitted for and credited at any academic institution.
Muraviev, V. (2026b) Unpublished Notes Corpus: Recorded discussion on conceivable
suffering. Transcript, unpublished. Note: this work was not previously submitted for and credited
at any academic institution.
Otte, R. (2009) ‘Transworld Depravity and Unobtainable Worlds’, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 78(1), pp. 165–177.
Plantinga, A. (1974a) The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Plantinga, A. (1974b) God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1977 edition; first
published 1974, New York: Harper & Row).
Plantinga, A. (2009) ‘Transworld Depravity, Transworld Sanctity, & Uncooperative Essences’,
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 78(1), pp. 178–191.
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. (2025) ‘The Identity of Indiscernibles’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/ (Accessed: 12
July 2026).
Rowe, W. L. (1979) ‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism’, American
Philosophical Quarterly, 16(4), pp. 335–341.
Stevenson, C. L. (1937) ‘The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms’, Mind, 46(181), pp. 14–31.
Swinburne, R. (1998) Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wykstra, S. J. (1984) ‘The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On
Avoiding the Evils of “Appearance”’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 16(2), pp.
73–93.