The Theodicy of Finitude
Modeling the Problem of Evil On the Pareto Frontier
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19230362 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leandro Prade Nadaletti (0009-0001-2286-7954, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, corresponding author), Ana Maria Correa Moreira Da Silva (0000-0003-3851-3031, Universidade de Brasília) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-13 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sophia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-1527 • E-ISSN: 1873-930X |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11841-026-01134-9 |
| OpenAlex | W7154047867 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 36 |
The evidential problem of evil endures because the pervasiveness and severity of suffering appear antecedently unlikely on theism, while piecemeal theodicies trade one set of intuitions for another. We advance a Theodicy of Finitude: a structural, heuristic model that represents worlds populated by finite agents via a mathematical concept, the Pareto Frontier, among incompossible goods. Within this framework, moral evil is avoidable loss, states dominated by better available options, whereas tragic evil consists in the ineliminable costs of efficient states. The model clarifies constraints and value trade-offs without implying either that God optimizes the world or that efficiency yields moral verdicts. Mapping familiar strategies onto this geometry reveals free-will, soul-making, and greater-good approaches as disciplined special cases, consistent with the epistemic modesty commended by skeptical theism. On this view, the charge of gratuitous evil is reframed: the absence of token-level purposes often reflects the price of sustaining the goods that render finite life livable. We address objections concerning specificity, horrors and affective limits, arguing that structural explanation excuses no wrongdoing and substitutes for neither lament nor justice. Together, these results suggest a unifying framework for theodicy, one that interprets diverse responses as contributions to a shared effort to map a single logical structure that reconciles divine goodness with the presence of evil
Compatibilism · Doxastic logic · Heuristic · Pareto principle · Problem of Evil · Set (abstract data type) · Skepticism · Theodicy · Wrongdoing · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Theology and Philosophy of Evil · War, Ethics, and Justification
God, Chance and Purpose
Simulation and Similarity
How the Laws of Physics Lie
Providence and the Problem of Evil
Wandering in Darkness
The Dappled World
‘And Therefore I Hasten to Return My Ticket’
A Naturalistic Theodicy for Sterba’s Problem of Natural Evil
On the Logical Argument from Natural Evil
Game theory and omniscience
Reversing the problem of evil
Elucidating open theism
The Inductive Argument From Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition
The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal
The humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering
Isaiah Berlin and International Relations
| Highly cited | No |
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