The Problem of Evil for Pantheists

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of alternatives to traditional theism, including panentheism, pantheism, axiarchism, and atheism, and explains how each view interprets the relationship between God (or the absence of God) and the world. It then develops a version of the problem of evil, the ‘divinity problem of evil’, which arises for both pantheism and traditional theism. The chapter critically discusses an attempt to save pantheism and traditional theism from the problem by appealing to an experiential approach to divinity and argues that it is available to traditional theists but not to pantheists. It then focuses on ‘multiverse pantheism’, a novel form of pantheism which mitigates many shortcomings of standard pantheism. The chapter concludes, however, that even multiverse pantheism, unlike traditional theism, cannot avoid a certain version of the divinity problem of evil.