The Structural Problem of Epistemic Deprivation: Why the “Greater Good” Is Not a Theodicy

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By Joshua Shrode

I. Introduction

The traditional Problem of Evil asks: Why does a perfectly good, all-powerful, all-knowing God allow suffering? A common reply—especially in Christian philosophy—is that evil is permitted for the sake of some greater good: free will, soul-making, or a complex moral order in which God’s purposes unfold.

But there is a class of harm that resists this line of defensea category that brings into question not only divine providence, but divine justice and love: , epistemically preventable suffering and moral failure.

I argue that when a person suffers, fails, or is eternally damned because of epistemic deprivation they did not choose and could not overcome, this constitutes not only a problem of evil, but a moral contradiction at the heart of theism—what I call the Structural Problem of Epistemic Deprivation.

II. What Is Epistemic Deprivation?

Epistemic deprivation refers to the condition in which a person lacks access to morally or existentially significant truths—through no fault of their own. It is the absence or distortion of truth in contexts where that truth is necessary for responsible action, moral development, or spiritual salvation.

This deprivation is not incidental. It is often structural: shaped by misinformation, cultural formation, psychological trauma, and institutional failure. And it becomes theologically significant when:

The person affected is sincere and non-resistant,The consequences of the ignorance are grave—moral, spiritual, or physical,And the deprivation could have been trivially prevented by a loving, omniscient, omnipotent being.

The following examples illustrate just how morally urgent this problem is.

❖ The Death of an Infant

A young couple, exhausted first-time parents, finally get their newborn to sleep after hours of soothing. They swaddle her tightly, lay her face-down on a soft blanket—just as they remember their own parents doing—and collapse into bed.

They are unaware that prone sleep on soft bedding is a major risk factor for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

In the morning, their child is no more.

No negligence. No rebellion. Just a gap in knowledge—one that cost a life.

A whisper from God—“turn your child on it’s back”—could have spared them lifelong grief.

But God said nothing.

❖ The Dosage Misunderstanding

A man picks up a new prescription for his elderly mother, who has heart failure. The printed instructions say:

“Take Drug A & Drug B, depending on blood pressure.”

But the cardiologist had told him—quickly, during a chaotic discharge process:

“Take Drug A OR Drug B, depending on blood pressure.”

He doesn’t realize the error.

Three days later, his mother collapses from a drug interaction.
By day four, she is gone.

The difference between “and” and “or”—a single word—cost her life.

A nudge from God—“Call the doctor again,” or “Check the label twice”—would have been enough.

But there is only silence.

❖ The Misinformed Seeker

A young man in rural Pakistan sincerely seeks God. He prays daily, fasts, gives generously, and asks to know whatever is true.

But the only version of Christianity he ever encounters comes from state-controlled television and secondhand caricatures: imperialist, immoral, idolatrous. He believes he is rejecting corruption.

He dies having never encountered anything like the Christian God in a way he could recognize as morally or intellectually credible.

He never chose to reject God. He rejected a distortion—a distortion he never had the tools to correct.

A God who desires that all people be saved (1 Tim 2:4) could have reached him in a dream, a vision, a traveler, a single page of a New Testament to show him something true.

But that moment never came.

❖ Why These Cases Matter

These stories are tragic not just because people suffered, but because:

The suffering or spiritual loss arose from ignorance that was non-culpable,The corrective knowledge was minimal and available,And the people involved were not resistant to truth—they simply never had the right pieces.

Each of these cases reveals the fragility of human agency in a world where truth is not evenly distributed.

If God is omniscient, then He knows what each person lacks.

If God is omnipotent, then He can correct even a small epistemic gap.

If God is loving, then He has no reason to withhold the knowledge required to prevent irreversible harm—whether physical death, moral collapse, or eternal separation.

And if God fails to provide that, then we are not merely dealing with divine hiddenness.

We are dealing with divine silence in the face of epistemic harm—a harm that is avoidable, foreseeable, and unjustly consequential.

III. Moral Responsibility and the Conditions of Agency

Moral responsibility—on any plausible theory—requires that the agent’s decision reflects their informed will. Whether one adopts:

a libertarian view (freedom requires real alternatives and informed, uncoerced choice), ora compatibilist view (freedom requires that actions flow from the agent’s beliefs, values, and reasons),

both agree that severely distorted epistemic conditions compromise moral agency.

If a person’s beliefs about right and wrong, or about God, are formed through misinformation, fear, or structural deception, then even their “authentic” choices may lack moral significance. Their actions may flow from them, but not from a morally responsible self—because the self is malformed by forces beyond its control.

IV. When Epistemic Deprivation Is Structural

What makes these conditions particularly insidious is that they are not rare or fleeting. They are structural:

Cultural misinformation and propaganda,Religious indoctrination or isolation,Psychological trauma that inhibits trust or inquiry,Systemic educational gaps.

These are not mere accidents—they are predictable features of human development, and they affect billions of people. And crucially, God knows every one of them. He sees the lie as it forms, the decision it warps, the harm it causes.

V. The Theological Dilemma

Christian theism claims that God is:

Omniscient (knows every truth and every heart),Omnipotent (can do all that is logically possible),Omnibenevolent (loves all persons and wills their good).

It also teaches that God desires that “none should perish” (2 Peter 3:9) and that “all should come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).

So here is the dilemma:

If God sees that a person is being epistemically malformed in a way that will lead to spiritual ruin, psychological despair, or avoidable death—and He could prevent that by supplying a single piece of knowledge at the right time—

Why does He not intervene?

This does not require overriding free will. It does not require violating laws of nature. It requires only a timely whisper, nudge, dream, or intuition—something Scripture itself says God is capable of doing.

If God permits structural epistemic deprivation knowing it will lead to spiritual loss or suffering, then either:

He wills the harm (contradicting perfect love),He is indifferent to it (contradicting benevolence),He cannot prevent it (contradicting omnipotence),Or He does not exist.VI. The Inviolability of Persons: Means vs. Ends

At the heart of this issue lies a deeper ethical principle: persons must never be treated merely as means to an end.

This principle, rooted in Kantian ethics, also runs throughout Christian moral theology—and is grounded in the doctrine of the Imago Dei: the belief that every human being is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). This implies that each person:

Has intrinsic dignity,Possesses rational and moral worth,Must be treated as an end in themselves.

Throughout Scripture, this idea reappears:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31),“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me” (Matt 25:40),“God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34),“It is not God’s will that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9).

So when people suffer, fail morally, or are eternally lost not through their own sin, but because of preventable ignorance—God is not only permitting harm, He is instrumentalizing their personhood for some broader “purpose” that disregards their dignity.

Any theodicy that treats epistemically deprived persons as necessary casualties in a cosmic plan treats them as means to an end—which a perfectly good being cannot do.

VII. The Failure of “Greater Good” Theodicies

Most responses to the problem of evil rely on some version of greater-good justification: God allows evil to bring about a more valuable outcome.

But this move fails in the case of epistemic deprivation:

The “greater good” is often for others (e.g., soul-making in the observer, not the sufferer who may die or never grow spiritually).The person who suffers does not consent to being used or even sacrificed for this purpose.The good could often be achieved without the specific harm (e.g., you can learn empathy without someone being damned or dying in ignorance).

From a non-consequentialist perspective—which Christian ethics typically affirms—a good outcome cannot justify treating a person as a tool, especially when that person’s suffering or damnation is entirely preventable.

God may allow suffering—but if He allows suffering rooted in non-culpable ignorance, and does nothing when He could easily act, then He treats the individual not as a beloved child, but as a pawn.

That is not perfect love. It is, by the standards of Christian ethics, evil.

VIII. Formal Summary of the Argument

Let me summarize the structure of the argument:

P1. A person is morally responsible only if their choice reflects epistemically grounded agency (on either libertarian or compatibilist terms).

P2. Structural epistemic constraints exist that significantly distort moral and spiritual choices, through no fault of the agent.

P3. These constraints regularly result in grave harm: spiritual ruin, moral failure, existential suffering.

P4. A perfectly loving, omnipotent, omniscient God would not permit such harm unless it were logically necessary and consistent with treating persons as ends in themselves.

P5. Such harm is not logically necessary, and its prevention would not violate freedom or divine character.

C. Therefore, the existence of structural epistemic deprivation is incompatible with the Christian conception of God.

IX. Final Reflections

We often imagine God’s hiddenness as a lack of spectacle. But perhaps the greater scandal is God’s silence in the face of epistemic harm. When someone dies believing a lie they never chose, or spends their life suffering for something they could have avoided with one insight, the question is not merely, “Why did God allow this?”

It’s, “Why didn’t He say something?”

If the world is full of people suffering because of what they never had the chance to know—
And if God knows, sees, and could change that—
Then we must ask:

What kind of God is that?

X. Invitation to Engagement

This argument is not offered triumphantly. It is meant to provoke serious thought and dialogue.

If you are a theist, how do you reconcile epistemically grounded harm with divine love?If you are a non-theist, do you find this argument distinct from traditional formulations of the problem of evil?

I welcome thoughtful responses—especially from those who take the moral and intellectual character of God seriously.