Gratuitous evil and divine providence

Discussions of the evidential argument from evil generally pay littleattention to how different models of divine providence constrain the theist’s optionsfor response. After describing four models of providence and general theisticstrategies for engaging the evidential argument, I articulate and defend a definitionof ‘gratuitous evil’ that renders the theological premise of the argumentuncontroversial for theists. This forces theists to focus their fire on the evidentialpremise, enabling us to compare models of providence with respect to how plausiblythey can resist it. I then assess the four models, concluding that theists are betteroff vis-a`-vis the evidential argument if they reject meticulous providence