Divine Benevolence

Why does the world, designed by benevolent Zeus in its finest details, include so much vice and so little, if any, virtue? This basic challenge to Ancient Stoicism has developed into one of the central philosophical problems for every variety of theist. This work maps out the origin of the problem in Stoic logic and physics, and show how the Stoics responded to it. The Stoic solutions are found to be inadequate, and the view of the human condition they reveal is quite troubling. The problem of evil, it is argued, can only be solved by a theist who rejects some central component of Classical Pantheism.