The Christian explanation for evil often depends on a distinction between harmful lacks and harmless ones. They claim that evil is simply the absence of a good that ought to be present, and then insist that not every absence of a good counts as evil. This move allows them to argue that God is not responsible for the flaws, limitations, and sufferings found in the world. However, the entire strategy hinges on assumptions about what creatures are “meant” to be like, what abilities they “should” or “should not” have, and which absences matter morally. Once these assumptions are questioned, the argument begins to unravel. What follows is an examination of why the claim that “not all lacks are evil” is deeply problematic, inconsistent, and ultimately incapable of defending a loving or perfect God.
1. The distinction between “intended lack” and “unintended lack” is unknowable
Christians claim some lacks are not evil because “the creature was never meant to have that ability.”
But no one can know what any creature was “meant” to be like.
If God’s supposed design is not accessible, then:
you cannot say a mouse “wasn’t meant” to lift boulders
you cannot say a human “was meant” to hear
you cannot say an ape “wasn’t meant” to think abstractly
Without access to a blueprint, the distinction collapses.
You cannot judge whether a lack is natural or harmful if purpose itself is unknown.
This makes the “not all lacks are evil” argument void of meaning, because it depends entirely on unknowable intentions.
2. If God is omnipotent, every lack is chosen—so every lack is morally relevant
In Christian theology:
God could give any ability to any creature.
God could prevent any disability.
God could create any world he wants.
Therefore, every lack exists only because God willed it.
If a lack leads to suffering, limitation, or restricted flourishing, then:
God deliberately withheld something good
and that makes the lack morally relevant
Thus the “not all lacks are evil” defense contradicts the claim that God is perfectly good:
Any harmful lack becomes divine negligence.
3. The argument commits the “privileged vantage bias”
People justify lacks by projecting their own assumptions about normality.
Example:
“Apes don’t need to write.”
“Mice don’t need strength.”
“Deaf people don’t need hearing.”
This is anthropocentric and ableist, grounded in human perspective rather than objective truth.
A claim like “X was not meant to have Y” reveals our limits, not any divine design.
Thus, the argument collapses because it relies on human bias rather than any evidence.
4. You cannot separate a lack from its consequences
Even if a lack is “meant to be,” the effects matter morally.
For example:
A person lacking eyesight suffers real disadvantages.
A person lacking mobility experiences real harms.
A mind lacking certain capacities struggles in ways others do not.
To say “the lack itself is not evil” ignores that:
Lacks have consequences, and those consequences are what produce harm.
You cannot meaningfully claim “not all lacks are evil” while ignoring the suffering resulting from them.
5. The defense contradicts Christian moral teaching
Christian teaching says:
God gives gifts for a reason
flourishing is good
hindrance of flourishing is evil
But if lacks prevent flourishing—such as blindness, chronic illness, or reduced cognitive capacity—then:
those lacks contradict the stated moral direction God sets for creatures.
Thus, the doctrine internally contradicts itself.
Either:
flourishing matters → harmful lacks are evil
or
flourishing does not matter → Christian ethics collapses
Christian theology cannot coherently claim both.
6. The “not all lacks are evil” argument relies on arbitrary examples
The common examples (mice lifting boulders, apes writing novels) fail because they rely on extreme contrasts that distract from the problem.
The real issue is:
Why do humans lack the ability to regenerate limbs?
Why do humans lack the ability to self-heal depression?
Why do humans lack innate happiness or peace?
These are reasonable lacks that a loving, omnipotent God would address.
By picking ridiculous examples, apologists avoid dealing with meaningful lacks.
This reveals that the argument works only by avoiding real cases.
7. If good is defined as “what ought to exist,” then every lack is a potential evil
Christian theology says:
Good = what should exist
Evil = the absence of what should exist
But what “should exist” cannot be known unless God explains it.
He does not.
Therefore:
Any lack could be evil unless proven otherwise.
The burden of proof falls on the defender—to show why a lack “ought” to exist.
They can’t.
So the default logical position is:
a lack is evil unless shown to be necessary for good
but no such demonstration exists
Thus “not all lacks are evil” is a claim with no foundation.
8. If God hides the blueprint, then humans cannot assign purpose
If God does not reveal:
why creatures have certain capacities
why certain lacks exist
how nature should function
then humans simply invent purposes to justify the world as it is.
This is circular:
Assume God made it this way.
Therefore every lack is intentional.
Therefore every lack that exists is justified.
This is pure assumption, not argument.
Thus the statement “not all lacks are evil” is not reasoned—it is an attempt to preserve doctrine through guesswork.
The mere lack argument quietly assumes that evil has no real substance of its own, that it is nothing more than an absence of good. But this is a claim that demands evidence, not something that can simply be asserted. If evil were more than a mere lack—if it were a real force or condition in its own right—then it could easily appear to us as a “lack” while in fact being something far worse. And even if evil were a lack, it would still need to be explained how such a lack exists in a world supposedly designed by a perfectly good being. A mere gap in goodness could function like an opening through which a destructive substance/presence enters, meaning that defining evil as a lack does nothing to diminish its seriousness or its implications for God’s responsibility.
Psychologically, a mere “lack of good” means nothing to us, because the human mind does not experience emptiness neutrally. When we encounter a void—especially a moral or emotional one—we instinctively project meaning into it, often imagining something malicious or threatening even if nothing is actually there. Our hearts and minds fill the absence with the idea of evil, because we cannot relate to a pure nothingness. This means that defining evil as simply a lack of good does not resolve anything; it only invites people to interpret the gap as something darker. The absence itself becomes experienced as evil, regardless of whether it is literally a substance or not.
When believers in God call an action evil, they are often projecting their own inner fears, moral assumptions, and psychological shadows onto the act itself. Instead of detecting evil “out there,” they may be expressing something that already exists within them—their own capacity for harm, judgment, or cruelty. In this sense, naming something evil can reveal more about what they carry inside than about the action they are criticizing. To declare evil is, indirectly, to admit that one harbours the very darkness one believes they are condemning.
Paradoxically, they enhance and invite evil by condemning - and punishing!
Belief in God makes all that more potent! God himself is part of the problem if he calls you to himself! It means calling you to accept a harmful belief about evil. It means accepting how he made you inherently prone to how seeing an evil is connected to how you have actual and potential evil in yourself.
HYPOTHETICAL TEST:
This test shows what the real value is.
Assume that not all lacks are evil.
You have to literally forget one.
- Evil as a lack of good.
- Lack.
Clearly it will be the first. That implies that a perfect and moral God who opposes evil is irrational. A lack without concern for the soul or goodness sin or anything else comes first.