Editing Problem of evil (section)

====Afterlife====
[[Thomas Aquinas]] suggested the [[afterlife]] theodicy to address the problem of evil and to justify the existence of evil.<ref name="stump2008p49">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2wDHCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 | title=The Evidential Argument from Evil | publisher=Indiana University Press | first=Eleonore | last=Stump | editor-first=Daniel | editor-last=Howard-Snyder | year=2008 | pages=49–52 | isbn=978-0-253-11409-9}}</ref> The premise behind this theodicy is that the afterlife is unending, human life is short, and God allows evil and suffering in order to judge and grant everlasting heaven or hell based on human moral actions and human suffering.<ref name=stump2008p49/><ref name="Goetz2008p139"/><ref>{{cite book|first1=Benjamin W.|last1=McCraw|first2=Robert|last2=Arp|title=The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oUA1CwAAQBAJ |year=2015|publisher=Lexington|isbn=978-1-4985-1208-4 |pages=132–133 }}</ref> Aquinas says that the afterlife is the greater good that justifies the evil and suffering in current life.<ref name=stump2008p49/> Christian author [[Randy Alcorn]] argues that the joys of [[heaven]] will compensate for the sufferings on earth.<ref>If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil, published by Random House of Canada, 2009, p. 294; Quote: Without this eternal perspective, we assume that people who die young, who have handicaps, who suffer poor health, who don't get married or have children, or who don't do this or that will miss out on the best life has to offer.  But the theology underlying these assumptions have a fatal flaw.  It presumes that our present Earth, bodies, culture, relationships and lives are all there is... [but] Heaven will bring far more than compensation for our present sufferings.</ref>

Stephen Maitzen has called this the "Heaven Swamps Everything" theodicy, and argues that it is false because it conflates compensation and justification.<ref name="Goetz2008p139">{{cite book|first=Stewart|last=Goetz|title=Freedom, Teleology, and Evil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cZmvAwAAQBAJ |year=2008|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-4411-7183-2 |pages=139–147 }}</ref><ref>[http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_OMIA.pdf "Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism"], European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1:2 (2009), 107–126, Quote: "... may stem from imagining an ecstatic or forgiving state of mind on the part of the blissful: in heaven no one bears grudges, even the most horrific earthly suffering is as nothing compared to infinite bliss, all past wrongs are forgiven. But "are forgiven" doesn't mean "were justified"; the blissful person's disinclination to dwell on his or her earthly suffering doesn't imply that a perfect being was justified in permitting the suffering all along. By the same token, our ordinary moral practice recognizes a legitimate complaint about child abuse even if, as adults, its victims should happen to be on drugs that make them uninterested in complaining. Even if heaven swamps everything, it doesn't thereby justify everything."</ref> This theodical view is based on the principle that under a just God, "no innocent creature suffers misery that is not compensated by happiness at some later stage (e. g. an afterlife)" but in the traditional view, animals don't have an afterlife.<ref name=jolley2014p66>{{cite book|first=Nicholas|last=Jolley|editor=Larry M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands|title=New Essays on Leibniz's Theodicy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lNPQAgAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-966003-2 |pages=64–68 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Andrew|last1=Chignell|first2=Terence|last2=Cuneo|first3=Matthew C.|last3=Halteman|title=Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments About the Ethics of Eating|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rDCvCgAAQBAJ  |year=2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-57807-6|page=199}}</ref>

Maintzen's argument has been rejected by Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad based on the strong account of the compensation theodicy. Two accounts of compensation theodicy can be proposed. Based on the weak interpretation that only considers compensation in afterlife, this criticism would be acceptable, but based on the strong account which consider both the "compensation in afterlife" and "the primary benefits of evils" (even if they are not greater), the compensation theodicy can be defended.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mousavirad |first=Seyyed Jaaber |date=2022-07-02 |title=Theory of Compensation and the Problem of Evil; a New Defense |url=https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/index.php/ejpr/article/view/3357 |journal=European Journal for Philosophy of Religion |language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=197–198 |doi=10.24204/ejpr.2022.3357 |s2cid=250298800 |issn=1689-8311}}</ref>