incompatible with complete independence, or with complete privacy and genuine solitude. And it might also be a world where it would be pointless for us to strive for a complete and unqualified understanding of the universe” (Kahane 2011, 681-682).

Kahane admits that this is not yet an argument because he has not offered a full account of “values such as independence and privacy” and “demonstrate that, on some common understanding of the concept of God, their full realization is incompatible with God’s existence” (684). However, we can at least see how my method for analyzing counterpossibles helps us make sense of the above reasoning. Pretend that God exists (I write here as though I am a necessitarian atheist). We imagine a (partial) state of affairs in which there is a being (call him ‘God’) which is supremely powerful, knowing, and good. I screen out the proposition ‘if God exists, he exists necessarily.’ This being would know everything about me. Thus, if God existed, I would not have privacy, since something is private only if only one person knows it. The antecedent is true in the (partial) state of affairs, and so is the consequent. Thus, this counterpossible is true. Presumable privacy is valuable, and so we lose one thing that is valuable in the Godlly world. Similar reasoning applies to the other values outlined above (equality, independence, and understanding). However, Kahane admits that “it is very likely that a world in which God exists is significantly better overall” (2011, p. 687). This is because in that Godly world, there would be some solution to the problem of suffering. As he puts it:

“The suffering of the innocent must somehow be compatible with God’s goodness—perhaps such evil is compensated by some far greater good. But if something like this solution to the problem of evil is successful, why shouldn’t it also be possible for God to provide enough good to outweigh the badness of our being deprived of goods like full independence or privacy? Surely the impossibility of complete independence could not matter more than the suffering of the innocent?” (2011, p. 686).

They key proposition in the problem of suffering is: ‘if God exists, then evil does not.’ Kahane suggests that this proposition is false in the Godly (partial) state of affairs. If God did exist, then there must be some reason for which God allows suffering. However, if, as some atheists have claimed, God’s existence is logically incompatible with the existence of evil, then the conditional in question is not false, but screened out in that (partial) state of affairs. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that, in that (partial) state of affairs, God has a reason for allowing evil. The counterpossible ‘if God existed and suffering existed, then God would have a reason for allowing suffering’ would be N, since it would have a true antecedent and an N consequent, rendering the overall statement N, screened out. Of course, many atheists do not claim that suffering is logically incompatible with God’s existence, just that it renders God’s existence unlikely. In that case, there is no need to screen out the proposition ‘if God exists, then God has a reason for allowing suffering.’ Thus, for one endorsing only the evidential argument from suffering, Kahane is right that if God existed and suffering existed, then God would have a reason for allowing suffering. Kahane goes on to claim that God ensuring some morally satisfactory reason for allowing suffering would outweigh the goods lost (privacy, understanding, equality, independence). Thus, overall (or impersonally) pro- theism is true, though for a great number of individuals, the goods lost are more important than the goods gained, and so personally anti-theism is true for those individuals.