Abstract

John DePoe takes issue with Christians who accept Berkeleyan idealism, essentially arguing that there is a special problem from evil for the Christian idealist. While DePoe’s treatment of idealism is commendable, his argument ultimately fails in one of two ways. It either (1) turns on common misunderstandings of idealism or (2) results in consequences unacceptable to Christians. In our article, we respond to DePoe’s argument by remotivating idealism, pointing out ways in which DePoe misunderstands idealists’ responses to the charge of a special problem of evil, and pointing out problems with DePoe’s proposals of materialist solutions to the problem of evil.