Most religions insist on two foundational claims about God.
God is everywhere.
God knows everything.
Not poetically. Not symbolically. Literally.
God is omnipresent and omniscient. There is no corner of reality outside his awareness. No moment he does not witness. No act he does not see. Nothing escapes his attention.
Taken seriously, this creates one of the most disturbing implications in all of theology, one that believers rarely articulate plainly.
If God is everywhere at all times, then God is present at every murder, every rape, every assault, every act of cruelty ever committed. Not watching from a distance. Not arriving later. In the room. At the scene. A silent observer.
The problem is not that evil exists.
The problem is that it unfolds in God’s presence.
Omnipresence Without Moral Action
Believers often say God is “with us” at all times. This is meant to reassure. But proximity without action is not comfort. It is exposure.
God is present when a child is abused.
God is present when a woman is raped.
God is present when prisoners are tortured.
God is present when civilians are executed.
Not before. Not after. During.
If a human were present at a violent crime and chose not to intervene, we would not describe them as compassionate. We would call them complicit. At minimum, we would call them morally bankrupt.
As Ricky Gervais put it, bluntly and correctly:
“If you believe in a God who watches over you all the time, you have to believe he watches children being raped and does nothing about it.”
This is not mockery. It is logical consequence.
The Free Will Defence Examined
The standard response appears immediately, almost reflexively.
God allows evil because humans have free will.
This explanation sounds profound until it is examined carefully.
Free will explains why someone chooses to commit a crime.
It does not explain why an all-powerful being allows the crime to succeed.
Stopping a murder does not erase intent.
Preventing a rape does not remove desire.
Blocking a bullet does not eliminate choice.
It limits damage. That is all.
Every functioning human justice system understands this. We restrain violent offenders not because we deny free will, but because we prioritise victims over metaphysical abstractions.
As Christopher Hitchens observed:
“Free will is the explanation religion reaches for when it has exhausted all others.”
A God who values philosophical purity over human life is not morally elevated. He is morally inverted.
Selective Intervention and the Hierarchy of Concern
The problem deepens when believers insist God does intervene sometimes.
He answers prayers.
He heals individuals.
He helps people find keys.
He influences sporting outcomes.
But he does not intervene during genocide.
This creates a grotesque hierarchy of divine concern.
God intervenes in trivia.
God remains silent during atrocity.
Either God cannot intervene, which negates omnipotence, or he chooses not to, which indicts his moral character.
As Richard Dawkins wrote:
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation.”
And under theology, all of it unfolds under continuous divine observation.
History, Taken Seriously
This is not abstract philosophy. It is historical reality.
God was present at Auschwitz.
God was present in the gas chambers.
God was present during mass executions.
Adolf Hitler did not commit his crimes in a godless vacuum. If God exists as described, every order, every execution, every scream occurred under divine awareness.
Likewise, God watched as Pol Pot oversaw the murder of children, intellectuals, and families. He did not look away. He could not. Omniscience forbids it.
Calling this “permission” already sanitises the reality. What occurred was uninterrupted witnessing.
This Is Not a New Objection
Believers often pretend this problem was invented by modern atheists. It was not.
More than two thousand years ago, Epicurus framed the dilemma with clarity that has never been improved upon:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
The argument has not been answered. It has been avoided.
Indifference Disguised as Love
When pressed, believers retreat into familiar language.
God’s ways are higher.
God sees the bigger picture.
Justice will come later.
These are not explanations. They are moral postponements.
Promising justice after the fact does nothing for victims who were tortured while God watched. Deferred justice does not redeem silent observation.
As Hitchens noted with brutal accuracy:
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
A being who observes atrocity without intervention, then promises to address it later, is not morally superior. He is morally absent.
The Intimacy of Silence
The most chilling implication of omnipresence is intimacy.
God is not a distant architect watching history from afar. He is in the room.
He is present when the door is locked.
He is present when the screams begin.
He is present when mercy is begged for and not granted.
He hears everything. He sees everything. He does nothing.
As Dawkins once remarked:
“If there is a God, he’s going to have to answer a lot of awkward questions.”
The silence itself is the answer.
The Only Coherent Positions
Once this is faced honestly, there are only three coherent options.
- God does not exist.
- God exists but is not omnipotent or omniscient.
- God exists and is indifferent to human suffering.
The fourth option, that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly loving, and yet permanently inactive during atrocity, is not mystery. It is contradiction.
Why This Matters
This is not a sterile philosophical exercise. It shapes behaviour.
If God is always present and always watching, then silence becomes holy. Endurance becomes virtue. Resistance becomes rebellion.
The silent observer model trains people to accept evil instead of stopping it.
Atheism rejects this entirely.
If there is no divine observer, then responsibility rests fully with us. There is no cosmic witness who will intervene later. There is only human action or human failure.
Conclusion
A God who witnesses every atrocity without intervening is not a moral authority. He is a bystander.
Worse, he is a bystander with absolute power.
Calling that love requires redefining the word until it means nothing.
The silence is not profound.
It is not comforting.
It is not sacred.
It is the silence of something that is not there, or something that does not care.
Either way, humanity is on its own. And unlike the silent observer, we do not have the excuse of omnipotence.