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?

Not found in Epicurus’ surviving works (the Letters to Herodotus, Pythocles and Menoeceus and the Principal Doctrines in the atlas’s Greek and Hicks texts; every English mention of ‘evil’ and of ‘willing’ or ‘unable’ read in context: none is this argument; the nearest, Letter to Menoeceus 124, rejects the popular belief that the gods send the greatest evils to the wicked), nor in the Vatican Sayings as Bailey prints them. The earliest source that credits it to him is Lactantius, De ira Dei 13.20-21 (c. 313), who gives it as Epicurus’ argument without naming a work; Wikipedia, citing Reinhold F. Glei (Vigiliae Christianae 42, 1988, pp. 47-58), reports the view that the argument comes from an Academic sceptical source that is not Epicurean, even anti-Epicurean, and notes that the oldest preserved form of the trilemma is in the sceptic Sextus Empiricus; neither was seen here. It may have stood in Epicurus’ lost writings on the gods, but nothing confirms it. The modern question form is David Hume’s, in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part X (1779), where Philo says ‘EPICURUS’s old questions are yet unanswered’ and asks the three questions; according to Wikipedia, Hume took the attribution from Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire, which quotes Lactantius. ‘Then he is not omnipotent’ for Hume’s ‘then is he impotent’ appears, according to Wikiquote, in Charles Bray, The Philosophy of Necessity (1863), p. 41, and the fourth question, ‘Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?’, in no source found before Charles Bufe, The Heretic’s Handbook of Quotations (1992), p. 186; neither was seen here.

1. 200Before it · credited to no oneThe oldest preserved form of the dilemma, according to Wikipedia, is in the sceptic Sextus Empiricus (late second or early third century; the year is approximate), not credited to Epicurus.Sextus Empiricus, as cited in Wikipedia, ‘Epicurean paradox’. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. 313Earliest found · credited to EpicurusLactantius, a Christian apologist, sets out a fourfold dilemma on God and evils as ‘that argument of Epicurus’, to refute it; he names no work of Epicurus. The date is approximate.God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.Lactantius, A Treatise on the Anger of God (De ira Dei), chapter 13, tr. William Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), as revised for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
3. 1779Reworded · credited to EpicurusDavid Hume’s sceptic Philo turns the dilemma into three short questions and calls them Epicurus’s; this is the form the popular quote grows from.EPICURUS’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (London, 1779), Part X. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
4. 1863Reworded · credited to EpicurusCharles Bray quotes it as Epicurus’ without citation, with ‘is not omnipotent’ for Hume’s ‘is impotent’.Charles Bray, The Philosophy of Necessity: Or, Natural Law as Applicable to Moral, Mental, and Social Science (1863), p. 41. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
5. 1992Reworded · credited to EpicurusThe fourth question, ‘Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?’, appears; Wikiquote found no earlier printing.Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?Charles Bufe, The Heretic’s Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues (1992), p. 186. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

Shared as ‘the Epicurean paradox’, Epicurus’ proof that an all-powerful and good God cannot exist. No such argument is in anything Epicurus wrote that survives. It is known from the Christian writer Lactantius, who around 313 presents a fourfold dilemma on God and evil as ‘that argument of Epicurus’ in order to refute it; the question form comes from David Hume, whose sceptic Philo in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) calls these ‘Epicurus’s old questions’.

If God wants to stop evil but cannot, he is not all-powerful; if he can but will not, he is not good; if he both can and will, evil should not exist. The question is how evil fits with an all-powerful and good God.

Quoted as an atheist’s argument from Epicurus. Epicurus did not deny the gods: he taught that they exist, blessed and immortal, and take no part in the world, in his own words ‘A blessed and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality’ (Principal Doctrines 1, tr. Hicks). Lactantius (On the Anger of God 8) gives the same view as ‘Epicurus speaking thus’, but the verses he quotes are Lucretius’s (On the Nature of Things I.44-49 = II.646-651). If he used an argument from evil at all, it was against divine providence, not against the existence of gods. The closing line, ‘Then why call him God?’, is a late addition found in none of the older sources.

• ShortenedIs he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), Part X, spoken by Philo, who introduces it as ‘EPICURUS’s old questions’. Where it was seen

God, Faith, Doubt, Suffering, Power, Religion, Morality, Evil, Reason

• So great the evils to which religion could prompt! Lucretius
• Twice two makes four is not life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The higher harmony is not worth the tears of one tortured child. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra. (misattributed) Steve Jobs
• If the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. Fyodor Dostoevsky

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epicurus#Disputed (Lactantius, De ira Dei 13.19; Bray 1863, p. 41; Nicholson 1864; Bufe 1992, p. 186)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurean_paradox (attribution: no text by Epicurus; Sextus Empiricus; Glei; Hume via Bayle)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil (note citing Mark Joseph Larrimore, The Problem of Evil, 2001, pp. xix-xxi, and Reinhold F. Glei, ‘Et invidus et inbecillus. Das angebliche Epikurfragment bei Laktanz, De ira dei 13, 20-21’, Vigiliae Christianae 42, 1988, pp. 47-58; not seen here)
• newadvent.org/fathers/0703.htm (Lactantius, On the Anger of God, tr. Fletcher, 1886: chapter 13, the dilemma; chapter 8, quoting Lucretius I.44-49 as Epicurus)
• gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4583/pg4583.txt (Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part X)
• goodreads.com/author/quotes/114041.Epicurus (what circulates: the four-question form, 2,409 likes on 23 October 2026)

“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?” Attributed to Epicurus. No. Not in these words, and perhaps not his argument at all: nothing Epicurus wrote that survives contains it. The Christian writer Lactantius credited the argument to him around 313, the question form is David Hume’s (1779), and the last line has not been found before 1992. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/is-god-willing-to-prevent-evil-but-not-able/ (checked 23 October 2026).

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