Someone once told me a story. A story you might actually be familiar with too. I first heard it when I was 18, and I accepted it because it came from someone whose intellect I respected. I liked him. I assumed he had done his homework, so I didn’t press for proof. But the story never sat right with me.
Actually, it pissed me off.
The story goes:
Feel free to skip to the next section if you know this one:
A prestigious university in Germany. A lecture hall full of students. A philosophy professor presents what is known as "The Problem of Evil" argument. It posits that the presence of evil in the world disproves the existence of God. One student rises to challenge the claim:
“Professor, does cold exist?”
“Of course it does,” the professor replies.
“In fact, sir, cold does not exist. In physics, what we consider cold is a mere absence of heat... Cold does not exist."
The professor yields and nods.
“Professor, does darkness exist?” the student continues.
“Of course it does.”
“No, sir, darkness is simply the absence of light... Hence, it too doesn't exist.”
Twice wrong now, the professor is visibly flustered.
“Does evil exist?”
“Of course it exists... we see it every day,” the professor answers, his voice unsure.
“Sir, evil does not exist... Evil is the absence of good. And just as heat and light have a source, so good has a source — God.”
The professor is defeated, the class is in awe. And the name of that student — Albert Einstein.
Why it pissed me off so bad?
This story... it left me with a bitter feeling that I was conned. Like a sleight of hand you know was played, but you're going along with it because you don't quite know how to expose it.
Was it really such a 'mic-drop moment' that it turned atheists into theists? First a philosophy professor, then my friend — a physics grad — and above all, it was good enough for the 20th century's most brilliant mind? Was it even a true story?
Back then, I didn't quite know how to articulate my rebuttal... I wasn't much into philosophy, I didn't know what 'logical fallacies' or 'apologetics' were. I didn't even know my actual stance on God.
Years later, I was pleased to discover that my skepticism was justified — the story was a complete fabrication. It emerged in the early 2000s and was circulating online without a any credible evidence or historical corroboration.
It impressed enough minds, though, including the physics grad who shared it with me. It was even spun into an apologetics video depicting 10-year-old Albert, and was shared around the internet for years. Perhaps the motif of “pious student defeating secular academia” has an appeal to young believer audience. You can even see echoes of it in films like God Is Not Dead (2014).
Still, though,
The myth’s popularity isn’t really about Einstein; it’s about the argument itself. Even if we grant that it all happened for the sake of discussion, the analogy itself collapses under scrutiny — both physically and philosophically.
Let me show you how.
In physics:
Cold and darkness aren't a "thing." In thermodynamics, heat is a state of accelerated molecules, and cold is a state of molecules in reduced motion. In optics, light consists of photons, and darkness is their absence. So far, it tracks.
But here is the first conceptual sleight of hand: Light and heat are being falsely equated with goodness. Light and heat — physical phenomena — are quietly equated with goodness — a moral category. That’s symbolic language being snuck into physics.
There is nothing inherently good about light or heat. Yes, they are essential to our survival, but depending on the distance from a source, they are also deadly. The Sun's immense radiation is only as good as our safe distance from it. Fire warms or destroys depending on proximity and duration of exposure.
So the analogy quietly inserts a culture-driven human association (light = good), and pretends it is a physical fact. However, light and heat affect their surroundings to various degrees. Their 'goodness' is a matter of us 'liking' the degree of said effects.
But the deeper issue is not thermodynamic — it’s about agency. And this is the second, more subtle sleight of hand.
A source of heat or light is an active emitter. A star radiates, fire radiates. Darkness and cold are simply what remain when no emitting source is present. They are passive conditions.
Now translate that to morality:
If evil is like darkness, then it is merely a passive state in the absence of an emitter.
But in reality, evil is not passive — it requires agency.
To put things simply: Evil cannot occur without active agency.
Murder, deceit, cruelty — these are not mere absences of goodness.
They are directed uses of will.
A person sleeping (not actively emitting good) is not evil.
Furthermore, goodness does not require constant active outflow of positive outcomes. It requires responsible use of one's available agency, or at the very minimum, the absence of destructive action.
So the analogy fails from the lens of physics, and reverses itself under moral evaluation:
In physics:
Source (light) has an active emission.
Negative state (darkness) is a passive condition in the absence of a source.
In morality:
Evil is an active misuse of agency.
Good can exist as a passive condition in the absence of evil.
A human being at rest, harming no one, is morally good in the baseline sense.
That asymmetry breaks the analogy structurally. And now you can see the tricks that were played.
{ Evil is not the absence of Good }
Morality evaluates what ought to occur when agency is present.
Confusing the two is the original sleight of hand.
OK... so what about God?
Using the terms established so far: If you grant that good is a passive state, and evil requires agency, then let's evaluate God as an agent and determine whether he uses agency for good or evil.
Humans, as finite beings — lacking in knowledge and power — possess limited agency. And therefore our moral obligation is proportionate.
But scale the agency to an all-knowing, all-powerful being.
Such a being has no ignorance, no weakness, no constraint. In that case, omission is no longer passive — it's by choice.
Therefore, failure to prevent harm becomes indistinguishable from the choice to let harm occur.
In a finite agent, inaction may be a result of limitation.
In an infinite agent, inaction is a conscious decision.
So the argument that “evil is merely absence of good” does not rescue divine goodness — in fact, it intensifies the problem.
For humans, evil must be an actionable misuse of agency. But for a maximal being, evil can manifest through both action and inaction, like the failure to emit good when the available outflow of goodness is limitless.
And this brings us back around to the "Problem of Evil," which was supposed to be defeated by the original argument, which it clearly failed to accomplish.
BTW, this doesn't disprove the existence of God.
This only disputes the existence of a tri-omni God (omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent) in a world that is full of evil, injustice, and suffering, of wars, disease, and natural catastrophes.
My own moral framework... No Omni required:
Good does not require constant active pursuit of positive outcomes.
Good, at baseline, is the absence of destructive agency.
Evil is the misuse of agency in ways that reduce another individual's wellbeing or somehow degrade their agency.
An active emission of good is what we know as Virtue.
Virtue, then, is the active strengthening of agency — for oneself or for others.
And therefore it is the type of good that exceeds the basic obligation of not doing harm.
{ Virtue is greater than Good, which is greater than Evil }
Evil = intentional or negligent degradation of agency within one's capacity to avoid it.
Good = preservation of agency within one's capacity.
Virtue = expansion of agency beyond minimal obligation.
Morality begins and ends with agency. Anything outside of human cause (such as natural disasters) is not morally good or evil — It's just physics.
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