 One indication that it can is the disdain we would have for a world in which there were no suffering or hardship to be faced, but instead only endless gratification. As usually formulated, the argument from evil is based on what appears to be a false presumption. It imagines that the ideal world for a loving and compassionate God to create must be what John Hick describes as a hedonistic paradise: a place devoted to human enjoyment, in which comfort and convenience are maximized, and pain and deprivation have little or no place (1966, 292–93). If not banished completely, they must be held to the minimum necessary to guarantee to God’s creatures the most pleasant existence possible. Now obviously, that is not the sort of world we have. The amount of suffering is immense — far more, certainly, than it would be if God’s aim were to maximize worldly joy. But the appropriate conclusion, the theist may argue, is not that the universe is not the creation of a provident God. For consider how we react to people whose lives have little to distinguish them except that they appear — perhaps deceptively — to be filled with enjoyment. There is a tendency, when we suffer one or another of life’s ills, to envy such people: to wish our own existence could be as theirs seems to be, rather than the painful drudgery of the moment. But the truth is that we seldom admire those who appear to have a life of ease, nor are we likely to consider that kind of life very well spent. What we admire are lives of courage and sacrifice: persons who overcome hardship, deprivation, or weakness to achieve some notable success; who stand, perhaps not even successfully, against some great evil; or who relinquish their own happiness to alleviate the suffering of others. How would such lives be possible if natural evil did not exist? (For a related view, see Swinburne 1978.)