Thomas Aquinas and the Modern and Contemporary Debate on Evil[Note 1. I am grateful to William E. Carroll, Ignacio Silva, ...]

This article aims to demonstrate that Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics of being, in which evil is considered a privation or lack of perfection introduced only by the creature against God's intention, is a remarkable starting point for solving the main problems involved in the modern and contemporary debate on the problem of evil. It also seeks to prove that Aquinas's position is neither reducible to an ‘optimistic theodicy’ –such as Leibniz's theodicy– nor to a ‘free will defence’.