Sounding like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, the Thomist philosopher Edward Feser recently made the following statement at his blog:
[I]t is not just God’s existence but also divine providence which can be known via purely philosophical arguments. Hence, even apart from special divine revelation, we can know that God allows evil in the world only insofar as he draws greater good out of it.
In other words, one can arrive by reasoning a priori–just sitting on one’s couch, absent evidence–at two things: God exists and what happens in this world is for the best. One can know this.
My question for Professor Feser: Et tu, the Holocaust?
Prometheus Unbound 