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Explanation
The Joke
A woman poses the classic Problem of Evil to God: "God, if you're all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, how come there's evil?" Instead of addressing the question directly, God introduces a new divine attribute -- He is "all-balanced" and can see both sides of every argument, no matter how stupid one side is. When the woman pushes back, saying that neither of them is an expert so they should reserve judgment, God enthusiastically agrees: "You're an expert! You're omniscient!" The woman points out that being omniscient means God IS the expert, but God responds, "Well, that's my view, but I have to recognize my limitations." The strip ends with the woman concluding, "So... evil happens because God has choice paralysis," to which God can only say, "All I can say is probably."
The joke is that God has adopted the worst habits of contemporary "both sides" discourse. Rather than using His omniscience to actually resolve the question of evil, He is so committed to seeing every perspective as valid that He paralyzes Himself into total inaction -- even when one of the perspectives is His own infallible knowledge.
The Humor
The comic satirizes a very specific modern rhetorical posture: the person who insists on treating every disagreement as having two equally valid sides, even when the evidence overwhelmingly favors one conclusion. By putting this attitude in the mouth of an omniscient God, Weinersmith exposes its absurdity at the highest possible level. If even a being with perfect knowledge refuses to take a definitive stance, the "both sides" approach becomes a parody of intellectual humility -- it's not humility at all, but a refusal to engage. The alt text extends this with a self-referential logical trap: "If you believe we should look at all sides, do you also believe that we shouldn't look at all sides?"
References
- The Problem of Evil (Theodicy): A classical philosophical and theological question: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, why does evil exist? This has been debated by thinkers from Epicurus to Leibniz to modern philosophers of religion.
- "Both sides" rhetoric: The comic satirizes the tendency in public discourse to present every issue as having equally valid opposing viewpoints, sometimes called "false balance" or "bothsidesism." This is particularly associated with media coverage of topics like climate change, where scientific consensus is treated as just one opinion among many.