The Problem of Evil

Thanks to pro for his post. Not sure why you are accusing me of not explaining what moral good was. You defined good as the source of happiness. I was only using the definition you provided. "But there are possible worlds in which we have free will and are perfectly happy. They don't involve logical contradictions, so they are possible worlds. They are not impossible, so they are possible. They are obviously possible, and Plantinga clearly states that they are possible." I apologize if I have not explained this well in my previous rounds, but it if we are getting into modal logic we need to distinguish between logical possible/theoretical worlds, and feasible worlds. It is up to humans, not God, to choose if we do good or bad. God gave us free will which gives us the opportunity to do good or evil. We as humans, not God, chose to do what is wrong and cause evil in the world. "So free will isn't really a problem. It is perfectly compatible with absence of evil." It is compatible with the absence of evil, if and only if, the beings with free will always choose good. However, from actions in other lives as well as our own, we know that we do not always choose good. That is why there is evil. "He just says free will is a problem, without really explaining why."Pretty much everything I've said in this debate revolves around the idea of free will. I only brought up two contentions. (One being free will, and the other being God having morally justifiable reasons for permitting evil.) Therefore, I do not understand why you believe I have not explained it. I used nearly all the char actor space I used explaining it. "On the contrary, if we had to choose evil, then we wouldn't have free will. It is only because we don't have to choose evil that we can be said to have free will."This totally lines up with what I have been saying. Thank you for agreeing with me. We do not have to choose evil. We can choose evil or good. The fact that we choose to do what is wrong, brings evil into the world. "For the purpose of this debate, "omnibenevolent" means totally, purely, infinitely, strongly, and unconflictedly opposed to evil. It does not mean 'totally, purely, infinitely, strongly, and unconflictedly opposed to evil unless he happens to have a "morally sufficient reason" for not opposing evil.'"A being can be total opposed to evil and have morally sufficient reasons for allowing it. Pro made the claim that they are incompatible together, but he did not have an explanation as to why this is. Since he made the claim on that statement he is burden with giving an explanation but he has not. "Con suggests that evil may be a reasonable price to pay for free will. But an omnipotent god could have both."Again, there could be both, if humans chose to always do what was right, but we didn't. Conclusion:Wiploc assumes that (a) a good being eliminates evil insofar as he can and that (b) there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do. But why should the theist accept (a) or (b)? However, the logical argument from evil doesn't properly factor in human freedom or God's underlying reasons or overarching purposes.Assumption #1: "A good being eliminates evil insofar as he can."Answer: It is logically possible that God has morally sufficient reasons (perhaps which God alone knows) for permitting (even horrendous) evils.Assumption #2: "There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do"Answer: It is logically possible that God cannot create significantly free creatures who never sin.In response to the logical problem ("God and evil can't logically co-exist"), we can say that if God has a morally justifiable reason for permitting the evils that he does, then this rebuts the logical problem of evil.Also, though we don't know all God's reasons for permitting evil (and there's no reason to think we should), this doesn't show that such reasons don't exist. We're not in a good position to determine whether certain evils have no higher purpose. We would actually have to be all knowing in order to know that evils have no higher purpose. If Wiploc would like to claim that he is all knowing and therefore knows there is no way evils could have a higher purpose then I would love for him to leave a comment and maybe we could debate that (:Thanks to all the readers and voters. Have a great day.