The Problem of Evil is an Insufficient Argument Against the Christian God

IntroductionAs stated, I want to use this round solely to present my favoured version of the PoE, thus leaving Pro’s concerns to R3. Given Pro’s first round, I’ll assume for now he accepts P2, and only address it if he thinks it is necessary.WSA evidential PoE (1)The argument I will defend in this debate will be as follows:(P1) If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for an adequately compensating good.(P2) There is lots of evil in the world.(P3) Much of that evil is not logically necessary for any adequately compensating good.(C) Therefore, there is no God who is all powerful and all good.Defending P1Put simply, P1 states that if God exists, then gratuitous evils do not. The reasoning is fairly straightforward. God (as classically defined) knows about all the evil in the world (omniscience), has the power to wipe out the evil in the world (omnipotence), and has the motivation to do so (wholly good). It follows inescapably, therefore, that any evil in the world must have a morally sufficient reason, if God exists.The problem in denying P1 is that gratuitous evil have no morally sufficient reason to be permitted, because, well, they're gratuitous! Thus P1 seems necessarily true. At the very least, we can suppose that P1 is more plausible than its denial. As Christian philosopher Daniel Howard-Snyder remarks,"on the face of it, the idea that God may well permit gratuitous evil is absurd. After all, if God can get what He wants without permitting some particular horror (or anything comparably bad), why on earth would He permit it?" (2)Indeed, the fact that Pro tries to account for evil at all (with free-will and so on) would suggest he agrees with me that God would not permit this particular kind of evil, and so it must be accounted for, which is all P1 states. Whether this is successful or not is the remit for P3.Defending P3In simple terms, this affirms gratuitous evils probably do exist. Before I defend P3, I want lay out 2 examples (of which there are many more), which are fairly typical of the evils I’m talking about:E1 - "Many babies each year are born with Down's syndrome . . (and) have intestinal obstructions that will kill them . . . dehydration and infection will cause these babies to wither and die over a period of hours and days.” (3)Another example given by Rowe is that of animal suffering:E2 - "Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffering is pointless." (4)What reasons do we have to believe these evils are actually gratuitous? The first is what we might call the prima facie case, and this is not a belief we should give up lightly. From absolutely everything we know, a baby with the condition above suffers greatly, as do those around them, often without even a hint of any benefit, let alone a morally sufficient reason for the suffering. As critic Stephen Wykstra reasons,"For if an instance of suffering appears not to have a point, that is a reason for thinking it has no point." (5)In other words, the appearance of gratuity lends great support to the fact of gratuity.Secondly, it is difficult even to conceive of some examples of evil being morally permissible. In the case of the Rowe's fawn, there seems to be no conceivable reason to allow the extent of the suffering, nor any benefit which could even come from it. As Rowe points out,"In light of our experience and knowledge, of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without thereby losing some greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems an extraordinary, absurd idea, quite beyond our belief." (6)The difficulty even to conceive of a plausible, morally sufficient reason to permit some evils also supports P3.Third, the nature of the evils themselves point strongly towards gratuity. Evil is abundant in the world. Sentient beings have suffered for millions of years, and the sheer volume of evil is just staggering. The way this evil is dispersed is also horrific. As E1 illustrates, there have been many children whose sole experience in life is that of seemingly pointless, excruciating pain before their inevitable, premature death. Also, many evils are necessary, as long as there are sentient beings. The evolutionary process is just a litany of predation and extinction, where animals have to tear each other apart just to survive. Indeed, the vast majority of species which have inhabited the Earth have perished. For many of them, life is as Hobbes described - solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Lastly, many people suffer without God‘s comfort to sustain them. Divine silence in the face of horrendous evils is something even Mother Theresa expressed upon witnessing evil (7), and is again something rather pervasive in the world.None of these points are controversial, yet they strongly and unequivocally point to a universe callously indifferent to the suffering of its inhabitants. Given that theists posit a benevolent deity, this seems overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The fact that evil has these features, often simultaneously, is massive evidence in favour of gratuity, and thus P3.Another reason I want to add could perhaps best be termed epistemic consistency. In essence, this simply means applying the same or similar standards to the PoE as we do to normal beliefs, and only to take seriously beliefs which are at least plausible. Sinnott-Armstrong explains the absurdity of abandoning this standard,"Would it benefit my family in the long-run if I were to burn down our house tonight? Possibly. Does that possibility make it reasonable to believe that we would benefit? No. Why not? Because we do know one thing: Burning down my house would cause serious problems in my family in the short term. Those known costs set up a presumption or burden of proof that needs to be overcome before contrary beliefs can be reasonable." (8)The same is true of evil. Given the massive short-term cost it causes, and (as well as we can judge), it's seeming ability to lead to long-term costs, we have a massive burden to believe that evil is primarily destructive, and this is a burden that Pro must overcome, before we even consider an alternative explanation.What this means is in order for the theist to deny P3, they cannot construct ad hoc storytelling, contrived scepticism, retreats to the possible or hold to question-begging assumption to explain evil away. The alternative to P3 has to more plausible than the evidence of gratuity presented above.In order for Pro to defeat the PoE, he must first tear down these 4 justificatory points for the evidence of gratuity, as well as providing a better explanation for this evidence which is with theism. I wish him luck in this difficult task.Sources1. God? Debate between a Christian and an Atheist, William lane Craig and Walter Sinnott Armstrong, 2004, Oxford University Press, p84.2. Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Frances Howard-Snyder. 1999. "Is Theism Compatible with Gratuitous Evil?" American Philosophical Quarterly 36: 115-29.3. God? P844,6 Rowe, William, The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism, American Philosophical Quarterly 16: 335-41.5. Wykstra, Stephen J. 1984. “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance’,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16: 73-93.7. http://www.time.com......8. God? P184