The Problem of Evil (PoE)

IntroductionI must admit to be rather dismayed at Con’s last post. Not only has he merely sought to repeat what I corrected in my last round, he doesn’t even seem to understand the content and implications of his own position. His post seems to be rushed, complete with spelling mistakes and general misunderstandings of both my and his position. In my last round, all I have left to do is to readdress criticisms of the PoE I have already tackled, and to enlighten Con with regards to his OWN position.Defending P1Con here yet again tries to change the wording of my first premise, and that claims that, given his rewriting of P1, it ignores P3. Well, sure, if Con wants to rewrite my argument, then I’d imagine P1 may indeed ignore P3. Perhaps if he rewrote my whole argument, he could even get an argument for theism. The problem here is that this is simply straw-manning again. I explained why I preferred my version of the argument, and insisted that my wording of MY premise be used, and I gave support for this in my last 2 rounds. One of the reasons for this (though not the only one) was that Con’s rewrite wasn’t even a conditional statement - it assumed that God exists! Next, Con reintroduces 2 criticisms I dealt with in my last post. With his first point, he says that what is gratuitous is man-centred, and we can simply not make a judgement. But the problem here is that P1 is a conceptual point, so his application of ST (though he would deny it) is simply inapplicable here, and only grounds for denying P3 (which I said last time). With regards to the nature of the compensatory goods, again these just examples, not an exhaustive list. Yet again, Con just takes this in the most uncharitable light possible. Then he seems to suggest that gratuitous evils may be compatible with God. Now, you can’t say that all evil has a morally sufficient reason, and then say that some evils are gratuitous. This is a contradiction in terms. Besides, I gave several arguments in defence of P1, and Con has yet to respond to any of them. With regards to evils being inscrutable, I responded to this last time by saying that this was relevant only to P3, and then gave some reasons to doubt Con’s ST case. His second criticism again just repeats that we are unable to determine if evils are really gratuitous because of our limited time, perspective and so forth. But I responded to this last time by saying that this only applies to P3, because whether we know evils are inscrutable or not is wholly independent of the truth of P1. Given the lack of engagement with P1 in his last round, it gives me an opportunity to bolster P1 with additional conceptual analysis. God is defined as:Omniscient = God knows anything logically possibleOmnipotent = God can do anything logically possibleOmni benevolent = God is morally perfectGiven these attributes, God knows, can and wants to prevent any evils. Now given that, any evils which do exist do so necessarily because God allows them or because he doesn’t exist. Now if God exists and allows evils, it must be (given that he is morally perfect) that He has morally sufficient reason to do so. If the permitted evils are not logically necessary or have no adequately compensating good, then again God does not have a morally sufficient reason to permit them. This is all that P1 states. It seems that given the definition of God at the beginning of the debate, God is not compatible with gratuitous evil any more than a bachelor is compatible with marriage.Given the strength of P1, with both the prima facie plausibility and the initial and extended conceptual analysis given, as well as having no rational reason to doubt it, it seems we are compelled to accept that if God exists, gratuitous evils (as defined) do not.Defending P3Here I tried to be charitable, and equate Con’s position with ST:“According to skeptical theism, we should never regard it as likely that we'd spot God's morally sufficient justification for permitting some evil, and hence our failure to spot a justification is never evidence that God doesn't have one.” (1)Con has said things like:“Pro does not know how these “gratuitous” evil are logically necessary for any adequately compensating good, so he concludes absolutely that they are unnecessary! This is a text book argument from ignorance and argument from self-knowing.”“The most important thing to remember here is that the all-knowing God whose wisdom is infinitely beyond ours, knows what these morally sufficient reasons are, and whether we ourselves know them or not is irrelevant.”Notice that these positions are more or less identical, except that Con wrongfully applied these criticisms to P1, when they should have been directed at P3, which I dealt with when I was defending P3. The problem now is that Con seems to be denying that he employed ST, saying that I wrongly concluded that he was a sceptical theist, and thus ignoring my defence and my section regarding the implications of ST. Emphasising our ”limited perspective, knowledge and time” to combat P3 is precisely ST, as are the statements above and so all the criticisms of ST, and all the implications of ST do unfortunately apply to Con, and eviscerate his own worldview. At this point, Con has successfully managed to doubt his own doubts about the PoE, but it gets far worse. He says:“I did not deny the fact of "gratuitous" evil at all. Im not even skeptical about it. It exists and it is ugly. I know that gratiutous evil exists, as a matter of fact” Now, the most charitable way I can read this is that Con means evil, as opposed to gratuitous evil (at least as defined in P1). If evil is gratuitous, then, by definition, God has no morally sufficient reason to permit it, otherwise it wouldn’t be gratuitous! So only the most liberal interpretation of this allows Con to escape him to repudiate his own case! Next, he seems to criticise my definition of evil, but as I said, I mean evil in the broadest sense. Unless he thinks that the example of suffering I provided aren’t things God would wish to prevent ceteris paribus, then we have no problem, and I have shown this from P1. In any case, ST does not allow him to define evil according to the bible because he can’t assume God’s motives due to his "limitations"! There were also a bunch of points Con dropped regarding P3:1. 5 criticisms of ST2. Replies to his 3 minor criticisms of P33. Four reasons to affirm P3 (prima facie case, non conceivability of a morally sufficient reason, examples of gratuitous evils, distinction between knowledge and reasonableness).Extend all arguments.In short, given we have overwhelming reason to affirm P3, and no standing objection to it, we are simply have to conclude that much of the evil in the world is not logically necessary for an adequately compensating good. With this crucial premise affirmed, the argument (at least for the purposes of the debate) is sound.ST and TheismHere Con just ignored each of the problems inherent with ST: 1. Moral paralysis2. Moral depravity3. Extended theismExtend all arguments.ConclusionYet again, the criticisms of the PoE just don’t survive scrutiny. Indeed, Con’s confused and contradictory responses present more problems to Christianity than the PoE. I’d like to thank Con and the readers in advance for the debate.Sources1. http://prosblogion.ektopos.com...