There is no logical paradox or contradiction in the Christian conception of God.

The existence of paradoxes and contradictions with Christian conceptions of God aren't negated by middle knowledge. Introducing free will serves to either violate God's ability or God's goodness. Condemning all man-kind for being evil and bringing evils on themselves, likewise doesn't make the objections go away. Introducing loopholes in logic that allow God to be paradoxical and contradictory and say that that's okay doesn't fix the problem. Other than trying to bury the problems in theology, he did nothing to truly resolve them. He waved his hand and raised a dozen other problems in other places by supposing some reason that this previous bit didn't make any sense. The larger problem with his argument however, must be a simple burden of proof objection. What if I provided nothing? What if I said didn't bother to introduce the contradictions or paradoxes I introduced? What if I sat back and just said "Go!" -- Is my failure to provide a logical paradox or contradiction proof that "There is no logical paradox or contradiction?" I have shown several real paradoxes and contradictions, but even if I had not, did he satisfy his burden? Could there possibly exist some contradiction or paradox that I failed to point out? He never actually sought to defend his claim, simply to do some basic handwaving at my offering. He supposing that an all-good God stands around as billions suffer and untold numbers of good people are slated to burn forever and ever in hell for following their reasonable minds to their reasonable conclusions. Let us suppose that there may be a contradiction in an all-good all-powerful being allowing Gandhi to burn forever in Hell. Has pro established that there can be no contradiction in that? Has he done anything other than theological hand-waving and trying to bury the problems? Do we have any good reason to suppose that there are no logical paradox or contradiction in the Christian conception of God? The assumption is not on his side, he should actually have shown that the entire Christian conception of God is logically coherent. But, moving right along.. -- "Either God would remove evil out of this world, and cannot; or He can, and will not; or lastly, He has both the power and the will. If He has the will, and not the power, this shows weakness, which is contrary to the nature of God. If He has the power and not the will, it is malignity, and this is no less contrary to His nature. If He is neither able nor willing, He is both impotent and malignant, and consequently cannot be God. If He is both willing and able (which alone is constant to the nature of God), whence comes evil, or why does He not prevent it?" - Epicurus The argument itself is sound and one of the "nature of God" needs to change. My opponent has decided that God can prevent evil but does not want to, and thus defaults to malignity. The contradiction applies, and simply needs to choose one of the various offramps. Either God isn't Good, or God isn't powerful, or evil doesn't really exist. -- Ultimately he's isn't ever solving the problems, just outsourcing them in sophistry. "God wishes to see humanity reconciled to Him and raised to eternal life and salvation in a perfect world the bliss of which will outweigh the harshest of human sufferings." So why not simply reconcile humanity? If you're all powerful and you want something done... BAM! Done! Outsourcing the problem doesn't solve it. Is God unable to reconcile humanity without harsh human suffering? -- And while I admire his ability to blame rape victims for the evil sins of existing, and thus deserving rape. It doesn't seem to actually remedy the problem. He ultimately come back around to the idea that free will is the greater good. That it is better to have free will than to not have evil. Because God can't give people free will and prevent evil because he's not all powerful? Because God can't allow free will and still allow people to carry out evil acts that they chose to do? Because God must allow people to burn forever in hell rather than simply not bother with Heaven or Earth and just skip the whole process? The God described isn't good he's simple Pro-Free-Will, which seems like a long winded way of saying that he never does anything to stop anything ever. -- The contradiction isn't solved, it's simply slightly buried. He remains consistent in blaming humanity for everything bad that happens to them. So when a girl is raped it's good to know the doctrines of Christianity are there ready to say that she got raped because she is evil. Certainly the Jews must have been very sin-filled and vile to warrant the holocaust, especially the children. -- He has clearly contradicted the "Goodness of God" with this theodicy. All the resolutions of the Argument from Evil are just as bad as the original problem. -- Then given the omnipotence paradox he invents a God loophole that says that "God doesn't have to ascribe to logic or contradiction". That God can have logical paradoxes and logical contradictions, and it doesn't faze Him. Well, in that case, more power to him, but he just lost the argument. Why not simply apply this God loophole to everything? God can go around asking for genocide from followers and still be Good because God is immune to logic and contradictions don't apply! God isn't subject to human logic or judgment, sure if he were he'd be a completely horrendous individual petty, vindictive, bloodthirsty, and standing around while good people suffer (sorry Evil people who brought it on themselves) and does nothing. This response effectively resigns the argument. --- Free will and Omniscience. >>Have you never known someone well enough that you could predict their actions in a given situation accurately? Having knowledge of what someone will do DOES NOT mean that they have no choice but to do it. Yes, but I didn't have absolute knowledge. Sometimes people surprise you, but they would never surprise an all-knowing being even when they surprise themselves. This response to the argument is nothing more than hand waving. -- Thank you for having read the debate.