The argument from evil establishes the probable nonexistence of God.

First of all, a huge thanks to Pro for initiating this debate on such a controversial subject. The Evidential Argument from Evil is perhaps one of the most formiddable arguments agains the existence of God and that, coupled with a clearly skilled debator, should make for an invigorating debate.Introduction: The Logical PoE Vs. The Evidential PoEIn Pro's opening argument, he advances this form of the PoE: No good state of affairs that we know of is such that God, by bringing it about is morally justified in permitting E1 and E2 Therefore, probably, no good state of affairs is such that God, by bringing it about, is morally justified in permitting E1 and E2. Therefore, probably God does not exist. Perhaps the main reason why this argument and others like it are so popular is the emotional shock value of the PoE. When one reads the argument, it immediately invokes a strong negative reaction. No one likes evil. No one likes rape, murder, or other seemingly unnecessary acts of evil. From there, we begin to ponder: "God is all-powerful, why didn't he stop all of this? Couldn't he have prevented this?". Emotionally, we are then struck with the seemingly sincere (and perhaps, desperate) conviction that God must not exist. However, as rational and logical beings, we are tasked to examine this argument for logical consistency and not judge it's validity purely on it's emotional appeal. First, Pro provides two scenarios: E1 and E2. Pro claims that there is no morally sufficient reason that we know of in which God could allow these two events. However, this is only true of E2. E1 presupposes a hidden premise that God is capable of creating a universe in which beings have free will yet only choose to do that which is good. On the contrary, this is logically impossible, as the only way to ensure that human beings could truly have free will and yet still choose to do only that which is good would be to hinder a human being's ability to act in any way contrary to that which is good. However, this would interfere with a human being's free will. God is attributed with omnipotence, but omnipotence is not defined as being that which is logically impossible. Therefore the only way for God to create a state of affairs in which evil does not take place would be a scenario in which all beings are forced, against their will, to do that which is good. This is clearly morally wrong. Thus let as define E1 as: An act of free will and E2: Not an act of free will. In fact, E2 is really the main source of evidence in which to establish the probability of God's existence. Thus this is the main point to be adressing: Probability Based On What? Probabilities are always based on some type of background knowledge. In the example Pro provides, we are able to epistemically determine whether or not thousand foot tall human beings live on earth. This is because we have sufficient background knowledge of the anatomy of human beings and how it relates to earh's gravity and so forth. This relates to an example offered by Contradiction (1) in which one is asked to determine the probability of there being an elephant on a football field. All one has to do is look out to observe the football field and if no elephant is seen, then the probability is extremely low (if it exists it at all). However, if one were then tasked with determining the probability of there being a flea on the field, merely by looking at it, it would be epistemically inscrutable! In regards to Pro's jump from P to Q, the same dillemma applies. We are able to epistemically determine from P that we do not know of a morally sufficient reason to allow evil, but in what way is this sufficiet background knowledge to determine that God probably has no morally sufficient reason to allow evil? It's epistemically inscrutable! The only way to determine such a probability would be to have acess to "The Big Picture" and thus possess knowledge of the ripple effects of all actions. One might think that a deer dying would be a bad thing. But suppose that deer lived and ate all of a particular plant. Imagine then that the lack of that plant caused the ecosystem to be unbalanced which caused human starvation in the future. If we knew that the deer living would cause this to happen, we would not see allowing that deer to live as being morally wrong at all. Unfortunately, as human beings we do not have an access to "The Big Picture". We do not know what "could have happened" or what "would've happened" all we know is what did happen. What appears to us to be a horrible evil, may in fact be the lesser of an even greater evil. Conclusion The Evidential Argument from Evil fails to establish the probable non-existence of God because Q is epistemically inscrutable. We simply not in a good position to determine such a probability because of our lack of sufficient background knowledge. I look forward to Pro's rebuttal! [1] http://www.debate.org... (Round 3 under Evil)