The Problem of Evil: The existence of unnecessary suffering makes a perfect God impossible.

As Pro stated it is he who has the Burdon of Proof this debate, so it is tempting for me to simply accept and wait refute whatever attempt my opponent makes to prove his position as that is all I need to do this debate. But I’m not a man that likes to do just what he has to, and since I have to option, I will opt to make some initial arguments. Unnecessary: I anticipate no matter what arguments Pro makes next round, if it is going to try and prove P1 and P2, then I will show either of the premises can be considered false depending on how your look at what is ‘unnecessary’. A view on ‘Unnecessary’ that rebuts P1: The first view is probably the view I expect you are taking where we will for all purposes consider P2 correct that the suffering in the world is unnecessary. Because God is perfectly all-good, you might argue he would not create suffering if it was possible to create the earth any other way. But this logic fails do to the fact that it forgetfully exempts other causes for the suffering. The Perfect God has not created suffering, Humans have. A view on ‘Unnecessary’ that rebuts P2: However for the moment let us assume P1 to be correct then there is a view on what suffering we call ‘unnecessary’ that would rule out all existing suffering as qualifying as unnecessary. God being perfect , omnigood, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, would only make his creations with Free Will. That is the good thing to do. And it is the only sensible thing to do. A Creating God like the one described is a description of an inherently perfect complete being. He does not need the existence you or I to complete or sustain himself in anyway or he would not be omnipresent and omnipotent. And given who he is that makes his possible purposes for creating at all more clear. We can only be here for him to love us and for us to love him back. This does not happen with beings who work automatically, doing only as he has programmed us to do like a robot. This must be done with something who’s consciousness is more than of a Programmed Logic Controller. The only kind of love there is any point in making can only come from one that has the power and resources within itself to choose to give this love or to not give it. It requires his creation have Free Will. And because it is necessary that we should have Free Will you could say because suffering is a product of that Free Will that suffering is necessary, that without the Rain we would not have the Rainbows. My own argument from both of these views: My own case that I defend comes from both of these points. I defend that it could only have been necessary that the Perfect God would create his creations with Free Will, and while I do not believe the creations act of Free Will to bring torment and suffering into the world was inherently necessary for the creation to choose, that it could have chosen otherwise, that is not the way it happened. To paraphrase a statement made by John Wesley, “while the fall from paradise is the most tragic event in history, we can count it a blessing at the same time, because had it never happened we would not have gotten to see just how far our God was willing to go to redeem his creation” So to summarize my own arguments in logic format: P1) a perfect God would not create suffering P2) a perfect God might create humans though P3) a perfect God would create us with Free Will if he created us as all P4) Free Will comes with the potential to do good or evil C1) given P2, P3, and P4 suffering could exist without God creating it P5) Free Will continues to be a necessary existence a perfect God would maintain in his creations today C2) given C1 and P5 we can see that suffering could coexist with the perfect God I await Pro opening arguments and his attempt to meet Burdon of Proof.