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

IntroductionIn this round, I’ll seek to address Pro’s remaining arguments and determine whether any criticism he offers can stand up to scrutiny.General criticismsReaders will remember Pro offered 2 (very) brief objections here (Tu quoque and non-sequitor). He has since dropped the former, so I’ll concentrate on his second point.Non-sequitor: Pro initially charged (without clarification) that my argument was invalid. He now adds that my argument should include an additional premise, which he words as follows:“A perfectly good and all powerful God will not allow evil into this world.”In response to this, I want to make a number of points. First, I have repeatedly said throughout this debate that my argument was solely interested in gratuitous evil - not evil per se. Indeed, in my last round, I charged Pro with unwittingly straw-manning my argument because he failed to take this huge difference into account:“the focus of P1 however was gratuitous evil - evil which by definition can’t lead to a greater good. I qualified this in my last round, yet Pro doesn’t acknowledge the difference between evil and gratuitous evil. While (in theory) evil may be reconciled with God (as it may lead to a greater good), gratuitous evil, by definition, has no morally sufficient reason” (From R3)Pro continues to ignore this, and thus yet again attacks a straw-man. As for Pro’s claim that my argument needs an additional premise, P1 already does deny that God would allow gratuitous evil in this world, if He exists. Readers can see this for themselves. Again, Pro’s claim here is totally absurd. Next, Pro seems stubbornly resolute in denying the PoE’s logical validity based on my use of a conditional (“if”, “then”) statement. I must admit this again is almost beyond belief. All I can do is to quote the description of modus tollens, and let the readers decide:“Modus tollendo tollens, usually simply called modus tollens or MT is a valid argument form in logic. It is also known as "denying the consequent".The form of modus tollens is: "If P, then Q. Not Q. Therefore, not P." “ (1)As we can see, the use of modus tollens is standard practise for any logically valid argument, as are conditional statements within arguments. Pro’s point here is thus both bizarre and demonstrably false. Indeed, this why I quoted Craig - to try to prevent Pro from turning into such an obvious blind alley, and wasting time constructing such an erroneous criticism.Defending P1P1 states that if God exists, gratuitous evils do not.Again, Pro, after challenging this premise initially, seems willing to concede this now, saying:“I will not respond to P1. There would be no purpose in doing so.”As such, P1 is affirmed, and with Pro‘s acceptance of P2, all that is left to determine is the plausibility of P3.Defending P3P3 states that gratuitous evils do exist.Again, I want to point out that Pro is yet to respond to 3 of my justificatory points directly:1. Prima facie case2. No conceiveum3. Nature of evilsExtend arguments.All he has to offer are indirect points, which I will deal with below.Moral evilReaders will remember that Pro tried to explain this evil by citing morally significant free-will. When I pointed out several problems with this in my last round Pro now suggests:“The point about free will being sacrosanct is actually a straw man because in Christian theology, God can and does interfere with free will. He just doesn’t do it all the time.”But this was exactly my point! If God can interfere with free-will, and seeks to eliminate gratuitous evil (P1), then theists have a problem, because, as Pro says above, morally sufficient free-will doesn’t preclude God from interfering! The question then becomes why seemingly gratuitous moral atrocities occur in abundance. Genocide, torture, and rape are alarmingly common features in the world, often with no sign of a morally sufficient reason for their permissibility.As such, given the framework I laid out supporting the evidence for gratuity in R2 (3 points of which Pro has yet to respond to), combined with Pro’s lack of engagement, P3 is unquestionably affirmed.As for Pro’s demand that I cite an autonomous community which has no moral evil yet enjoys morally significant free-will, I have already done so in the last round - Heaven. Pro is yet to respond to this point. Extend argument.Natural evilReaders will remember I offered 2 examples of this to substantiate P3 - that of infant suffering and Rowe’s example of the fawn.Pro responded to this solely by reference to the Christian story of the Fall, of which I offered 2 criticisms.Begging the question: I initially claimed that as Pro never offered one word of justification for this claim, his assumption of Christian theology clearly begs the question (as he is assuming Christianity to be true from the beginning). Pro’s response is puzzling, to say the least. He says,“What is being questioned here is not the truth of Christian Theology.”Now, we know that the only way that Pro’s explanation of natural evil would be adequate is if the story of the Fall is true. In other words, it is exactly the truth of Christian theology at stake. If the story is false, or we have no reason to believe it (as Pro has refused to justify it), one can hardly stack this up against my lengthy defence of P3 and hope for a favourable result.Pro then says,“to explain this with Christian theology is actually a testament to the internal consistency of the theology, which is what is at stake”Again, this is just a confusion on his part. I’m not advocating an internal PoE. My argument is evidential, and as such, presents an external problem for Christians. All Pro has offered is yet another straw-man, when I’ve clarified this particular problem ad nauseum.Pro also drops his claim that Genesis is authoritative because of its antiquity (R3). While I agree, Pro removes his only attempt at justifying the Fall story, other than assumption.Relevance: Here, I charged Pro’s response as being far too general, and I specifically asked him how is approach would solve the extent, variety and circumstance of the sufferings I documented in my examples.Pro refused to respond. Extend argument.P3 is thus overwhelmingly affirmed.ConclusionThe PoE easily survives scrutiny. Pro himself admits his criticisms to have been “dismal”. I can only agree. We are simply compelled, on the evidence of this debate, that the PoE is a powerful argument, and that the resolution is false.Sources1. http://www.philosophy-index.com...