If an omnipotent, omnicient, and omni-benevolent God can exist with evil.

Thanks to Con for the response. I apologize because this round is not as in-depth as I would like because I have a limited amount of time to write it. I will endeavor to make up for it in the next round. First off, the evidential problem of evil is a mere inductive argument against God's existence while the logical problem of evil is a deductive argument against God's existence. What this means is that with the logical problem of evil - if the premises can be ascertained - that it is pretty much certain that God could not exist because God would be logically incompatible with the existence of evil and I don't think it needs to be said that things with logically contradictory incompatibilities cannot exist. The evidential problem of evil differs from the logical problem of evil in that the conclusion of the argument is that it is very unlikely that God exists taking into account certain "gratuitous" evils. The evidential problem of evil DOES NOT strive prove that God is incompatible with the existence of gratuitous evils - it only tries to prove that the existence of gratuitous evil effectively lowers God's probability so low that the "hypothesis" of God can be disregarded. Hypothetically, it's logically possible that that a car come hurtling from outer pace and land in the middle of the room but the chances of that happening are so small it is effectively a non-issue. So, reiterating, if my opponent decides to go with the evidential problem of evil he is conceding that it is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE that God exist with evil. It seems as if Con is not going with that approach so I will not broach the subject any further. Second, I think my opponent doesn't realize the difficulty of his position and I would like to draw out what my opponent is committing himself to by propounding the logical problem of evil. What he must do is prove that it is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that God exist with evil; he must that it is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that God have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evils. That is an extremely tough task and, from my perspective, his chances are dim indeed as it is already hard to prove non-obvious (an obvious logical incompatibility would be a square circle) logical incompatibilities and it would it will be even doubly hard in this situation in that it is plausibly thought that there are some things of God's nature we cannot understand so proving that a God not limited by finiteness like us humans are can't possibly have any reasons for allowing evil seems a bit preposterous to me. All I must do I must do to fulfill my share of the burden of proof is propound a logically possible reason that God could have for allowing. Heck, it's logically possible that God allows evil because he likes ducks. :) I agree, that sounds preposterous and absurd to even myself so I ill stick with my original reason for refuting the logical problem of evil. ========= The Free Will Defense ========= Con asks what is intrinsically good about free will but to even ask to question seems to me be absurd. It is often said of the God we are talking about that he created his creations, in this context humans, out of love. When you reflect on what the notion of genuine or true love is I think it becomes obvious that free will is intrinsically good. Suppose God created creatures that only "loved" and obeyed God because of the simple reason that he "programmed" them to do so - would that be true love or would that be some type of trivial affectation the humans shared for God? In a sense humans would just be robots and I do not think it is possible to enter n a true loving relationship with an automaton that only "loves" God back because they are programmed that way. And let's think of another situation to make this even clearer: let's assume that there was a way to force someone you love to "love" you (maybe through some magical potion ala Harry Potter). Would that be true love? And I think most people would agree that if you truly loved a person you wouldn't want to force them "love" you back - even if it hurts you deeply that they don't reciprocate the love back. I contend that it is much the same situation with God. As for the second part of Con's argument I do not think it all that implausible to suppose that God giving humans the option to love him or not love him is not an intrinsic good. Indeed, it probably would be a moral EVIL if God have not gave humans free will and made automatons that only do their filial duty because he programmed them that way. It would be absurd to say that you can enter in a genuine loving relationship with a robot. I think most people would choose the life of a free man (if given the choice) with all its' dangers then the life of a comfortable slave. That applies to Con's guinea pig analogy. I do contend that humans do have an imagio dei (image of God) which is why some if not many things seems inherently wrong to us, like, say, torturing babies for fun but that is neither here nor there. The situation with God and human morality doesn't need to be conceived as an "either-or" relationship. It doesn't need to be either we have complete knowledge of all God's moral principles or we have no knowledge of God's moral principles. I say we can and do have partial knowledge and at least some of our moral compass can see the value of free will. Regarding Con's final point about different "levels" of free will ; I think I understand it and I apologize if I misconstrue it. It seems Con has a conception of free will that no one ever uses. This free will defense assumes the libertarian conception of free will. [1] What this conception of free will is is this: "Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the individual to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances, this viewpoint is based on the idea that nothing is determined". [2] That is all that it entails. The fact that I may want to fly but my physical constitution prevents me from doing so is no impugnment on my free will. I don't see why the fact that you can't do things that are logically or physically impossible is a count against free will. Con seems to think that because God won't "let" him go back into the past to see his cat God must not exist borders on the absurd. First, in any case, I could offer the same response. God could have a morally sufficient reason for not allowing Con to travel back into the past to see his cat. The more likely reason is that it's just not possible given your present circumstances. Plus, it might even be that time travel is impossible rendering Con's argument incoherent. [3] But this is not the "time" to discuss philosophy of time. :) Tying this all back in to my main point - Con has not provided to the slightest reason to think that it is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that free will be the morally sufficient reason that God allows the existence of evil. And I have provided a logically possible reason as to why God could allow the existence of evil. I think my burden of proof has been satisfied and coherently defended up until now. I await Con's response. ========= Sources ========= [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Ibid [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...