The Problem of Evil (PoE)

IntroductionI must confess that I feel puzzled by Con’s last response. Not only did he change a number of positions he holds yet again, but he presents his arguments completely clean of the criticisms I gave in the previous round. In my last round therefore, I will seek to show that Con has simply failed to address any of my criticisms of his position adequately, and as the justification for my own argument is yet to be addressed by Con, by defeating his counter-arguments, I will be able to affirm the resolution.You need to have good to have evilThe first recurring problem is context. Con says that he does not need good (and therefore God) to exist, in order to defeat the problem of evil. But who is he kidding? Like ANY single statement, the PoE requires context to be considered, and the context of the PoE is that when one considers the world in light of the existence of gratuitous evils, a God of the type defined in R1 does not exist. To try and defeat the argument by denying that God exists is to rip the argument painfully from its context and claim some sort of shallow victory. When I ask whether fire extinguishers work, I don’t mean do they deliver pizza on Fridays, but whether they are successful in putting out fires, and this is the circumstance with which one considers their success. Likewise, the PoE addresses the proposition that God exists by pointing out something which would not be accounted for if He did (gratuitous evils). Moreover, the PoE still remains a problem even if God (and good or evil) do not exist, in the same way that there are conceptual problems with a 3-sided square, even though it doesn’t exist, or colourless green even if there is no such thing. So conceding Con’s entire argument here makes little difference to the resolution. But Con fails to address any of the points from my last round regarding this argument, so I’ll simply repeat them (some of them for the third time):1. Contrivance - Con thinks he is able to dodge a bullet by making his position malleable, but the problem with this is he ends up denying good (R1), then affirming good (R2), then denying it again (R3). Such an inconsistent and self-preserving tactic simply looks designed to save the argument by any means necessary, and the utility this response has for the theist (who would have to deny, affirm and then deny God) is nil, and is more damaging than the PoE could ever hope to be, as it is a self-refuting position.2. In my last post, I gave reasons to deny that in order to have good there has to be evil. Con’s only response to this is to say that evil and good must contrast each other because the PoE “depends on evil existing as something different from an existing good.” While this only deals with a tiny part of my overall point, even then it butchers it. I am not saying that good and evil are the same, rather that there is no logical incompatibility of good existing without evil, and if God exists, an all-good being would be the embodiment of that. As I said before, if Heaven or Hell exist as traditionally conceived, they would also testify to my point. I don’t think of evil as an absence of good, but even if it were, this response still could not fly, as it would be the absence which would cause the problem. However, even if Con showed beyond doubt that evil requires good, as I stated in my last post, and which Con ignored:“. . . my moral marginality argument applies here. Even if I couldn’t show that goods or evils exist, all I have to demonstrate is things that an all good, all powerful God would want to eliminate if He existed do in fact occur (gratuitous suffering), therefore the PoE still stands.”Like I said before, this argument is so inept that it kills off the God hypothesis before the PoE even gets to the scene. The key aspect to any argument which seeks to critique a belief system is how these beliefs emerge when answering the criticism. It is always possible to avoid any critique but in the case of any strong argument, such avoidance will be severe, and nothing is as drastically destructive as a self-refuting response, which Con provides here. PoE vs evilI previously charged this argument with straw-manning. Rather than denying the charge, Con repeats his argument. Notice the key difference in the first premise as stated by Con and myself:Con’s restatement of my argument“1) Assume an all-powerful and all-good God exists, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for an adequately compensating good. “My argument presented throughout:“If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be . . . “By doing this, Con presents my P1 as self-contradictory with P3, but can only do so by substantively changing the first premise. I corrected him about this in my last post yet he continues to mischaracterise my argument, which is not only bad conduct, but a further sign that he refuses to engage with what I said. The remaining criticisms of Con’s argument are simply ignored from my last post, so I’ll just quickly list them:1. Hypothesis (extension of point above) - God is used for a hypothesis for the world we see, and given that we have to conclude that given the gratuitous evils which do exist (the justification for which has never been challenged by Con), we can affirm the conclusion (God does not).2. Begging the question - Dismissing that gratuitous evils exist by having God as a necessary, foundational assumption is Con’s approach here, which is to argue in a circle. In contrast, the PoE explains what to expect to find IF God exists, and given that gratuitous evils exist (point justified in R1), God does not.I apologise to the readers if I repeat myself here, but it seems to me the only way to deal with Con, who is yet to engage with any of these points.The problem of GoodCon’s last argument has number of points which I have addressed already, both in this post and before (good and evil as a contrast, my as yet untouched moral marginality response, etc). There is however one aspect I perhaps should address. Even if I were to concede that I had to provide an ontological basis for good (which I have argued against with the points I have made throughout), I gave a reason for thinking that good exists. Taking the example of preventing babies from suffering, I pointed out that many moral theories see this as a good, even if for different reasons (for the utilitarian it prevents pain, for the consequentialist not acting would be horrendous, etc.) Con responds that I confuse moral knowledge with ontology, but the point was that however one defends the existence of morality (be it through pain and pleasure or whatever), the PoE caters to moral realists as much as possible. As for those who deny moral realism, I presented a counter to Con’s argument that he does not dispute that shows the denial of the existence of good denies god, and together with my context point, and that of moral marginality, this argument seems dead as well. Lastly, I think it again somewhat contrived of Con to expect me to present an argument, defend it, answer counter-arguments and present a substantive case for moral realism, while he barely responds to much at all, resorts to straw-men, and has refused to deal directly with the justification for any of the premises.As for the quote from Dawkins, he knows as much about moral ontology as he does about philosophy in general - the middle of a doughnut.Conclusion and summaryI have answered pretty much every point Con has made, and see little, if anything, left to rebut. The only real criticism (Is-ought problem) was dropped in R1, and Con failed to address my argument directly, relying on dubious and ever-changing, contrived counter arguments to do so. Quite simply, not only does the argument I presented stand, but next to Con's denialist, contrived, self-refuting mess of an objection, it emerges looking far better than the alternative Con gives us, even for the theist.