Evil proves God does not exist (Part 3)

My opponent has attacked points 3 and 5 of my argument. I will now address his rebuttals. 1. Point 3- whether an all-powerful god can stop all immoral things from happening at no cost. My opponent's claim in regard to this part of the argument is that all things happen at a cost as "there's no such thing as a free lunch". My opponent then resorts to the worn-out excuse that attempts to incorporate free will into the equation. This fails and below I will show why. Assuming that the god claimed by my opponent is not in fact omnipotent (all-powerful)but is simply very powerful, the entity admittedly could not breach logic and allow agents to make moral choices while disallowing the existence of evil/immorality. Let's remember that my opponent has defined God as "morally good". Let's then ask ourselves a question. Would a morally good entity allow evil things to happen simply for the sake of allowing agents to choose evil things? Of course it wouldn't. A morally good entity must prefer a morally good state of affairs to a morally deficient state of affairs. And a state of affairs where it's possible to commit a an evil act is a less morally good state of affairs than a state of affairs where this is impossible. Let's take an example. John notices a man doing a thing that (let's assume for now) is evil. For instance, the man is raping a young child. John has 2 options: i) Stop the evil (rape of a child) and therefore deprive the rapist of exercising a morally wrong act (in effect limit the rapist's free will); or ii) Do nothing. I suggest that the action in (i) would be a morally better action than the inaction in (ii). An agent who prevents moral wrong is a morally better agent than one who doesn't. What's the moral good of preserving an immoral free will? Nothing. A person who has the means to stop an evil and fails to do so only to say "Oh, but I wanted the evil-doer to exercise his free will" cannot be said to be acting in a morally good way. Quite to the contrary. On another note, let's take the claimed God as an example. Is God capable of acting immorally? No. God is defined (by my opponent) as morally good. Does this mean that God suffers from a lack of ability to choose between good and bad? Apparently so. Does this make God worse or worse of? Does this make Him unhappy or defective? I don't think my opponent would say that it does. Therefore, there's nothing wrong (and certainly nothing morally wrong) in the existence of an agent who is incapable of choosing evil. What is then the basis for claiming that this ability to choose evil is so important as to justify a morally good agent in allowing evil acts (by creating humans who are susceptible to doing evil)? I suggest there is no basis. Indeed, nothing in the way that my opponent has defined "god" provides any room for such an argument. "God' is defined as uncaused, morally good, all powerful, all knowing, personal, the prime/first mover" (see Round 1). Nothing in this definition allows God to compromise the moral goodness of the world merely to preserve people's ability to do evil. Perhaps adding the words "whimiscal" or "game-playing" would assist. Now, while the debate is not about the biblical God, allow me to throw in an interesting point. If moral goodness prevents the ability to choose between right and wrong and if the ability to choose between right and wrong is essential to a morally good world, would this mean that souls in "heaven" (whatever version of heaven we choose; let's not get bogged down in denominations here) lack free will? Or do they still commit evil acts whilst in heaven? If they do not then obviously they can't choose between right and wrong. Does this make them defective? In conclusion to this section of the argument, the "free will" excuse is just that; an excuse. It has been used and abused by apologists worldwide for centuries and yet it does not answer the problem. A morally good being will make a morally good world. And a morally good world is a world in which evil things do not happen. In addition, the very proposition of the existence of a morally good god admits that there is nothing defective in an agent who is incapable of committing evil acts. 2. Objective moral standards Here my opponent is attacking my point 5 - that evil exists. Firstly, he claims that I must commit myself to the position that objective ("absolute" would be a more appropriate philosophical term) moral standards exist. Whilst I don't agree that absolute morality exists, I have no choice but to proceed from the basis that it does for the purposes of this debate. This is because my opponent has defined "god" as "morally good". If an absolute standard of morality did not exist, this definition would be unworkable. I am obliged to attack God's existence via the Argument from Evil and not by any other means. If I were to say "absolute morality does not exist", I would be effectively arguing that a god as defined can't exist (because god is defined as morally good) and I would be avoiding the debate intended by my opponent. Therefore, all I can say is that, assuming that an absolute morality exists, god is defined as being absolutely morally good and with this in mind we proceed to my 5 point syllogism presented in Round 1. Secondly, my opponent attempts to call me out on my apparent concession (and as explained above, I had no choice but to make it) of the existence of absolute morality. He says the following: "Now Pro can't refer too God as the objective moral standard, so then what is the objective moral standard that Pro is referring too when they make claims about the existence of objective evil ? As such it must be conceded that God could be the objective moral standard and thus God might exist. " This is disingenuous, to say the least. Here's what my opponent has done: 1. He proposes that God is defined as "morally good" and therefore locks me into a position where I have to proceed from the basis that absolute morality exists (as explained above). 2. When I do proceed from that basis, he attempts to claim that this amounts to a concession that God might exist. This is reminiscent of St Anselm's Ontological Argument, which of course fails (nevermind why; this is a different debate). And I, of course, disagree. God could only be the source of all morality if God exists in the first place. And if the Argument from Evil is correct, God cannot exist precisely because his failure to prevent evil is contrary to his claimed nature as a morally good god. In effect, either no god exists or there exists a god-like entity who is not a morally good entity and therefore doesn't meet the definition of god that my opponent chose for this debate; and hence is not a god. Do I need to explain where absolute morality comes from? No, I do not. As stated above, I have been locked into this position by my opponent's definition of "god". Moreover, since my opponent defined "god" as "morally good", he has implicitly conceded that such a standard exists and that it exists independently of God. This is because if God were the source of all morality, He could not be described as "morally good" as those words would have absolutely no meaning other than "with the moral characteristics of God". And of course saying that God is someone who has the moral characteristics of God would be meaningless and quite circular and could not possibly be intended by my opponent in his definition in Round 1. This means that my opponent himself agrees that, for the purposes of this debate, God is in fact not the source of all morality, although absolute morality does exist. In conclusion, my forced concession of the existence of absolute morality does not in any way support the existence of a god.