The Problem of Evil (PoE)

IntroductionGiven that Con forfeited the last round, there isn’t much for me to do, except summarise the debate, and extend on a few points which have been left relatively short. First, let’s return to the argument:(P1) If there were an all-powerful and all-good God, then there would not be any evil in the world unless that evil is logically necessary for an adequately compensating good.(P2) There is lots of evil in the world.(P3) Much of that evil is not logically necessary for any adequately compensating good.(C) Therefore, there is no God who is all powerful and all good. General pointsIn my last round, I introduced 2 general criticisms of Con’s approach:Context - The PoE is necessarily applied in a certain context, and in order to diffuse the problem, Con would use a conception of God which was irrelevant to the target of the PoE. Coherence - Again, Con has to tackle the PoE and emerge with a theistic conception of God. Not only did God quickly become unfalsifiable and immune from logic, but at one point, Con even intimated wholesale epistemological scepticism to defeat the problem of evil, a scepticism, which as we seen in the last round, was purely contrived and artificially limited to the PoE.Defending P1Here I gave 2 defences of P1 with use to an analogy: initial plausibility and conceptual analysis. Con gave 2 criticisms of P1, one with reference to ST, which I argued was simply irrelevant because whether evils are ultimately gratuitous (the position I hold), or merely apparently gratuitous (Con’s position), this is the remit for P3. All P1 states (simply put) is that if God exists, gratuitous evils do not exist, and this seems not only eminently plausible, but necessarily true. His second criticism was that my admission of the possibility of morally sufficient reasons for evils contradicted my conclusion, but here we can see Con purposefully distorts what I said,“Of course I agree that all evil may have a morally sufficient reason, but given that we have now 4 relevant lines of evidence to counter this, it is no help to hold epistemic scepticism, and the absurdities this would entail.”Once we see the full quote, we can see that this is a phantom controversy concocted by Con, who stopped the quote short of saying that we do have reason to affirm P3, which is of course consistent with the conclusion. Given this, it seems we have absolutely no reason to doubt P1, and 2 reasons to affirm it. Defending P2As my definition of evil suggested, all P2 does is to affirm that there are such things as suffering, pain, disability and death, which obviously do occur in our world, and I used several examples of things which do so. Con wisely choose not to dispute that these things exist, so P2 likewise must be affirmed.Defending P3Here is definitely where the essence of Con’s criticisms were directed at. I gave 4 main reasons to affirm P3:Prima facie case - We can ( at the very least) cautiously affirm P3 on the basis of appearance. When we see an evil, and know of no benefit at all, then surely we are rational to initially suppose that this evil is gratuitous. All Con used here was ST, but I pointed out both the problems of holding to ST, as well as the fact that it doesn’t seem to warrant wholesale, stubborn agnosticism, rather than cautious affirmation of P3, especially when we have a cumulative case for thinking P3 is true, in addition to appearance. Con failed to respond.Nonconceiveium - Here, I pointed out that our lack of ability to even conceive how evils are logically necessary or how any good can come from particular evils gives us another reason to accept P3. Con’s only response to this was that it argued from ignorance, which I noted wasn’t the case, because, for one thing, we are arguing from what is known. I also pointed out the known short-term consequences of evil provides a massive presumption to overcome, if these evils are to explained as morally permissible, but yet again we have been given no reason to suppose this is true.Divine Silence - This point has not been responded to by Con. It notes the lack of comforting from above while sentient beings experience the most horrendous evils. With not even a hint of necessity of the evils, even in the most general sense, again give us reason to think that seemingly gratuitous evils really are gratuitous.Epistemic consistency - Here I pointed to Con’s blatant disregard for everyday standards of rational belief by showing how while he would employ scepticism on the PoE, areas (such as morality) which were as hard to fathom nevertheless were given a strong answer by Con, and I argued here that if Con wishes to be consistent, he should either retreat and adopt moral paralysis, or admit that his standard is purely contrived to this argument. As the quotes from him show, this double-standard he adopts gives us reason to think that if apply our standards consistently, we should affirm P3.I think it patently clear that none of these have been adequately dealt with by Con, and on this basis, we can affirm P3, and thus the argument.STAgain, I gave 3 criticisms of ST, as well as showing that Con was indeed using ST as a response. Besides, ST as pertaining to my support for P3 has been largely dealt with above. Unless and until Con can show that ST (or his use of it) does not lead to total irrelevance with respect to the PoE, does not beg the question and does not lead to absurdities, again we have no reason to regard this as anything other than a bad response to a particularly vexing problem.LogicHere, Con tries to say that God logic can only refer to that which is finite, but as I pointed out, logical truths are true by necessity. Also, as Wittgenstein puts it:“a nothing will serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said.” (1)ConclusionAfter being given ample reason to accept the argument, and showing that the refutations of it fail, both in and of themselves, as well as the additional problems they create, it follows that one is certainly rational to accept the PoE is a viable argument.Sources(1) Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical investigations, trans G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953. P102.