The existence of the Christian God is logically indefensible.

Hi Pro! EVIL Pro cites Mill, with the example of a doe dying in a forest fire. However, I reiterate my point. Merely because we have a prima facie view that one piece of suffering is evil, by no stretch means that it is genuinely evil. If we can even give a possible scenario where the event will be for the greater good, then we can say that yes, God can allow a particulat piece of evil. To use the example; we can say that if the doe were not to die, it would feed a wolf that would in turn kill an African village's livestock, making them starving to death. So, I think that it is trivially easy to see what might be the greater purpose of such a piece of suffering. Pro then says that God could not create a world full of disasters as it shows imperfections. Well, let's see how the Bible explains it. As you know, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, resulting in the fall of man. As we separated from God, the absence of God means no God to sustain anything. Hence earthquakes, tsunamis etc. So, it is not God who is responsible - rather, it is man and his own choices. But why would God allow this to happen? It's because to create free creatures is wholly good. And free creatures make their own choices. Man chose to be separated from God. [1] So, regarding evil, the Christian God is entirely defensible. I have explained how we do not have the knowledge to know whether evil truly exists or not, and the Fall of Man perfectly illustrates how a loving God could allow evil - showing no such signs of imperfection. FREE-WILL My opponent seems to be confused about this. He asks, 'what affected this decision?' Well, his own choice. But Pro continues: 'It is clearly his environment and his own mind'. Yes! God puts us into a set of circumstances, and let's us freely chose how we use them, and how we respond to them. That is the whole point of free-will! COSMOLOGICAL Pro says that it is up to the person asserting that 'something cannot come from nothing' to prove that the same rules apply outside of the universe. However, I will reiterate - we have no reason to think that the laws of causality are abolished in nothingness - and so unless someone proves otherwise, we can be logical and say 'something cannot come from nothing'. But Pro says that "Unless the opposition can specifically prove that these laws do apply external to the universe... then this assumption is not a logical defense of God". Well, we can do the best we can do in our circumstances and appeal to inductive reasoning - just like all of science. What this means is that the premise is by far more plausibly true than not - I don't think that anyone can stare in the face of science and say that something can come from nothing. We can not just say 'the same laws may not be the same elsewhere' - That would mean that all science is inherently redundent. You may as well reject the universal laws of gravity, merely on the principle that we can't be sure that they apply outside of our measurable scope. So, considering we are using inductive reasoning, it is up to the person who claims otherwise to give evidence, not the other way round. The principle is a well established metaphysical truth - and a basic one at that. Overall, we are using inductive reasoning to establish this argument. This is purely logical. So I think we can firmly say that the existence of the Christian God is entirely logically defendable in this regard. TELEOLOGICAL Pro cites evolution again, saying that evolution can be obsevable in 100,000's of years. Well sure, tiny alterations. But you realise how complecated humans are, right? You know how many of those little changes there would have to be - to develop consciousness; genders; digestive, blood and nervous systems... There would have to be millions of these 'little changes' that could NEVER have occurred in the time we have been on earth. Pro then says that the 100's of years scientists have been trying to create life cannot be compared to the natural time scales. But, scientists are intelligent beings. They are forcing (in vain) for life to occur. However in the naturalistic view, there is no such intelligence to force life to occur. So I think that they are entirely comparable. Pro then says that imperfection in the universe means that God is not perfect. But I don't think that it is at all contrary to the Christian God. Imperfection in the universe is due to the fall of man, and the resulting separation from God, meaning no sustainer of the universe. Remember, once everything WAS perfect, then we fell into imperfection. So Christianity perfectly illustrates imperfections. But regardless, I still believe that the universe is full of beauty. But the view is not essential to Christian belief. Pro then talks about the possibility of the multiverse. But his sources just say that they are potentially measurable. And to quote from the source: "The authors stress that these first results are not conclusive enough either to rule out the multiverse or to definitively detect the imprint of a bubble collision". So I reiterate, the multiverse is entirely guesswork, and no evidence has been shown to prove such a thing exists. ONTOLOGICAL I think that the main thing to remember hear is this; if it is possible that a necessary being exists, then necessarily, a necessary being exists. Nothing can stop it from being necessarily existing - not even the machine Pro talks about. It is a 'brute fact', so to say. So the argument doesn't go into a circle like Pro is suggesting - this is dealing with the ontology of God. FAITH I think that I have established that in the face of the arguments, faith is an entirely logical means for belief in God. CONCLUSION Overall, I hope I have shown the Christian concept of God to be entirely logically defensable - showing all the arguments to be sound, and all of Pro's objections to be inept. I would like to thank Invictus for a great debate. God Bless Sources: [1] http://bible-truth.org...