If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then God cannot be omnibenevolent at the same time.

Introduction: I am glad that my opponent agrees that all that is necessary for me to provide is a possible world in which an omni-excellent God exists and suffering exists – I will hold him to this. Contention 1: There ARE some things that an omnipotent God cannot do. My opponent forgets that the particularly ugly Latin word, omnipotent, was coined to define the nature of God – specifically the Christian God. To say that there is NOTHING an omnipotent God cannot do is to shift from arguing against the traditional notion of the Christian deity, to a misinformed hacking of a straw man. It is conceptually maintained that even an omnipotent deity cannot do that which is logically impossible to do (e.g. create a rock to heavy to carry or a circled squire). If my opponent wishes to grasp at straws he may, but such casuistry should be considered unsupportive of his overall case. My opponent claims that there is no reason to believe that logical freedom or moral freedom is more valuable than automated, non-sentient life. He seems to be forgetting that which he has already conceded as true. It need not be shown as true or even plausible, it need only be POSSIBLE. Is it not possible that moral freedom is more valuable? This would seem weird considering it is a traditional characteristic of the deity in question. That is to say, if freedom was not a more valuable characteristic, an omni-excellent God would not possess it. Plantinga's syllogism is essentially (from Paul Tidman's "The Free Will Defense"): (P1) It is possible for an omnipotent, wholly good being to create a being that has morally significant freedom. (P2) If it is possible for an omnipotent, wholly good being to create a being that has morally significant freedom, then it is possible for an omnipotent, wholly good being to create a being who then freely choose to bring about evil (evil, for the purpose of this debate, should be considered undeserved pain and suffering). Therefore, (C) It is possible for an omnipotent, wholly good being to create a being who then freely chooses to bring about evil. My opponent, like J. L. Mackie, assumes that God, being omnipotent, can bring about any world, even one where people freely choose to do good. Plantinga labels this assumption "Leibniz' Lapse" and convincingly argues it to be fallacious. The assumption is essentially that God, if omni-excellent, must bring about the best of all possible worlds. However, the failure in that thinking is that there are many worlds that even an omnipotent God cannot bring about. The problem lies in human free choice. Someone, in a particular set of circumstances, has a choice and God cannot determine which choice will be made. In one possible world a person may make one choice, and in another possible world and in the same circumstances, he may make an entirely different choice. One of those two worlds even an omnipotent God cannot actualize because it resides solely on the free choice of the person – not God. My opponent cannot merely wave a rubber wand over his keyboard and expect us to believe that he has seriously considered Plantinga's philosophically infamous work and found it wanting. It has led Peter Van Inwagen to conclude in a recent paper, "it used to be widely held that evil—which for present purposes we may identify with undeserved pain and suffering—was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able tot ell, this thesis is no longer defended (1)." Since an omnipotent God can create morally free creatures, insofar as their decisions are made without internal or external force, it is possible for an omni-excellent God to exist while human suffering exists as well. - My opponent believes that foreknowing some how is equal to determining. In that human choice operates within God's caprice… There is no reason to believe that omniscience equaling determination is true, let alone necessarily true (my opponent's burden). No one can rightly say that God can FORCE genuine love, it is a logical contradiction. Therefore, an omni-excellent God that desires genuine love and virtue must therefore allow the opposite to be possible. - My opponent's assumption is that an omni-excellent God would never, for any reason and never in any circumstance, permit suffering. This is to make the same categorical error of the relativist. It is a claim to absolute knowledge. To say that there is no possible world in which an omni-excellent God would permit suffering is to say that you have scaled the vast expanses of our universe, searched under every rock and in every chasm and crevice. It is a claim to have considered every proposition and applied scrutiny to the mass sum of all existence and found, among the indefinite expanse of all matter and ideas alike, there is no possibility of an omni-excellent God having a "morally sufficient reason" to permit suffering. Such a position is clearly not cogent. No person possesses absolute knowledge. My opponent mentions ridding consequences. To what end? What is the goal? These are important questions as they lead us to the kind of environment we should expect. If God's purpose was merely comfort and painlessness, then my opponent's contentions are valid. But what if God's purpose is to "bring his sons and daughters to glory?" The question my opponent asks again is why does God not merely create humans in this perfected state. The answer is that they would not be morally or logically free creatures. Moreover, it is POSSIBLE that finite perfection can only logically be achieved through process. Consequences exist to promote RIGHT behavior. My opponent's syllogism fails because it still assumes that suffering cannot be or lead to good. If God's desire is soul-making and not a hedonistic paradise, then he would have deleterious actions have consequences in hopes of fostering right and virtuous behavior without internal or external force. Contention 2: Hedonism My opponent is clearly wrong in saying that he does not care what God's purpose is in that he assumes it must include a desire to stop human suffering. Furthermore, my opponent misses my point with evil. He says that "his conception" of good includes the concept of alleviating human suffering. My point is that HIS concept of good is akin to personal preference, things like favorite food or color. His conception of good stems from a subjective base and is therefore not indicative of ACTUAL reality. If an objective standard for good exists, then it is possible that what my opponent feels or conceives as good, is indeed wholly or partially inaccurate – insofar as good would no longer be a property of subjective measurement, but a property of an objective one. Take math for example – an objective practice. Though I may feel or conceive that 2+2=5, I would be wrong – and objectively so. Just like my believing that 2+2=5 does not make it so, my opponent's believing that good and suffering are mutually exclusive does not make it so. Contention 3: Our limited perspective My opponent misses the mark entirely. The point of the analogy was to show that our conceptions can be wholly incorrect. The man thought that his suffering was not good, but indeed, his suffering was for good. Similarly, though my opponent may believe that there is no purpose or reason for suffering, especially in light of an omni-excellent God, he cannot rightfully say that there is no purpose because he does not have absolute knowledge of the situation. And since, in this life, he never will have absolute knowledge, he never will fulfill his burden. Contention 4: Good and Bad The purpose was to show that if God does indeed exist, then it is possible that good and evil exist objectively, therein rendering all human conceptions of good and bad as red herrings if they differ from God's objective standard. Sources: 1 TEPE by Daniel Howard