The Problem of Evil falsifies the Christian God's Omnibenevolence

a. Correction of resolution Please note that Wylted and I have agreed upon a correction of the resolution from: "The Problem of Evil falsifies the Christian God's Omnibenevolence" to "The Problem of Evil falsifies the Christian God" This is so not to distract from the intention of this debate, which is the problem of evil's soundness as an argument against Christianity. I. Preface Once again, I would like to thank Wylted for accepting this debate, I don't think I could have asked for a better adversary! I would like to clarify the definition of the Christian God for this debate. The Christian God is defined as a being that is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent and of course, Omnibenevolent, or the 'Greatest Possible Being'. Con may request a change in this definition in the comments if he wishes, although these attributes are going to be the principle ones I will be arguing with for now. I will be arguing the problem of evil from three perspectives, the general problem of evil in this world as is normally argued, a modal form of the argument similar to how the ontological argument is formulated and from the evil god hypothesis. II. Problem of Evil The argument is formalised as follows: P1. If the Christian God exists THEN gratuitous suffering will not exist P2. Gratuitous suffering exists Conclusion. The Christian God does not exist. Gratuitous suffering - Superfluous, or unnecessary suffering This argument is a trivial modus tollens by the law of the contrapositive. Therefore the argument is logically valid, and Pro needs to dispute the premises to avoid the conclusion. [1] In defence of premise 1, an omnibenevolent being is one of maximal goodness. An omnipotent AND omnibenevolent being would be both willing and capable of giving maximal goodness within the world. From this, we would trivially expect there to be zero instances of suffering not coupled with a redeeming good in the world. If there was a world that had a degree of gratuitous suffering with redeeming goals accomplished, we could always envisage a world with a lesser degree of gratuitous suffering with the same result (given that God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent, he is both willing and able). In defence of premise 2, this seems to be obviously true, with millions of children in the world die in great pain as infants. Some children are born with cancer,[2] others are born with chronic diseases such as HIV.[3] Clearly these individuals are suffering a disproportionate amount compared with their peers, and one could easily envisage a world where all things are equal with the exception of that additional degree of suffering. This 'unnecessary additional degree of suffering' is what would be clearly classified as gratuitous suffering. Moreover, a large fraction of these children are both unbaptised and unexposed to the Christian doctorine. Therefore are 'unentitled' to receive redemption in heaven according to the Christian doctorine. We don't even need to go this far, however. As even more compelling arguments can be made for animal suffering. We only need to look as far as our nearest chicken farm to see millions of chickens living in atrocious conditions, with absolutely no redeeming qualities for them in this life. The same arguments I have made for humans also apply for animals in the wild. Sentient animals who have just been born are regularly born infected, and physically handicapped. Of course given the more brutal conditions of the wild a very substantial degree of these animals do not survive for long at all. The fact we can easily envisage worlds where there is less suffering, that is not inherently contradictory or violate any logical principles, seems to easily fulfil premise 2 of the argument. III. Possible Objections The most commonly objection is principle that of free will, which could dispute the premises in the following way. "Free will is a redeeming good that balances out the perceived gratuitous suffering that exists, that is gratuitous suffering is necessary for us to have free will" However this objection is weak for a number of reasons 1. Only addresses moral gratuitous suffering (moral evil) Free will is an irrelevant argument when addressing naturalistic suffering. Earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, and a whole host of sources of suffering that have nothing to do with one's influence due to free will. One could easily envisage a world, with all things equal, including free will, where naturalistic suffering does not exist, or at the very least exists to a lesser degree. The fact that things could be better still satisfies premise 2 for the presence of gratuitous suffering. 2. It could have been done better Take oxytocin for example, which is a drug that is demonstrably known to increase a person's trust in other people. It wouldn't be a far stretch to agree that a person taking oxytocin will still have free will, or free choice. Since that person is in no way limited by how they can choose, but now an additional bias is placed on which choices are more favorable to take. We have multiple mechanisms that favor certain choices over others, which are manifest from the emotions we exhibit. A depressed individual will make a different selection in choices to a healthy person (, if all else was perfectly equal) but we would still regard both individuals to have free will. THAT being the case, we can easily envisage a world in which morally good choices are more pleasurable, or more greatly favoured in our will than they are today. That being the case we can conclude that this world contains a greater amount of moral evil (and therefore gratuitous suffering) that is necessary to accomplish free will, and would the. satisfy premise 2 of there being gratuitous suffering. IV. Modal argument from evil This argument I have borrowed/pilfered/bribed/stolen from zmikecuber.[4] This argument uses the extra attribute of omnipresence, and necessary existence (as defined as the greatest possible being) against God's existence. P1. If the Christian God exists THEN gratuitous suffering will not exist P2. Gratuitous suffering is possible P3. If gratuitous suffering is possible then there is a metaphysically possible world where it exists C1. The Christian God does not exist in one metaphysically possible world P4. The Christian God is defined as a being that necessarily exists in all metaphysically possible worlds C2. The Christian God exists in no metaphysically possible world (including this one) The new premise I have injected is premise 2, which is even more innocent than the P2 of the original problem of evil. Since we only need to accept gratuitous sufferings' possibility for the argument for work. We can readily conceive of a world where gratuitous suffering exists. Neither is this world inherently contradictory or logically unsound. Therefore we have good reason for accepting this to be metaphysically possible. V. Evil God Hypothesis The argument can be summarised as such: 1. A malevolent god can explain moral goods & evils just as well as an omnibenevolent god can 2. God created the universe, and all the moral good & evil within it C. Omnibenevolence is an unnecessary attribute of God This last jab using the problem of evil is simply a coinflip to demonstrate that an omnibenevolent god doesn't by it's own virtue account for the good & evil in the world. [5] Take an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly evil (malevolent) god. Can such a being account for the evidence of moral goods and evils just as well as an omnibenevolent god can? All instances of seemingly gratuitous suffering are readily accounted for by an evil god. We can even attribute man's warring and destructive tendencies towards their fellow species and the planet as clear signs of innate evil that god has given us. The brutal torment of our animal kind in the wild, stricken by disease, starvation and immense suffering are readily explained by god's perfectly evil will. The obvious objection to this is what about moral good in the world? What about the joy of birthing a child, or the sense of euphoria in succeeding? What about all the advances humankind has made, aren't these violations of what we would expect from a perfectly evil god? You will quickly see everything one can say in defence of a perfectly good god may be flipped on it's head and used in defence of a perfectly evil god. So in this case, free will! In order to achieve the greatest possible evil in the world, free will must be granted, and therefore some concessions on moral goods must be given to experience new heights of evil. Murder, slavery, and torture are not possible without granting free will, so this is the price god has to pay for this payback of increased suffering. Even the argument of redemption in heaven/hell can be flipped around to account for a perfectly evil god. All moral goods experienced in this life will be 'redeemed' upon judgement with eternal torment in hell with the evil god. To paraphrase Peter Milican, the problem of evil should be so named the evidential problem of evil, since there is so much evil, and suffering, in the world, in such great quantities that it should be so-named the evidential problem of evil. I would argue as far that an evil god hypothesis is actually a much better explanation of the world than an omnibenevolent god is, for reasons already described. Thereby falsifying an omnibenevolent god. VII. Conclusion: The case is laid out, I wish Con best of luck in his rebuttals. Back to Pro! VIII. References: 1 http://www.philosophyofreligion.info... 2. http://www.childrenshospitaloakland.org... 3. http://www.avert.org... 4. http://www.debate.org... 5. http://journals.cambridge.org...