The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

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I deny and repudiate that line of argument.  

The PoE (problem of evil) is bulletproof regardless of how you define evil.  

Let us stipulate, temporarily and for the sake of argument, that "good" means three things:  
- First and most importantly, it means knowing god.  
- Second, and second in importance, it means having free will.  
- Third, and last in importance, it means being happy.  

Posit a benevolent god of limited power:  If he had to choose between these three, he would give up happiness and free will to get knowledge of god.  If he had to choose between free will and happiness, he would prefer free will.  

This god may be omnibenevolent, but he is not omnipotent.  An omnipotent god would not have to choose between these.  An omnipotent god can do anything that does not contradict logic.  

Having happiness and free will and knowledge does not contradict logic.  So an omnipotent god could do it.  

Even an omnipotent god couldn't have pure happiness, but also unhappiness.  It couldn't have complete knowledge of god but also ignorance of god.  It could not have everybody having free will but some people not having free will.  Those would be contradictions.  Not even an omnipotent god could achieve contradictions.  

But there is no contradiction between happiness, knowledge, and free will.  An omnipotent god could effect that effortlessly.  No problem.  

The PoE is bulletproof regardless of how you define good.  If there was a god who wanted us to be happy, and who wanted us to know him, and who wanted us to have free will, then (if this god was also omniscient and omnibenevolent) we would have all three of those things.  

If we do not have all three of those things, then such a god does not exist.  


"A universe of physical laws"?  Are you saying that your god can't throw magic?  If you posit a less-than-omnipotent god, then of course it can coexist with evil, just as a less-than-omniscient or less-than-omnibenevolent god could. 

The PoE has nothing to say about such inferior gods.

You are resting your case on the fact that God could orchestrate a scenario that achieves all three of your points above with omnipotence.

Yes.

You are not providing arguments that it is illogical, you are arguing that it is improbable.

Probability doesn't come into it.  It's all terminology and deductive logic.  An omnipotent god (one who can do anything except violate logic) can achieve any three goals that do not logically contradict each other.  Knowing a god, having free will, and being happy are not logically contradictory.  Therefore, an omnipotent god could do all three.  An omniscient god would know how to do all three.  An omnibenevolent god (assuming we define those three things as good) would choose to achieve all three.  Therefore, in any world in which these three things are not achieved, tri-omni gods do not exist.  

Feel free to show me where I injected statistics and probability into that.  

It all comes down to your position that omnibenevolence = obligation to use all means to avoid anything that isn't good.

I deny and repudiate that argument.  By now you know that it is a misrepresentation.  I do not see gods as obligated in any way. 

That would mean preventing any and all suffering.

A god who is all about preventing suffering would prevent any and all suffering, insofar as that was in his capacity.  If he had omnipotence, preventing all suffering would be a doddle.  Duck soup.  Easy peasy.  No problem at all.  No effort required.  

A god who only wanted to prevent some suffering would not be omnibenevolent.  A god who wanted to prevent all suffering but wasn't able to do so would not be omnipotent.  

A tri-omni god would prevent any and all suffering--even if not in any way obligated to do so.  

It does not seem to me that we could have a world where we have free will and not have suffering because every wrong choice we made that resulted in suffering (however small) would be met with a supernatural intervention.

Some possible goodworlds have interventions.  Some don't.  If the god is comfortable with interventions, he can have them.  If not, not.  

Such a state of affairs would result in a singular lack of morally sufficient freedom --effectively eliminating free will.

Only if you define it that way.  Plantinga does.  He says god couldn't create a goodworld with free will, because his choosing to create that particular world (knowing, as he would in his omniscience, every choice everyone would ever make in that world) would deny the inhabitants free will.  

There are two problems with that.  

One (and I want you to pretty much ignore this one, let's not have a long digression about it) is that it makes free will worthless.  I like my free will as much as you like yours.  And if you tell me this world was created by an all-knowing god, and that therefore, according to Planting's perverse and self-serving definition, my will isn't technically free, that doesn't make me like it any less.  

The other objection is that Plantinga engaged in special pleading.  If god's knowing our decisions beforehand robs us of free will in a goodworld, then it will also do that in a badworld.  The logical result of Plantinga's logic is that tri-omni gods cannot create any world with free will.  

In which case, a goodworld without free will would be better than a badworld without free will.  

So a good god, if it existed, and if it was omniscient and omnipotent, would still have created a goodworld.  

So it would seem that a world in which everyone had free will but no possibility of suffering would not be able to be actualized.

Again, just because you have a possibility doesn't mean you have to do something.  If you had to do it, that wouldn't be a possibility, it would be a necessity.

If a god could create worlds with free will, then he could create one in which we could choose evil, but decided not to.  If we couldn't decide not to, that wouldn't be free will.