The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[Gemini]

The logical incompatibility of the claims "a tri-omni God exists" and "gratuitous suffering exist" is not terribly controversial....To salvage the doctrine of a tri-omni God, theists by and large take the skeptical position and argue that we don't know that God isn't morally justified in permitting such instances of suffering.

You can cry foul all you want. The skeptical objection still contains a positive claim that cannot be proven. That claim is this: there is a possible world without evil.

Secondly, there is no doctrine to salvage. Skeptics' definitions of "tri-omni" are not part of Christian doctrine. Skeptics strain the definition of omnipotent well beyond any reasonable bounds by saying that an all-powerful god could do the impossible. In so doing they are objecting to a god not associated with Christianity...

A simple form of the logical argument from evil would go:

1. If gratuitous suffering exists, then a tri-omni God does not exist.
2. Gratuitous suffering exists.
3. Therefore, a tri-omni God does not exist.

I question whether you have any interesting objections to the first premise. I would be surprised if you did, because I'm not aware that it's at all controversial.

Perhaps you have an idiosyncratic doctrine of God which is different than the historically orthodox all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good (tri-omni) God believed in by the overwhelming majority of Christians and Christian philosophers. Maybe you're with William of Ockham, or an antinomian, or some such. If so, that's not an interesting objection to the first premise, because participants in the argument aren't talking about your version of theism.

It sounds, however, as though you've misconstrued what we mean by a tri-omni God. Your objection is to the second premise. As far as "proving" that a possible world with less gratuitous suffering than this one exists, you do actually need to show a logical contradiction with the proposition. Nice try, but you still can't shift that burden of proof.

And if you notice, I'm willing to set aside objections to the logical coherence of omnipotence. Because the logical problem of evil still succeeds, even if you grant logical constraints on God's power. A God who can't do logical impossible things is still plenty powerful enough to eliminate gratuitous suffering.