The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[SteveII]

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.

Can you clearly define what gratuitous suffering is and how your argument gets around the greater good and free will defense?