(August 24, 2013 at 2:33 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I think a more powerful and explicit formulation would be along the lines of:
P1) God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient.
P2) God's actions are in line with and a reflection of his nature.
P3) God created the universe.
P4) The universe contains evil, and evil is not a reflection of God's nature.
C) ?
Whether or not that entails a contradiction is hard for me to say. This is the sort of issue the Free-will Defense is supposed to guard against I think, which I don't think works (hence the thread :p).
Excellent.
Also note here, that we essentially are discussing what is termed "the problem of evil."
I think the first thing I would do if I were talking with an atheist about the objections they have regarding evil and the apparent contradiction of its existence and God's existence is what their view of evil is.
I would simply ask:
What, as an atheist, do you mean when you say evil? What is it? How did we get this idea of "evil"?
I would dialogue with them about that and try to come to some type of consensus about what they think it is. After all, they have to have something in mind if they raise the objection in the first place.
Many times, objections to Christianity are simply based on misunderstandings of some of its doctrines which can simply be explained and the confusion cleared up.
