I hope to clarify my position, and I hope that, once accomplished, you will be able to respond to the precise arguments I'm making. This is long, and I've compiled most of this from various conversations I've had with people over the past few years. I just now tried to edit it all together into one long argument that evil is incompatible with God's existence -- that it is a problem for theism. I will be discussing, thus, the ancient "Problem of Evil" (PoE) and its responses.
I am summarizing the main points at the bottom to make it easier to interact with (and rebut) individual arguments I'm making.
The classic logical PoE is usually stated as (rearranged from Epicurus):
P1) The gods either can take away evil from the world and will not
P2) or, being willing to do so [take away evil from the world] cannot
P3) or, they [gods] neither can nor will [take away evil from the world]
P4) or, they are both able and willing [to take away evil from the world].
C1) If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. (if P2)
C2) If they can, but will not, then they are not omnibenevolent. (if P1)
C3) If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. (if P3)
C4) Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist? (this is a reductio ad absurdum for P4)
The only rational answer is -- all-powerful and all-good gods do not exist. And, if some other form or version of God exists: say, a weak one; or a morally ambivalent one...then does it deserve our acknowledgment, respect, or adoration? No. Could we be morally obligated to a God which has less compassion than we do? Less power to prevent evil? After all, we are the ones being forced, in these scenarios, to cure cancer and eradicate starvation. This is the "push a button" argument I made in my closing statement at The Academy. If we had the ability to eradicate all disease, natural disaster, starvation, &c., then we would, right? But if God has the ability to do those things, and chooses not to, then God is less compassionate and thus less good [by this metric], than we are.
And that is why I am an atheist, not an agnostic, with respect to a "tri-omni" God of goodness, knowledge and power. I do not believe in such a Being for good reason. I cannot logically discount other sorts of gods -- weak ones or morally questionable ones, but I also cannot believe in them, nor would I care to know one way or the other about them.
If we accept that God is "all-good" and "all-powerful", then the PoE is a useful argument for atheists to make. If we disagree on those two crucial premises, then of course it doesn't really matter whether evil exists or not when it comes to deciding God's existence. Some theists will argue that if there is no God, then there is no evil. This does nothing to defeat the PoE. The reason is simple: we are using the premise that evil is what God would think/say that it is, under the assumption that a God exists.
Thus even if the theist is correct, and the two claims (evil, God) are contingent on one another, then we either have both or we have neither. In other words, by this reasoning -- if there is no such thing as evil, then there is no such thing as good, and there then is no such "all-good" God, and so our argument is pointless. We may assume that evil can be defined by whatever the theist agrees that it is -- most religions incorporate elements of suffering, pain, disease, death, as "evil" and therefore those things are not going to be present in heaven/utopia. Thus we may use those particular ideas about evil to advance the argument. If the theist refuses to admit that these things are evil, then we must ask for some criteria for deciding just what evil & good really are.
If we say that the notion of God must make suffering and evil different for God, then we lose the right to call God "good" for the same reason. That is, if we say, "What seems evil to us may not be evil to God," then the same thing applies to, "What seems good to us may not be good to God." And if this is true, then things like compassion, charity, kindness, self-restraint, patience, tolerance...those things are good to us. How can we say God is/has those things? If what is good to us isn't real, or doesn't represent God's view, then why do we call God "good" at all?
If allowing and causing gratuitous pain, suffering, and misery isn't evil, then we lose the basis for calling things (or God) good as well. However, no reasonable person can deny what is good and evil. It is an intrinsic part of our human nature to feel compassion, altruism, empathy...we cannot pretend we do not. And we call those things, "good". Furthermore, the moral properties we ascribe to actions, behaviors, and character based on our intuitions and perceptions are real. If they were not, then there is no such thing as morality. If no real moral properties exist, then no good and evil exist. If no good and evil exist, then God still doesn't exist! (Remember that the definition of God includes goodness.)
We must use our conceptions and perceptions of good and evil as the only basis for those things, else wise we lose any grounding for using the terms at all. Ergo, if there is a God who does not believe those same things about morality as we do, nor act so as to bring about those things we would, why would we call this God "good" at all? If you tell me you would, indeed, cure cancer if you could, because it is moral to do so, but then say that God can but won't, haven't you just admitted God is allowing unnecessary evil? We can't logically make those characteristics square with the sort of God who would introduce, allow, or even possibly make the sorts of evil that we all observe and experience.
Importantly, the concept of an omnibenevolent & omnipotent God carries with it moral obligations. Precisely, God is bound to create the best of all possible worlds by his nature and duty -- this follows from the definition of what it means to have perfect goodness and all power.
Let Y = the sum evil of the universe (totality; from start to finish)
Let S = any single act or instance of evil in the universe
Let G = the sum good of the universe (totality; from start to finish)
Let P = free will
Let X = our world with good G and evil Y
Let Z = the world in which there is a total evil Y minus at least one act of evil S
Let Q = the world in which there is only G and no Y (and thus no S) -- the best possible world
My argument is this in general terms:
God is bound to make world Q by his nature and duty to his creatures. However, if God is incapable of making Q, but is capable of making either Z or X, then God must make Z. That is, Z is by definition a "more good" world than X, and God is bound by his character and morally obligated to create Z rather than X, and to create Q rather than Z (if possible). If you claim this is not possible, then omnipotence comes into question.
If we look at our world and see any evil, then we know we are not in world Q. If we then examine our own world and are able to mount an argument that God could have reduced the evil of this world by any amount (S), then we have shown that we live in X rather than Z. This is automatically indicative that we have shown that the world we live in is evidence against an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God.
So if we look at every single instance of evil, and if you want to maintain this world is Z, not X, we are forced to say that all of these instances of evil were logically necessary in order to have Z. Then, you must argue that Z, a world with evil, is preferable to Q a world without evil, and so Z is somehow the best of all possible worlds. Usually the theist will argue that the reason Z (with evil) is better than Q (without evil) is that Y (evil) is minimized in order to maximize G (good) via some "higher good" such as "free will" (P).
If every S, each instance of evil, pain and harm are not absolutely necessary to bring about P, then it entails that we do not live in a world that is better than the world in which there is one less instance of S. And thus God is not all good, because it would've been possible to make the better world.
First, is it logically possible that,
World X > World Q?
That is, is it possible that: (G) good - (Y) evil > (G) good ?
I would maintain that it is not, by definition. Adding in any amount of evil Y automatically reduces the magnitude of G and thus takes us from the best possible world Q to a world X which should not exist if God does. This is the heart of the "best possible world" idea. So instead, the theist will typically say that world X has the "higher good" P to balance out the evil:
(G) good - (Y) evil + (P) free will > (G) good
Where the magnitude of (P) = the magnitude of (Y); so that they cancel out, or where (P) > (Y), so that we now have "better" world on the left side and "not as good as" world Q on the right. That is, it is an even better world to have evil and free will, (P) & (Y), than to have neither. The free will theodicy is an attempt to say this.
But is free will always the highest good?
Consider that most parents would agree it is not more loving to allow their young child to freely hurt themselves, and others, than to step in and stop them. The parent would even be held liable in a court of law for negligence. But why is it that God is somehow supposed to be exonerated from responsibility for giving people free will to abuse and use however they want?
If you say that free will must be the highest good, then you are committed to giving your child a knife to run through the house with whenever they want one, because "free will is more important than harm, or the evil that might occur". This takes you down a path I doubt many of you want to go. If you really believe that it is better to honor someone's freedom to do as they wish than to restrict that freedom when it causes harm, then I can outline many scenarios which would clearly demonstrate your conundrum.
You would committed to having to introduce, at every opportunity, the option to do wrong, since this represents free will, no matter the consequences.
This brings us to the responsibility of God in giving free will. This is a very important distinction, and one that most Christians ignore -- they assume that God almost has to give people free will in every situation, and that this is better than God restricting human freedom during horrible circumstances. But this begs the question by saying that (P) > (Y).
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1) It completely ignores natural evils, like natural disaster, disease, famine, etc.
2) If the person who wants to hurt someone else has the will to commit harm, why does their will supercede the will of the person who doesn't want to be harmed? Also, it would probably be admitted that God also wills for this not to happen. So why would one person's will be granted, while both another person's and God's own wills are overturned? This is a very important issue. What serves the greater good in this?
3) The capacity for humans to act out their will/intentions must be separated out from the will/intent itself. That is, will is impotent. Will relies upon contingencies that make it possible to carry out one's intentions. A simple example is the girl jogging through the park -- her will/intent is to go for a jog and go home. The rapist waiting in the bushes has the will/intent to abduct and rape her. If it does happen, whose will is violated, and why does it occur? Contingencies such as her ability to fight off the attacker, whether or not she brought pepper spray with her, whether or not a passerby happens to come at that moment -- all of these have NOTHING to do with freedom of will. This is the problem with purporting it is necessary for the evil to occur just because of freedom of will -- that is false, God can make the contingencies such that a truly free will cannot act out its evil choices/desires, or not to such a great extent, without abrogating freedom of mind/will/intent.
Thus God need not give someone a rock nearby when Cain wishes to crush Abel's skull. God need not place someone with delusions of grandeur and fascist aspirations to a place of power by making them articulate and smart and good-looking -- this same character God could allow polio to cripple or influenza to kill as a child. We must always recognize that simply allowing people to have free minds does not necessitate giving them the power to act on their wishes at all times.
4) Blaming the devil doesn't work: God supposedly created the devil, so this just pushes it back a step further.
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Again, God doesn't "get off" for giving unrestricted free will to people who will abuse it -- it represents negligence on the part of whomever gives someone power that will be abused when they know ahead of time that it will, and could otherwise stop it.
Now, let us ask the question of what makes someone likely to have the will/intent to harm someone else.
We never think much about things this way, but if you believe in God, then you agree that God has restricted your free will -- often times you wish you could do many things that you are unable to act upon. The very complex topic that this opens up leads some people to believe in Calvinism/determinism, because they recognize that intrinsically, we often will to do something that we cannot accomplish, and that the reasons for our inabilities to act are always controlled by God.
Imagine, for instance, that I want to win the 100-meter race. I simply do not have the genetics for it, period. I could put all of my heart and soul into it, but never could I beat out natural athletes whose bodies are marvelously fit for such exercises. It is not in my nature. In the same way, my Saint Bernards will never attack a child and maul it to death. Both of these two things are related: my physical nature limits me (by genetics), and so does theirs. These dogs were artificially selected for their temperments and personality. However, if we could manipulate my genes, or infect my dogs with rabies, then our natures change, and so will our capacity to act. People are no more "free" than their bodies and natural inclinations make them, and thus not truly free at all.
Philosophers have dealt with this topic extensively, and they point to the source of our will as desire, and the source of our desire as our nature -- and so the question of what constitutes our nature becomes relevant. No one can deny that genetics hugely constitutes our nature, as well as how we are raised. Children who are abused will deal with pain and anger for their entire lives that, for instance, I will not. We all know people who seem to have been born with a gentle nature -- completely nonviolent. It takes much more to anger them than the average person. Let's call that person, "Ms. Q". If she is raised in a loving home and well-educated, it is completely unlikely that Ms. Q will ever feel the urge to cause someone terrible pain for fun. Why is it that Ted Bundy enjoyed causing pain for fun? As a scientist, I want to study his brain, his genes, and his environment as a child -- three things he had no real control over (he wasn't free to determine those things), and compare his to "Ms. Q's".
I would bet the ranch that I could find something physically different between Bundy's physiology and that of Ms. Q. She simply never felt the desire to harm people that he was constantly bombarded with. That desire came from an unhealthy brain. Ms. Q feels a degree of empathy that compels her to help people in need and in pain. He feels no empathy whatsoever. Who is ultimately responsible for how Bundy's brain works? For his lack of empathy? For his innate desire to harm others? I would answer: it is a random part of genetics and chemistry -- variation occurs naturally in these processes, we observe it all the time. You get an entire spectrum of traits from nature: good and bad. You would answer...?
Now, some would want to argue that God cannot intervene in human affairs, because it would introduce chaos and unpredictability into the world. C.S. Lewis made this argument once, IIRC. First, this ignores the serious issue I laid out above: who set the laws of chemistry and biology in motion, if God does exist? And if God made the laws in such a way that they would produce a Ted Bundy, could God not also have affected those same laws such that everyone was born with the personality of Ms. Q? And if God could, would God not want to? If both...then why do Ted Bundy's exist, and why aren't all of us gentle and empathetic like Ms. Q?
Some would argue that God cannot intervene because of chaos...but, God could intervene in such a way that we wouldn't even know it was happening. Some examples would include Hitler being born with a crippling disease, or that people are born with a high degree of empathy and compassion, and no urges to hurt people for fun. How would that be "chaotic"? We would know no differently. Another problem are the simple examples of senseless suffering -- like when lightning starts a forest fire and humans, deer and squirrels get burned alive and die a horrible frightened death. If the lightning never struck that particular tree, would the world be "very strange, chaotic, unpredictable"? Or would we never have known any differently?
The same scenario could apply to most human behaviors -- i.e., a person gets up and is a great mood, and doesn't want to go abduct a child that day, because God has altered their desires such that they do not feel violent. Would they know that? Or would they just go about their business, whistling and happy? If one believes that drugs can alter the state of mind to affect human emotions, moods, and desires, then why is it not possible for God to do the same?
Consider: everyone could've been born with the gentle nature of a Saint Bernard, and it is logically possible that no "Yorkshire Terrier"-type angry personality existed. If that is possible, then God has an obligation to bring about the highest good for the highest number of people. If that is not what we observe (and we obviously don't), then either: i) God isn't able, ii) God isn't willing, or iii) God doesn't exist.
Another way to put it is to consider what you would do to change someone's desires and nature if you knew they were going to do evil. If I knew that someone would wake up with the desire to abduct and rape a child, and would actually do it, what would I do? If while this person was sleeping, I injected them with some Xanax or anti-psychotic, they would wake up feeling different desires, and not even know why. In this way, I have the power to affect this desire by injecting them with a drug, and make it go away, and I would because it prevents harm. Not only would I, but I would be morally evil if I did nothing! Now, in the same sense, God not only has the power to affect this person's desires, but according to believers, God is in control of everything! And yet, God allows people to have the most twisted and insane of minds, rather than "fixing them" with a magic injection that would give them peace of mind and heart, and heal them of mental illness.
Therefore, whether by chemistry or simply by refusing to intervene when knowing the outcome, God is ultimately responsible for the configuration of the pedophile's brain that makes them lust after children. If there is a simple drug that relieves the desire to rape children (and there certainly are some -- they use them in chemical castration), and especially when the person wants to be relieved of what they themselves admit is a sickness, then why would God not fix them? There is no part of me that lusts after an innocent child, nor of most mentally healthy people. Pedophiles are mentally ill, and is it more reasonable to believe that a loving God made them that way, and that God doesn't intervene to make them mentally healthy...or that God doesn't exist? I find it more rational to believe in the last option.
Some Christians (Calvinists, for example) never employ the free will theodicy. Instead of (P) > (Y), they use some other "greater good" -- call it X. Typically X = redemption, or building character, etc. The idea is that there can be reasons for terrible things happening that humans cannot know, and that these things lead to X.
One immediate problem with this is that some suffering brings about no "learning" or "character building" or "redemption" whatsoever -- miscarriages/infant death, suffering that leads to death, animal suffering, senseless random acts of natural disaster, &c. Furthermore, this sort of pain and suffering would lead many to learn that this is evidence of either: i) a callous God, ii) a weak God, or iii) a non-existent one. And so the idea that it would give us a reason to call out to God (teaching us dependence, or something like that) is contradicted by the millions of people who see this same evil and call it evidence against God's existence -- not teaching them dependence on God, but causing them to lose faith!
Many Christians use this sort of defense, or a soul-making theodicy, to try to say that God uses evil to bring about good. An analogy is often drawn to the very young child at the dentist's, where the child is undergoing pain and does not understand that the dentist is not evil, nor are the parents for taking the child to the dentist. However, the failure of this analogy is simple: if God is all-powerful, then God could bring about this good in another way. If the parent were powerful enough to choose between: i) giving the child fluoride in the water to prevent their tooth-related issues and, ii) letting the child develop those issues, and then go through pain to fix them, then we would say that any parent who chose (ii) over (i) was evil. Now we might say that our conception of good and evil is flawed to try to rescue this, or our understanding of God is, but then we sabotage the very definitions that we ascribe to God.
On the issue of "there could always be a morally compelling reason for God to allow evil", then, we might stop and think for a moment. Is it logically possible? There could indeed be purple unicorns floating through the universe -- that is a distinct logical possibility, although it is not physically feasible or believable. I would argue, though, that just as circles cannot have 90-degree angles, so it is impossible for someone who is all-good and all-powerful to be "compelled" to do anything evil or allow anything evil to occur.
But for the sake of argument, let us grant, for a moment, that both are logical possibilities. We still cannot believe on simple speculations. We can only judge truth by what we know. We are not being rational if we ignore the evidence in front of our face in order to dream up scenarios on how things might otherwise be. In the same way that you do not actually believe in that unicorn, you likewise need not believe in this outlandish possibility that God could be compelled to allow/cause evil.
Furthermore, I do not think it possible for an all-good and all-powerful God to be trapped into this sort of situation, like the kid at the dentist above, and God being compelled somehow to choose (ii) over (i). In the analysis of what those "omni" terms mean, I do not comprehend how God could ever be "cornered" in this way -- forced to choose to allow evil. In the first place, God never has to create anything, or do anything, if God is all-complete and perfect. Therefore, it seems to follow logically that this option is always available to God, and therefore, God could never be compelled to do anything whatsoever. No matter what, the possibility that God could've existed in Its/His own perfect eternal stasis serves as a defeater for the argument that God could've been compelled in this fashion.
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To summarize, I tried to make the following points:
i) The PoE is about "omni" gods, not other gods. If those other gods exist (like the Homeric gods), they don't deserve our respect or worship.
ii) Each instance of evil must be necessary
iii) Our world must be the greatest of all possible worlds
iii) If the possibility for evil and good are contingent upon God's existence (i.e., if they aren't real things without a god), then the theist begs the question, and also my PoE is now pointless -- because this circularity means that if evil doesn't exist, then God doesn't exist.
iv) The argument that (G) good - (Y) evil + (P) free will > (G) good is flawed; it begs the question. It must be argued that (P) > (Y). Also, why would one person's will be granted, while both another person's and God's own wills are overturned?
v) If you really believe that it is better to honor someone's freedom to do as they wish than to restrict that freedom when it causes harm, then you would committed to having to introduce, at every opportunity, the option to do wrong, since this represents free will, no matter the consequences.
vi) The capacity for humans to act out their will/intentions must be separated out from the will/intent itself. God is in control of the contingencies that allow evil to actually occur.
viii) Changing the definitions of good and evil for God makes those terms useless in reference to God. If you say, "Red is different for me than you," and if we are both looking at a stop sign, then would you call it what I call it, or what you call it? Thus, if the things we consider to be good aren't fully and perfectly upheld by God to be good (e.g., avoiding harm), then calling this same god "all-good" is illogical.
ix) Blaming the devil doesn't work: God supposedly created the devil, so this just pushes it back a step further.
x) People are no more "free" than their bodies and natural inclinations make them, and thus not truly free at all. Our desires and natures determine the direction of our will -- humans never desire to drink motor oil, for instance, unless they are mentally ill. Who is ultimately responsible for our nature and desires?
xi) Re: "soul-making theodicies" -- some suffering brings about no "learning" or "character building" or "redemption" whatsoever -- miscarriages/infant death, suffering that leads to death, animal suffering, senseless random acts of natural disaster, &c. Furthermore, this sort of pain and suffering would lead many to learn that this is evidence of either: i) a callous God, ii) a weak God, or iii) a non-existent one.
xii) Just as circles cannot have 90-degree angles, so it is impossible for someone who is all-good and all-powerful to be "compelled" to do anything evil or allow anything evil to occur. No matter what, the possibility that God could've existed in Its/His own perfect eternal stasis serves as a defeater for the argument that God could've been compelled in this fashion.
xiii) Given that (xii), as well as all the rest of the above, we can immediately conclude that evils occur which did not have to occur. This indicates the world could have been better, and thus an all-good all-powerful god doesn't exist.
