EAFE is a non-deductive argument that gives only, at best, the conclusion that God PROBABLY does not exist. There are various deductive arguments that give the conclusion that God CERTAINLY exists. The conclusion of non-deductive arguments are always weaker than the conclusion of deductive arguments.

:)

Cheers!

Thus when a proponent of the EAFE asks for moral justifications for any particular evil it is a non-starter objection given that God is not a moral agent in the unequivocal way a virtuous rational creature is a moral agent. God given His nature under classic theism cannot coherently be called a moral agent in the unequivocal way a virtuous rational creature is a moral agent.
Thus God is not obligated to create any world and there is no such thing as the Best of all possible worlds. Any world God creates He could have made a better world then the one He chooses to make and if He made such a better world He could still make an even better one. God is not obligated to make any world no matter how good and as long as any world He makes participates in being no matter how bad it is relative to any better world God is not obligated to refrain from making it.

A Classic Theistic Concept of God needs a Theodicy like a Fish needs a Bicycle.

From a Theistic point of view “in a sense” the dilemma of Epicurus is true. In a sense it is “impossible” for God to be “all Good” and or “All Powerful” if God really exists and evil exists as well(or at least maybe half of that is true). All theists approach the problem by taking on one of the horns of the dilemma.

Theistic Personalists who rely on Theodicies(i.e. moral justifications for God's inaction in the face of evil) take on the “All Powerful” horn by adopting the Classic Theistic Thomistic version of Divine Omnipotence which tells us God cannot make contradictions true. You might protest “Can’t God do anything?” to which we would reply “Yes but a contradiction doesn’t describe anything. It describes nothing and adds new meaning to the phrase ‘There is Nothing God cannot do.’.” Someone might hold Descartes Irrationalist view of Omnipotence that God can make contradictions true which would solve the problem of evil. Specifically if God can make contradictions true He can make the seeming contradiction of the simultaneous existence of an Omnipotent/Omni-benevolent Deity & Evil both True. Of course this leads to the break down in all rational categories by abandoning the principle of non-contradiction so it is nonsense.
Anyway given God cannot make contradictions true the Theodicy loving Theistic Personalist tries to argue there are some goods God can only give if He temporarily tolerates evil. Plantinga largely solved the logical problem of Evil with this line of thought but then Rowe counter punched with the evidentalist problem of evil by arguing that there exists in the world seemingly gratuitous evil that gives no opportunity to give people any good. Fr. Brian Davies OTOH cuts down all leading theodicies in this work THE REALITY OF GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

Which leads to Classic Theism's solution (see Davies) which grabs the other horn of the dilemma specifically God being “All Good”. God is All Good but God is not morally good. Or more specifically God is not a moral agent. Or even more specifically God is not a moral agent unequivocally comparable to a virtuous human moral agent & or virtuous rational creature. God given His nature & relationship to creation has no obligations to His creatures so He cannot be morally condemned for not giving them what He "owes" them. God is All Good because He is Metaphysically Good and Ontologically Good or Goodness Itself and the source of goodness in all things. But God is not a moral agent as we are moral agents.
Indeed to say Classic Theistic God is not good for not immediately stopping the Holocaust makes about as much sense as saying Plato's Form of the Good is not really good since It too didn't stop the Holocaust(which is actually saying the same thing but I digress....). Which is absurd. Or it is like saying my good root beer isn't really a good root beer because it didn't stop the holocaust.

Theodicies as they are understood post enlightenment, are predicated on the idea God is a moral agent and they try to morally justify God’s inaction in the face of evil. The Classic Theist presumes God is not obligated to stop any evil in the first place and thus is not immoral for not doing so. Morality simply doesn't apply to him. All of God’s good actions toward His creatures in Classic Theism are Gratuitous and as such they are not owed to them. So God can be praised for his Divine Charity but God cannot be condemned for not following His obligations. He simply has none to His Creatures only to Himself.

Nothing shows # 2 to be true (nor 3). We judge "evil" by 1. what we mean, and 2. science. So science shows that rapes exist, and cause suffering. No God needed, nor is one entailed here. What is entailed is that, because of these, a perfect being probably doesn't exist.

According to Rowe, although God may tolerate some evils because they serve a greater good (like allowing humans to have free will/act freely without interference), there are other evils that seem to serve no greater good. Some of these are called natural evils, and they include things not caused by humans, such as hurricanes and cancer, that kill millions of creatures every year. Rowe provides one specific example of such a natural evil:
The author tries, but fails, to show that we can’t reasonably say that some things are not (probably) for the greater good.
The author rightly summarizes the Rowe EPOE claim, which is: the evidence makes it highly probable that (some) evils are pointless (not for the greater good, as far as we know), and therefore it is unlikely that God exists. And Rowe is right: some evils make a perfect in all ways being improbable.
Van Inwagen’s response is to say
1. God cannot remove all the horrors from the world.
Why not?
2. If God did that, it would “frustrate his plan for reuniting human beings with himself”.
So, 1 and 2 are false (or not known to be true).
The 2nd part of the argument is this:
1. God cannot stop some horrors. Why?
2. If God did, he would have to decide which to prevent and not.
3. If God decides which to prevent and not, it will be arbitrary.
4. And thus?
VI seems not to notice that all such decisions are ultimately arbitrary, but not all decisions are arbitrary. If I’m a doctor trying to prevent the most deaths, and going to hospital A allows me to save 10 people, and going to hospital B allows me to save 20 people, then it isn’t arbitrary to choose to go to hospital B. The same applies to God. Even if I’m not sure whether going to hospital C saves 11 people or not, I do know (in this example) that going to B is better than going to A.
An all loving being (“God”) would act in ways that were all loving, always for the greater good. That we don’t know where that line is exactly doesn’t mean that we don’t know whether some acts are probably for the greater good or not. (See the Fallacy of the Beard).
God does have to “draw a line”, and that line might be arbitrary, but nothing about that changes the fact that, as far as we can tell, the line would not be to “allow all those rapes”.
The author then discusses challenges to P2, the claim that pointless evils (or rather, acts that are not for the greater good, as far as we know), exist (as far as we know).
The author starts (poorly) with a question (rather than an argument). The question is, “How do we know there are some evils that don’t serve a good end? After all, we can at least conceive of some good reasons God would have for allowing natural evil to exist.” Here again, the author demonstrates a failure to keep the LPOE and the EPOE distinct. The author is right: we can conceive/imagine some possible reasons for allowing evils. That is, God possibly exists, and all evils are possibly all for the greater good. But this is only relevant to refuting the LPOE. These possibilities do nothing to refute the EPOE> We know that some evils (like rape) don’t serve any known greater good in the same way we know that some acts DO serve the greater good (like the dentist story). If the author were right (which he isn’t) we would not be able to conclude that the taking your child to the dentist was probably kind. But it is. And we can conclude that raping another is probably not kind (not for the greater good).
The author again addresses the LPOE rather than the EPOE, saying “Natural evils MAY, for example, serve to build our character and help us develop virtue (this is also called a “soul-making” theodicy).” That’s true! They might! And they might all NOT develop ANY character. But in reality, some evils do develop some character, and some do not. And some acts that develop character are “worth it”, for the greater good, kind to do, and some are not. That some are not proves the EPOE, proves that a perfect in all ways being probably doesn’t exist.
That the author says (or implies) that some acts are kind (like people who selflessly donate time and money) shows that some acts are unkind (like rape).
The author says that kind acts like these “CAN lead to the great(er) good of their becoming virtuous people”. Right, and all acts CAN (and some do) lead to the opposite: not the greater good, or even in some cases, the greater evil! So the author can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that we know some things to probably be kind/for the greater good, but we don’t know anything to be unkind/not for the greater good. In reality, we do often know some things to be for the greater good, and some things to not be for the greater good.
The author AGAIN fails to address the EPOE, saying, “natural evils MAY be an acceptable consequence of living in a world governed by natural laws that lacks gratuitous miraculous interventions.” Mere possibilities are irrelevant to what is probable, to the EPOE. The author continues the mistake, saying, “Such a world MAY be an ideal place for embodied, moral agents to live, grow in virtue, and ultimately come to know their creator.”
The author rightly points out that even if some evils have “good reasons”, i.e., are known to be for the greater good, some are not. Again, if we (probably) know that some evils are justified/have good reasons/are for the greater good, then we (probably) know that some evils are not justified/don’t have good reasons/are not for the greater good.
The author tries to object, saying that “The problem with this approach, however, is that it concludes that there are no good reasons for these evils just because those reasons are not immediately apparent to us.” This is a bit of a straw person. The better version for the atheist position is to say “there are no known good reasons for some evils: as far as we know, some evils are not for the greater good.”
The author points out that there could be some “unseen” reasons. That’s true! But that doesn’t show that there are, or probably are good reasons for allowing rape (in all cases). The evidence we have (currently) shows that there are (sometimes) not good reasons for allowing rape.
The author wants us to conclude that:
1. Just because you can’t see something that does not mean the thing in question does not exist.
That’s true, if it said “necessarily does not exist”. But often, the failure to see/locate/discover/sense something IS evidence that the thing in question does not exist. When doctors run tests and examine you, they often are correct in saying things like “cancer does not exist (probably) in your lymph nodes: we just checked thoroughly.” So, often, because you can’t see something (like cancer) DOES mean the thing in question (the cancer) probably does not exist (in the location examined).
When we go to examine rape, we usually fail to find good reasons/evidence that they are for the greater good. Thus we can say, probably, as far as we know, rapes are (typically) not for the greater good (they don’t have any known reasons showing that they are for the greater good).
The author tries to avoid this by saying that God exists (unproven) and the reasons showing that rapes are for the greater good are imperceptible. Nothing shows that to be true (that there are imperceptible but existing good reasons for all rapes).
The author argues for Skeptical theism. It claims that, just as we can’t see existing fleas in a yard from the backporch, we can’t see the existing good reasons for rape. But this analogy fails. To say that there are existing fleas in the yard at all requires us to have some evidence for them. If we had no evidence for them, we would be justified in saying, as far as we know, there are no fleas (or aliens) in the yard. Likewise, we don’t have evidence showing that most rapes are allowed for “good reasons”. The analogy also breaks down because on closer examination, if we find the fleas, then we are justified in saying “there are fleas”. But when we examine rape more closely, we do not find any evidence showing that there really are “good reasons” for all of them.
Again, the author confuses the LPOE, saying, “The sheer number of possibilities that can be generated by seemingly inconsequential events is simply “beyond our ken.”” Yes, there are many possibilities, but none of that changes what is known to be probable at this time: that rapes are probably unkind, not for the greater good.
The author persists in addressing the LPOE (or irrelevantly addressing the EPOE), saying, “an evil that exists in the present CAN have good effects hundreds or thousands of years from now that we are unable to fathom or predict.” Yes, but 1. Rapes probably won’t be known to all be for the greater good in 1000 years, as far as we know, and 2. Equally, all hugs and kind acts CAN have “bad effects hundreds or thousands of years from now…”. But, as far as we know, hugs are for the greater good, and won’t cause all the planets to explode in 1000 years.
To summarize:
1. The atheist can prove that rapes exist, rapes cause great suffering, and are not currently known to be for the greater good.
2. That is, rapes are not known to all “have good reasons”/be for the greater good.
3. Thus, the EPOE does prove that God (a perfect being) probably doesn’t exist.
The author ends with an even worse argument, the “Reversal Approach”. Here, the author is right: if you prove God exists, then you haven’t disproved that God exists. The author says, “a theist COULD (again!)” make this argument:
1. If pointless evils exist, then God does not exist.
2. God does exist.
3. Therefore, pointless evils do not exist.
The author seems not to realize that 2 has not been shown to be true, and rape makes 2 improbable. Yes, if the author shows 2 to be true, it would refute the EPOE. But nothing seems to show that 2 (a perfect in all ways being/God exists) is true. To do that, one would (basically) have to show that rapes were, probably, all for the greater good. Nothing like that has been done. There is no evidence making that likely. So this Reversal argument fails, and thus fails to refute the EPOE.
The author briefly throws out the Moral Argument for God, but nothing about rapes shows that God exists. Rather, they show God doesn’t exist. The claim that “evil proves God” is false. The claim that something about the EPOE requires or “relies on” God is false.
I look forward to your polite and constructive reply!

Natural evils may, for example, serve to build our character and help us develop virtue (this is also called a “soul-making” theodicy).

That does nothing to explain animal suffering. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, "So far as we know beasts are incapable either of sin or virtue: therefore they can neither deserve pain nor be improved by it."

That cuts a deep hole in the soul making theodicy.

Think of the people who selflessly donate time, money, and even things like blood to help with disaster relief projects. We recognize that such acts of compassion are intrinsically good, and when humans freely choose to perform such acts, their choices gradually change their characters and can lead to the great good of their becoming virtuous people.

They are good because they positively affect beings effected by them. But also think of the millions of fetuses that are miscarried. These "souls" would go to heaven and have no memory of our terrestrial world. They would in effect, be as if they were born in heaven, and since in heaven no one suffers (otherwise it would be the same as this world) millions of people would be deprived of the ability to become virtuous people. So natural evils (like miscarriages) thwart the very thing they're supposed to be for (soul building).

Moreover, natural evils may be an acceptable consequence of living in a world governed by natural laws that lacks gratuitous miraculous interventions (e.g. the fire that warms us can also kill us unless God always intervenes miraculously when fire gets out of hand).

This presumes that god couldn't make a world in which fire only warmed us and never could kill us. No miracle required.

To summarize, the evidential argument from evil relies on the atheist being able to prove that it is very unlikely there are “good reasons that justify serious evils." But human beings are not in a good epistemic (or knowledge-gaining) position to know those reasons do not exist. Therefore, the evidential argument from evil can’t prove that God probably does not exist.

But skeptical theism also is a double edged sword. Why should I stop a murderer, or help prevent suffering, if god is using it as a means to an end? The skeptical theist who says that we should never think in these terms, or that the purpose of the other person's plight was to motivate you to help or prevent it, presumes to know what god wants us to do in a particular situation, which is inconsistent with skeptical theism.

So why should we prevent suffering and evil? Wouldn't this thwart god's plan to draw people closer to him? And if we are to prevent suffering, as some theists argue we have a duty to do, it seems to have a long term affect of secularizing the population and increasing the number of atheists and agnostics. A look around the world at the richest and most advanced countries with the highest standards of living shows a correlation with decreased religious belief and worship. This further supports the view that if we grant the skeptical theistic approach, it could be argued that we are not in the position to know we have the duty to prevent suffering in particular instances; it could be part of god's plan.

It looks like this:

Skeptical Theist: God uses/allows suffering and evil to draw people closer to him.

Atheist: Then we shouldn't prevent suffering and evil.

Skeptical Theist: Oh yes we should. It is a duty from god.

Atheist: Then it thwarts god's plan. And if we prevent it, it will help turn people away from god.

Skeptical Theist: God uses you to prevent the evil and suffering he allowed.

Atheist: It doesn't make sense. God uses suffering to draw people towards him, and that's his plan, but when I prevent the suffering, his plan is to inspire me to prevent it? It's as if god's plan changes on the fly.

LINK

Hey Darren--

So I was reflecting upon some of my own experiences lately and the idea of suffering from evil, but then also suffering from natural causes. I had this sudden insight that if it has any truth to it, it is definitely an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I remembered we had been discussing this some time ago and wanted to pass it along.

This realization was simply that all of the physical cosmos is "perfect". Now let me clarify what "perfect" means. If God's whole purpose in creating physical human creatures and a physical world was so that we could be in relationship with Him and trust completely in His care for us, then anything apart from a perfect relationship with God will leave us restless and not completely fulfilled.

So if we look at all of the material cosmos through the lens that it is created so that it can most perfectly bring us to relationship with God, then things start to make sense! All of material reality is created for us to realize that we are not in control and can't do it by ourself (God trying to invite us to trust in Him and not in ourselves). Everything in the material cosmos is trying to get us outside our own ego, selfishness, and desire of control (i.e., all that is contrary to love).

Think about suffering of any kind, including natural disasters and such. It invites us to realize that as much as we like to pretend that we are in control...we actually aren't. This is all inviting us back into relationship with the one who created us to be in perfect relationship with Him, and therefore to be perfectly happy! That is just so ridiculously crazy!

A side note--material reality was created in such a way that when we turned away from relationship with God in original sin, chaos and disorder of ourselves and creation was brought about. So the very effect of our sin is the antidote to that sin...crazy. The Divine Plan truly is perfect if we only begin to see through the eyes of heaven slowly and clumsily day by day!