The Problem of Evil, a Brief Conversation

The following is a brief conversation I had on Facebook with an atheist. I did minor editing and removed extraneous material. He posted the following quote and question:

MC²: "Wykstra backs off his 1984 claims (1984: 74, 79, 80, 90–91) that evil provides no evidence for atheism. He now calls those claims “reckless” (1996, 148 n. 14). He now admits that the evidence from evil, bracketing evidence for God's existence, “tilts” in favor (rather significantly, 1996, 138) of atheism, but not enough to justify belief in atheism, even if one starts from agnosticism."

Christian philosopher friends: do you agree or disagree with Wykstra? Does the evidence from evil tilt in favor of atheism over theism?

Before evil can be evidence for atheism, it must be shown that objective good and evil is coherent within atheism. The best hope for that is something like Atheistic Moral Platonism. However, I doubt it's coherent. See for example, William Lane Craig's simple critique here:
https://youtu.be/VGWAVRoLQ3c

Most modern apologetics & apolgists do acknowledge evil is evidence for atheism, *but* that the positive evidence for God tips the scale in favor of theism to a less or greater degree. Personally, I don't think evil is evidence against *Christianity* whatsoever, since part of the Christian worldview is to affirm the reality of sin and evil in the world. That God allows and directs them for His greater purposes. I say that as a Calvinist, but even historic Arminians, Catholics, Lutherans (etc.) would affirm God at least negatively permits evil for His greater purposes. The difference between Calvinists and most non-Calvinist versions of Christianity is whether God can in some sense positively ordain sin and evil.

Given that objective good and evil seem to be incompatible with atheism, AND given that there are various theistic options (like Christianity, Judaism, Islam et al.) that are (at least in principle) compatible with evil, evil would seem to not be very strong evidence (if at all) for atheism.

MC²: no, no, no.  It's neither here nor there if moral realism is impossible on atheism when it comes to the problem of evil. The problem only arises for someone who affirms that both evil and God exists. An atheist need only demonstrate that there is an internal inconsistency. And anyway, why think that moral realism is impossible on atheism anyway? Moral arguments are notoriously weak.

AP: The truth of atheism is distinct from any supposed insufficiency of the evidence for theism. I was referring to the non-existence of God, not the justification of the absence/lack of belief in God. Admittedly, the Problem of Evil for theism is a question of internal consistency. Since, there are various theistic options that are compatible with evil, it doesn't pose much trouble for theism, and therefore providing support for the truth of the non-existence of God. That's different from the psychological and rational question of whether one can be justified in being free of God/gods belief.

MC²: Well it does provide support for the truth of the nonexistence of God so...  Assuming by "God" we mean the Christian conception of God...

AP: Can you determine the percentages when it comes to how many conceptions of God are compatible with the existence of evil and how many aren't? There are potentially billions of rational civilizations in this universe, plus any other universe in a possible multiverse, plus whatever simulated worlds which have sentient personal agents. I certaintly can't make such a determination. I can only be aware of the theistic options on Earth that have survived history up to the present.

MC²: No, I can't. And..?

AP: Then it's possible that 99% of theistic options that have been conceived have been compatible with evil. In which case, wouldn't that suggest that evil doesn't pose much of a threat for theism?

MC²: Again so what? By "theism" I specifically mean 'belief in the sort of God Christians have in mind.' So what if my argument against theism doesn't say anything about other conceptions of God.  I'm still struggling to follow what you're even saying here

AP: Admittedly, I made that statement in terms of inductive possibility, not deductive possibility. When it comes to the deductive issue with regard to an an Omni-God, I still don't see any necessary incoherence.

MC²:  I'm not saying there is a logical incompatibility between God and evil existing simultaneously. I tend to prefer inductive or abductive arguments from evil myself.

AP: I corrected "an" to "any". If we were to define evil as anything contrary to a subset of God's will or preferences, those are consistent with other higher wills or preferences within God. Take a for example a voluntaristic conception of God (which I don't currently hold). If God were to will that eating chocolate ice cream were evil (CIC), while eating strawberry ice cream (SIC) is good, His omnipotent power isn't undermined if he allowed people to eat chocolate ice cream. Atheists can't automatically dismiss voluntaristic conceptions of God in favor of say essentialistic conceptions of God (I hold to Divine Command Essentialism).

AP: If I were an atheist I too would prefer inductive or (especially) abductive arguments since I think deductive arguments for atheism based on the PoE [problem of evil] utterly fail.

AP:  Inductive arguments of course must be much more modest because they depend on our finite inductive survey. Maybe of all the worlds God has created 99% of them have no evil, and the majority of the evil is concentrated on Earth. In which case, if we were privy to the percentages of good and evil in the entire Omniverse, we wouldn't find the existence of evil nearly as problematic as we do here on Earth.

AP:  Given the philosophical "Principle of plenitude" (i.e. God's infinite creativity), multiverses make a lot of sense. In which case, evil might be restricted to a tiny dark corner of the Omniverse.
[[For all we know the Omniverse is peopled with billions of various species all of whom are evil free and have the light of the knowledge of God in abundance.]]

Since the inductive/circumstantial argument for the non-existence of God based on gratuitous evil depends on percentages, and since we cannot gauge percentages given God's infinite creativity and the possible innumerable worlds He's created, we therefore cannot say that there is such a thing as gratuitous evil QUANTITATIVELY. So, the best avenue for atheists would seem to be to argue for evil's gratuity QUALITATIVELY. That is, on the basis of the intensity of the limited evil we are aware of. And that's where I think William Lane Craig's distinction between the 1. logical and 2. emotional problem of evil is so crucial. The suffering of a little child can be very emotionally troubling, but that's technically not a *logical* problem. God may have multiple present and future purposes for allowing that type of evil that we just cannot fathom in our finitude, but which make perfect sense in God's infinitude.