Gratuitous Evil and God

The Evidential Argument from Evil is often cited as the most powerful extant argument for atheism. Roughly, the argument says that there probably exist gratuitous evils in the world (evils that don't serve any higher purpose or are not necessary for any equal or outweighing good) and that this makes God's nonexistence probable, since God would not allow such evil if He was real.

I think this argument has been sufficiently answered by theistic philosophers in the past and into today. Philosophers the likes of William Alston, Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, and Daniel Howard-Snyder have all presented powerful refutations of the argument.

But I recently ran into a response to this argument from evil that many have not noted. It stems from a passage in a chapter by philosopher Richard Gale, who apparently used to be an atheist, but now thinks that there is good evidence that some kind of God exists. Gale brings up this item in his debate with Bruce Reichenbach in *Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion* edited by Michael Peterson.

Gale presents an argument for the reality of a god who is similar to the theistic God but who is not apparently fully omnipotent or ominiscient. He is very powerful and intelligent but not necessarily maximally so.

Gale's conclusion is that this diminished god exists in all possible worlds. Interestingly, he explains to the reader that he cannot believe that a full-blown omniscient, omnipotent, perfect being could exist in this way because if He did, counterintuitive things result. For instance, notes Gale, if this God exists in all possible worlds, there is no possible world where gratuitous evil exists. But, he says, there is surely a world where such an evil exists, therefore this maximally great God must not exist in all worlds.

What's interesting about this argument is that Gale never states why he's so confident that gratuitous evil could exist but a necessary God could not. Indeed, here the theist might have an ingenous reply to the evidential argument from evil. He could reply that God's existence is just as conceivable as the reality of gratuitous evil, but if God exists, gratuitous evil does not. That is, it certainly appears that this God exists in at least some possible world. This possibility seems just as obvious as the reality of gratuitous evil in our own world. But if God possibily exists, such evil is impossible.

So, we at least come to a standstill about which reality appears possible gratuitous evil or the necessary God. If we cannot decide which is possible and which is not, we havd to admit that this argument from evil is inconclusive. It thus can't disprove theism.