Theists, How well can you defend your beilief that God exists?

Importantly, keep in mind, I'm not trying to convert anyone. Think of this as just a mental exercise.

As Plato once said, an unexamined life is not worth living.

The argument will be somewhat brief due to my lack of time when writing it.

Please I'd prefer that you don't change the subject and give me another argument that shows that God exists, just stay on this argument and see how well you can analyze the logic of the argument, and give me feedback as to what you think.

The Argument from Evil:
1. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
2. God is omnipotent (all-powerful).
3. God is omnibenevolent (all-good/morally perfect).
4. God created everything.
5. If God created everything, then everything should be good.
6. Not everything is good, as there is unnecessary suffering (not good) in the world.
7. For example, fawns suffering for days in a forest then dying, with no one present to witness it—not good.
8. So, either God did not create everything, or God is not all-good, or lacks one or both of the other omnis, as such omnis imply God would know of the suffering, be able to stop it, and be willing to stop it.
9. But if God did not create everything, then we have contradicted premise 4, and we are speaking of something less than God.
10. If God did create everything, then we must deny one or more of the omnis, or deny the existence of any god/creator whatsoever.
11. Therefore, there is no all-omnis God.


Since premises 6 and 7 are likely the most controversial, and the most integral to the argument as a whole, those are the premises that need to be further clarified and supported. The essay below attempts to do that, borrowing from the philosopher of religion, William Rowe.

Explanation:
Premises 6 and 7 can be supported by the following. If one takes a brief look at the world we live in, one can immediately notice that there are bad things happening to good people and non-human animals that do not seem to be necessary. That is, the suffering that results, whether from a presumably free act of a human or a natural disaster does not appear to serve any purpose whatsoever. In other words, while there might be “useful” suffering such as the pain accompanying the stubbing of one’s toe, such instances are in no way analogous to holocausts, disease-ridden infants, or the horrible suffering of non-human creatures both before and during human existence. Consider the following scenario from philosopher of religion William Rowe: "Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffering is pointless. For there does not appear to be any greater good such that the prevention of the fawn's suffering would require either the loss of that good or the occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse” ( Rowe, William. “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 16: (1979). 335-41.). (This quotation is about as long as I would want to use for a short assignment—please note, no sources are required for this paper.) The lightning which struck the dead tree, a natural occurrence, is often referred to as "an act of God," whether rightly or wrongly, and so had nothing to do with the fawn's free will (if a fawn has free will). It also does not appear, from the text, that this fawn was particularly bad nor especially good. Why then does the fawn suffer?
Since the fawn dies, it cannot be that this was meant to teach a lesson and since the fawn does not appear to be a bad fawn it would not seem this is a punishment. Nor is it the case, according to the text, that some greater good will come of the fawn's suffering nor some greater evil be prevented. The suffering of the fawn seems completely meaningless. Rowe continues, saying, "Since the fawn's intense suffering was preventable and, so far as we can see, pointless, doesn't it appear that...there do exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse" (338). So, such an "omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being" does not exist, or else it would have relieved the suffering of the fawn or prevented it entirely.

Possible rebuttal:
How are we to say the suffering is unnecessary? If God is all the omnis, and eternal and responsible for the creation of everything, then surely there are things He knows that finite, mortal, and relatively ignorant humans do not and perhaps cannot. Therefore, it does not necessarily follow that because we very limited humans cannot see the purpose, reason, or even necessity of the fawn’s suffering, that there must be none. In fact, it appears to be a version of the arguing from ignorance fallacy in that one is asking something like: “prove to us there is a purpose to the suffering of the fawn, and if you cannot, that lack of evidence stands as positive evidence for there being no reason at all for said suffering.

Possible rebuttal of the rebuttal:
If the burden of proof rests with those arguing against an all-omnis God, and it is not obvious that this should be so, then one need only point to analogous cases of humans who know of suffering, are capable of stopping it, and, if at all decent, are willing to stop it. That is, we should appeal to moral arguments that make sense on human terms, as those are the only terms available to us, barring exceptional cases of direct religious/mystical experience with the divine—experiences notoriously easy to fabricate and nearly impossible to falsify. Theists often appeal to the God-as-parent-analogy. I will follow suit here. There are no circumstances in which a parent would not be considered negligent in the extreme, and in fact, a moral reprobate, if the parent allowed her child to consume an Ebola virus (made by the parent?), be eaten by a carnivorous animal (made by the parent?), or be struck by lightning (made by the parent?) only to suffer horribly for days and then die. It is not just that we are ignorant of the possible necessity of the suffering allowed above, but that it is inconceivable that an all-good being would have to allow such unutterable suffering for any presumed greater good. In other words, we would have to be truly hard-core utilitarians who advance the notion that the ends justifies the means, in this case, holocausts, tsunamis, and diseased children, are the necessary means toward some greater, yet, admittedly, wholly unknown good. In almost all other arguments espoused by theists, such utilitarian calculus is viewed as abhorrent, and no sufficient reason has been offered to deny the abhorrence in the case of unnecessary suffering described above.