1.The beauty of the universe is improbable under atheism
2.The beauty of the universe is not improbable under theism.
3.If we have two hypotheses and some evidence is not improbable under the first hypothesis but is improbable under the second, then that evidence counts as evidence for the first hypothesis.
4.Therefore, the beauty in the universe counts as evidence for God’s existence (1,2,3 Modus Ponens) — Empedocles

It might be worth considering what is being determined as beautiful, and what we are doing when we are calling an object beautiful.

Using the sunset as an example, both an atheist and a theist can look at the same sunset and be amazed by it, and both might call the sunset scene beautiful. I am assuming that the only object of one’s appreciation is the sunset, which means that one does not consider a designer’s intelligence nor a natural cause as part of what is beautiful. If beauty of the sunset is considered as objective, then the action of appreciation is appraising the aesthetic values of the sunset; if beauty is subjective, then appreciating the sunset is bestowing values upon it.

First of all, if beauty is subjective, then both the atheist and the theist are just bestowing values upon the sunset. Since individuals draw on their personal understanding of beauty when appreciating the sunset, different people would bestow different values to the scene. Then the meaning of the phrase “the beauty of the universe” varies among all people. It is then questionable whether claiming personal interpretations as probable or improbable under either theism or atheism can be counted as evidence for God’s existence; and this discussion would seem pointless.

If beauty is objective, then appreciating the sunset is appraising the existing aesthetic values of the sunset, and one’s belief does not change these values. Since it is the same scene that they are looking at, the same aesthetic values are available for each beholder to appraise. The only difference is that a theist believes the sunset as being designed by God while an atheist sees its existence as independent of a God. However, the aesthetic values of the sunset scene are not values of the designer’s intelligence or values of nature, and the beauty of the sunset is in itself or in its qualities. Both a theist and an atheist can conclude that the sunset is beautiful while holding different beliefs about its formation, and each should be able to provide a proper explanation for objective beauty without considering their religious or nonreligious beliefs. Without further evidence, it seems inappropriate to regard beauty as improbable under either theism or atheism. The relationship between the objectivity of beauty and its probability under either theism and atheism is very vague in your argument.

If God gave mankind free will, then He wanted mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth.
If God wanted mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth, then God designed the world and nature to challenge us.
If God designed the world and nature to challenge us, then He wants to make sure the mankind is ready to join in the marriage between God and the church.
Therefore, if God gave mankind free will, then He wants to make sure the mankind is ready to join in the marriage between God and the church. (1, 3 HS) — Iwanttostopphilosophizingbutikant

I have trouble understanding the conditional relationships between statements in the given premises, especially in premise 2 and 3. If we assume “God wants mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth” to be a true statement, then under any and all circumstances, it must be true that God leaves the choice of taking part in or not taking part in spiritual growth to each individual. As long as one’s ability to choose is used without the control of others, and one’s choice is done autonomously, one’s choice can be considered as free. Each autonomous individual should have the ability to make such a choice even when not living in the world or nature that is designed to be challenging. Since the given argument does not show the relationship between the challenges one faces and one’s ability to choose freely, I don’t see how God designing the world and nature to challenge us can be a necessary condition for Him wanting mankind to freely choose to take part in spiritual growth.

As for premise 3, I’m not sure what you meant by “God wanting to make sure the mankind is ready to…” I believe that by saying “God designed the world and nature to challenge us” you meant “God designed the world and nature in a way that we are challenged”. Since the argument does not mention how challenges guarantee spiritual growth and how spiritual growth guarantees one’s readiness to join in the marriage between God and the church, it is unclear how one can be made ready through challenges. If it is not sure how one can be made ready, then how can God make sure one’s readiness through designing the world and nature in a way that one can be challenged?

Maybe I am missing something, but I don’t see the logical connection between premise 1 and 2. Premise 1 states that if any being aligns with the concept of God exists, such being will be worthy of worship or worthy of unconditional obedience. However, being worthy of worship or worthy of unconditional obedience doesn’t result in the actualization of any human being with moral autonomy worshiping this being or unconditionally obeying to this being necessarily. Despite the fact that it’s questionable whether such being’s identity or characters is fully revealed to human beings, even if both are revealed to human, it’s highly improbable that human beings can acquire and/or process such information. Even if human beings can acquire and/or process the amount of information that’s sufficient for them to realize such being’s worthiness, they are still not obligated to worship or unconditionally obey. Quite the contrary, if an individual is not able to choose otherwise given such information, it’s questionable whether this individual has moral autonomy at all. Each human being might choose to worship with careful moral consideration and judgement, but moral autonomy unlocks the possibility for them to choose otherwise, given autonomy allows one to make decisions independently without being distorted or determined by anything, including God. Only if the existence of any being aligns with the concept of God being worthy of worship or unconditional obedience entails the actualized worship and unconditional obedience from each human being, then would the discussion on the abandonment of one’s moral autonomy be relevant. Since premise 1 doesn’t state this entailment, I don’t think that premise 2 can be used with premise 1 to form an argument of the MP form as premise 4 stated.

To put the paradox of omniscience as the way you summarized in an argument form:

1. If God is omniscient, then He must know how to learn what he doesn’t know.
2. If God knows how to learn what he doesn’t know, he must know how to learn knowledge by acquaintance.
3. God can’t know how to learn knowledge by acquaintance.
4. God can’t know how to learn what he doesn’t know (2&3, MT).
5. God is not omniscient (1&4, MT).

I think your argument is only relevant if premise 1 from the paradox of omniscience is true, which argues “if God is omniscient, then He must know how to learn what he doesn’t know”, which indicates that God’s knowledge, at least some of what he knows, is acquired through learning. Your argument provides an answer by changing the one-part God in the argument to a three-part God.

I don’t think such substitution successfully solve the paradox. For certain knowledge to be new, it must be the case that the Trinity did not know it before, but then acquired through certain means, either through Jesus’s incarnation or the Holy Spirit. A being can have the attribute of omniscient only if this being knows all that is knowable. If knowledge by acquaintance such as envy and lust existed before Jesus’s experience on earth, then the Trinity had no knowledge by acquaintance until Jesus’s experience as a human being, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. Then it follows that the Trinity was not omniscient before the incarnation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This seems to be a problematic statement to the Christian belief.

If premise 1 is true, then the Trinity was learning at some point. Learning entails a change of state from not knowing to knowing (if certain new knowledge is successfully acquired). The scripture tells us that God does not change (in Malachi 3:6, “For I the LORD do not change; and in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever). If it is the case that God does not change, then there’s certainly no such change or transition from not being omniscient to being omniscient. Since learning entails change, then it follows that it’s not the case that the unchanging God, either as a one-part or three-part being, acquired knowledge by acquaintance at some point through any means.

Or, maybe God’s way of knowing is not through learning?

It seems to me that you are saying:

1. If sinning is reasonably avoidable, then lots of people would go through their lives never sinning.
2. It is not the case that lots of people would go through their lives never sinning.
3. Therefore, sinning is not reasonably avoidable. (1&2, MT)

I think there are some problems with premise 1. Sinning being reasonably avoidable does not entail that lots of people go through their lives never sinning. God created human beings with free will, and a choice is free only if given everything that has happened up to the point prior to one making a choice, it’s fully possible for one to choose any other options or not to choose at all. If we consider sinning and not sinning as options, the choice is only free if given everything that has happened up to the point prior to the choice, it’s fully possible for us to choose either to sin, not to sin, or not to choose at all. It would be up to the individual, considering one’s own experiences, conception of oneself and interpretation of the circumstance one is under, to demonstrate one’s preference through directing one’s willing toward one choice over any others. God has made not to sin as an option and has given us free will, it is of one’s interest to avoid sin or not. This is very similar to answering a multiple choice question on an exam. When different options are made available, a student would refer to his acquired knowledge and choose the answer that seems the most plausible. The student’s choice is free. There’s no reason to believe that the student’s choice of one answer over the others as a result of such choice being not reasonably avoidable. Rather, it’s a free choice upon the content of one’s willing.

The amount of temptations also can’t be counted as evidence for sinning not being reasonably avoidable. When one is making a certain choice, that specific choice is the only one this individual needs to consider at the very moment. There’s no direct casual connection between successfully avoiding sinning when encountering this temptation and successfully avoiding sinning when encountering the next temptation. Just the fact that I am able to resist the thought of murdering someone I dislike strongly proves that sinning is reasonably avoidable. However, I might not be able to avoid sinning when encountering a different temptation. I am not able to do so because I evaluated the situation and decided to behave in a way that is not avoiding sinning. Successfully avoiding sinning every time is not a necessary condition for sinning to be reasonably avoidable.

There’s no need to bring the problem of evil into this discussion. We can just look at what is assumed as God’s responsibility and whether He is responsible for it or not. It seems like your argument is in the following form:

1. When God created human, he knew that:
a. He was creating beings with free will.
b. Beings with free will would use that free will to sin and/or to reject Him.
c. Most beings with free will would in fact use that free will to sin and/or to reject Him.
2. If God knew 1a, 1b, 1c, and still created human beings; then God is responsible for human’s behavior out of their free will, such as to sin or to reject Him.
3. God created human beings.
4. Therefore, God is responsible for consequences of human beings’ behaviors out of their free will, such as to sin or to reject Him.

Again, premise 1 seems to indicate that human beings are prone to sin or to reject God. For similar reason as I mentioned in the previous comment, such presumption is not true given that human beings were created with free will. Even if premise 1c were to be true, that most beings with free will would in fact use that free will to sin and/or to reject God, it does not attribute the cause nor the reason of sinning or rejecting God to God Himself. The ability to choose is given to human beings upon their creation, and the consequences of their choices were available for them to know; then it follows that human beings are aware of the consequences of their choices when choosing to behave in a certain way out of their free will. If this is true, (to put your robot example into the same argument form as your argument of God being responsible for human being’s rejection of Him), it follows that:

1. When your robot was choosing whether to murder people or not, he knew that:
a. He was made with free will.
b. He can choose to murder people, which will cause evil.
c. He can choose to not murder people, which will not cause evil.
2. If your robot knew 1a, 1b, 1c when he was choosing whether to murder people or not, and he still murdered people, then he would be responsible for the behavior out of his own free will, such as murdering people.
3. He still murdered people.
4. Your robot is responsible for the behavior out of his own free will, such as murdering people.

If human beings knew the consequences of their choices and then choose to behave in a certain way, then God, as the creator who has given human free will to choose, who is not the cause nor the reason for human to choose in a certain way, is not responsible for human beings’ behaviors out of their free will.

To make it easier to respond, I have listed the two conditions you listed in premise one of your argument as two separate premises:

1a. God created people in such a way that they would sin.
1b. God created a system of salvation wherein sinners are damned, and the sacrifice of Jesus saves only a fraction of them.

If both premises are true, then it seems like this argument is logically sound. However, I do think there are issues with premise 1a and 1b, which cause this argument to be unsuccessful.

First of all, premise 1a assumes that “God created people in such a way that they would sin.” This is indicating that God has created human beings who are prone to sin rather than not to sin. It is assuming that sinning is a behavior that God has programmed into every human at the time of creation; since it is forced onto human beings, sinning is not a choice but an inevitable consequence of God’s creation of the humankind. If someone were to ask: why do human beings sin, the answer in such context would be: because God made them to. This seems wrong to the mainstream Christian beliefs. God created human beings with free will, so that they are free to make choices of their own behaviors. To sin or not to sin are two choices with an equal chance of being selected by each individual before temptations. Either sinning is a choice by each human being, or God did not create human with free will. In the Christian belief, God has created human beings with free will, thus sinning is a choice out of free will rather than a behavior God has programmed into every human.

Premise 1b indicates that the sacrifice of Jesus can only saves a fraction of the humankind. This is also a problematic assumption. Sacrifice of Jesus serves as the redemption of all sinners which makes salvation available for every human being. It is upon each individual’s free will to choose whether to accept this salvation or not. If it is a choice out of free will, then each individual is responsible for the consequence of their choices, which either leads to being saved or being damned. Again, either accepting salvation is choice by each human being or God did not create human with free will. In the Christian belief, God has created human beings with free will, thus accepting salvation is a choice by each human being, and he or she is responsible for any potential consequences out of this choice.

For the reasons above, I don’t think the assumption that God created people and his salvation system in the way described in premise one of your argument is true to the Christian belief; which makes premise three of your argument false.