As I mentioned before, the logical or deductive form of the argument from evil attempts to demonstrate a contradiction in the theist's beliefs that an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God and evil exist at the same time.  The logical challenge can and has been answered decisively, starting with Alvin Plantinga in his famous book, God, Freedom, and Evil. 

Keep in mind atheist J.L. Mackie's argument from my earlier post, which can be outlined this way: 

1. God exists and is omnipotent and perfectly good.
2. A perfectly good being always eliminates evil as far as it can.
3. There are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do.
4. Evil exists.
5. Therefore, God does not exist. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned the importance of making distinctions when approaching the problem of evil, one being the distinction between the logical problem and the evidential problem.  This distinction informs our response to each, helping us to see what's "in play" and what's not.  And when it comes to the logical argument we discover that the theist cannot respond by accusing the atheist of presupposing some objective standard of goodness by which to measure evil. 

Let me explain.

When making the logical argument the atheist is trying to point out a logical contradiction within the theist's worldview.  If he succeeds in demonstrating the contradiction then one or more or the propositions in question, again within the theist's worldview, is false.  But notice, this does not commit the atheist to the actual existence of the things in question (e.g. evil, an omnibenevolent God).  The atheist is standing outside of our worldview so to speak, looking in on it, and examining it.  He sees two or more contradictory propositions and so he points them out:  "Hey, you theists believe an all-good, all-powerful God exists but you also believe that evil exists--that's a contradiction.  It's like saying 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 5 at the same time."

As I mentioned before, the logical problem of evil purports to show a logical inconsistency between the existence of God and the existence of evil.  Prominent atheist J.L. Mackie formulated the argument like this:

"In its simplest form the problem is this:  God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; yet evil exists.  There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false.  But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions; the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three."

Given the three propositions here the contradiction is not quite explicit, so Mackie continues: 

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