Certainly NBPW can justify metaphysical evil, which is all Leibniz intended it to do. Probably, as suggested by Bruce Reichenbach, NBPW can rebut an atheistic argument from the non-existence of the best possible world. It could even augment a GGD by defending against a divine obligation to have created a “larger” world. But NBPW by itself cannot serve to derail the logical problem of evil in any way whatsoever; theists must find refuge in a GGD if they are to find (...) it at all. Lacking a GGD, NBPW is irrelevant; given a GGD, NBPW is superfluous. (shrink)

In his recent paper ‘Gratuitous Evil and Divine Existence’. Keith Yandell declares the deductive argument from evil solved. He notes, however, that what persists is a probabilistic version of the argument from evil, one concluding from the evidence of evil that it is ‘highly improbable’ that God exists. Yandell attempts to refute this probabilistic argument from gratuitous evil; as shown below, however, he fails.

Plantinga underestimates the prospects for probabilistic atheism. He employs a flawed mathematical rendition of the atheist's crucial claim, (1) and he misunderstands the utility (1) would have for the atheist.