Artificially isolating the problem of evil

In order to have a specific example before us, consider the case of Dominick Calhoun, a four-year-old boy from Michigan who died after days of being beaten and burned by his mother's boyfriend. "I've been doing this a long time, and this is the worst case of child abuse I've ever seen," said the local police chief about Dominick's case: "in all respects, he was tortured." Dominick's body was found covered with bruises and with all of his teeth knocked out. His grandmother reported that "burns covered his body" and that his brain was "bashed out of his skull." A neighbor told police he heard Dominick screaming over and over again, "Mommy, make him stop." The allegation is that God, being perfect, would have prevented Dominick's torture. Stephen Maitzen, "Normative Objections to Theism," G. Oppy, ed. A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell 2019), 205.  

This is a standard strategy in framing the argument from evil. Illustrate the problem with a paradigm example of horrific evil. It can be quantitative or qualitative. The amount of evil or kind of evil. And this is a well-chosen case to illustrate the point Maitzen is laboring to make. 

Consider, though, how much Maitzen takes for granted. He jumps right into the problem of evil. But think about how he's isolated this particular example from other preliminary considerations:

• He presumes that the universe can exist without a Creator and designer

• He presumes that mathematical structures can  exist apart from God (inasmuch as the universe exemplifies mathematical structures)

• He presumes that human beings can exist without a Creator and designer

• He presumes that human beings are the kind of organisms that can be wronged–unlike, say, prey animals that are naturally temporary and replaceable. 

• He presumes that moral realism is true apart from God's existence. He seems to regard the ordeal of Dominick as objectively evil, and not an example for the sake of argument to illustrate that Christian theism is internally inconsistent. 

From the standpoint of Christian ethics, sin was a factor. The mother had a live-in boyfriend who didn't have the natural bond with her son that a biological father normally has. And where was the biological father? Does Maitzen disapprove of domestic arrangements that violate Christian ethics?