The ‘problem of evil’ is a perpetual thorn in the side of the omnitheist — that is, someone who believes in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. For if God is perfectly good and all-powerful, why does he allow so much evil in the world? He’s powerful enough to eradicate it; and if he’s perfectly good, he should want to eradicate it. So why doesn’t he?
One response, known as the ‘Free Will Defense’, comes from Alvin Plantinga:
A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against his goodness: for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.
Plantinga’s position has multiple problems and shortcomings, which we’ll no doubt end up discussing in the comment thread, but for now I want to present an argument against the Free Will Defense that is similar to an argument I’ve been making in the purpose of theistic evolution thread.
Let’s assume for the purposes of this OP that libertarian free will exists and that humans possess it. (It’s actually incoherent and therefore impossible, but that’s a separate topic.)
Here’s how I presented the argument back in 2012, in a comment addressed to Mung:
You haven’t thought this through. An omniscient and omnipotent God could prevent rapes from happening, and he could even prevent the desire to rape from happening, all without controlling anyone’s thoughts and desires.
Here’s how it would work. Suppose God creates each person with free will, so that everything he or she does during life is freely chosen. If God is omniscient, he knows what all of those choices will be before the person is even created. If God simply chooses not to create the people who will go on to commit rape (or even experience the desire to commit rape), then he has prevented those things from happening without depriving anyone of their free will.
If you object that selective creation would deprive the uncreated people of their free will, then you run into a big problem: There are already zillions of uncreated people for every person who is actually born. If leaving a person uncreated violates his or her free will, then God is already massively guilty of denying free will to zillions of uncreated people. The objection thus undermines the assumption that free will is important to God, which is the basis for the whole argument in the first place!
God is truth
peace
Woodbine,
That doesn’t make sense woodbine, can’t good people make bad choices? And can’t bad people make good choices.
So in essence what you are saying is take away everyone who made a bad choice. And that would be everyone who ever lived.
Of course, and the validity of that revelation is reinforced by revelation which in turn is reinforced by revelation. I see your point.
So it is rather a validation of your preconceived notions of what folks think. Cool.Glad to help.Got any idea what I am thinking now?
Reluctantly,I agree. Though certainly some of the most heinous evil doers could have been non created.
Not take them away – simply don’t create those people in the first place.
Only create people who will freely choose good every single time (for brevity I’ll call these people Saints).
In this way free will is maintained, morality continues to have value/meaning and evil is eliminated (at least as far as possible – natural disasters or accidents might still occur).
If God is incapable of creating a world full of Saints then he is not omnipotent.
And you can’t prevent someone who has never been born from committing an evil act. Agreed?
Woodbine,
A world full of people who aren’t capable of making a bad choice, huh woodbine? And yet we are all flawed. I guess you are right, God is not capable of making contradictions.
What’s your objection to a world of Saints?
Where is the contradiction?
Isn’t that the way beliefs ought to be? Just think of holding a set of beliefs that are all at odds with each other.
That’s how it works in any relationship.
It works like that for you and your loved ones and it works for me and God the same way.
peace
I have an idea but i can’t be sure till you reveal it to me.
peace
Woodbine,
You definition of saints are people incapable of making a bad choice. Such a person has never existed.
So now you want God to “create” people who are not capable of making bad choices. In other words, you want to take away free will.
It follows, then, that uncreated people do not choose to do evil. And thus, by God not creating them, He has prevented no evil, for they haven’t chosen to do evil. Ever.
The argument is not about what God can do it’s about what he should do. I for one am glad he did not limit his creation to folks who never choose evil.
If he did no one I know would exist to complain about it.
I’d argue the world is a better place because my friends and family exist. Not perfect by any means but better than it would be with out them.
Peace
Woodbine,
BTW Woodbine, You are saying God should not have created you. Or your kids. or your mother, your wife…
You think it would be a better world if none of them ever existed.
Perhaps what would have been some of the most heinous evil doers were not created. Perhaps we got “the best” of the evildoers, lol.
Mung,
There is actually another world where all the people are ONLY capable of making bad choices. In that world everyone complains that their neighbors did something that doesn’t feel evil to them.
Nope.
God can create people who are capable of evil yet freely choose the good every single time.
God chooses not to do this. God wants evil in this world.
Why couldn’t God create your friends and family as creatures who freely choose the good every time?
That would be even better!
If you’re seriously suggesting you prefer your friends and family to do evil from time to time then I question your professed regeneration.
Anyway, as it stands many of your friends and family members are destined to burn in hell for all eternity despite their earnest belief that they are saved.
If I thought for a moment my loved ones were facing such cruelty the last thing I would be feeling is ‘gratitude’.
Such creatures would not be my friends and family by definition. My friends and family aren’t like that.
nope, I’m suggesting that it’s better that my friends and family exist than that they not. It would be better if they never did anything evil but given who they are that is not possible.
It’s not about what they do but who they are.
peace
I’m not sure how you could possibly know such a thing, can you read minds and tell the future?
Are you claiming that hell is worse than nonexistance how could you possibly know such a thing as that?
peace
This is hand-waving, FMM. (Sal Cordova is a notorious practitioner – don’t be like him!)
If God created everyone as ‘Saints’ then yours, mine and everybody’s friends and family would by definition be drawn from the ‘Saintly Population’.
Then they would not be my friends and family. A person is defined by his nature, Different nature different person.
If someone was drawn from the ‘Saintly Population’ (as you define it) they would not be the people I know and love.
peace
Balance of probability.
Only yesterday(?) you told a poster who said they had lost their faith that they weren’t a true Christian. How can you be sure that among your friends and family there aren’t apostates in waiting?
What a ludicrous question.
Mung,
That’s just a variation of Erik’s silly mistake.
Erik thinks you can’t prevent an act of evil unless it already it exists. You think you can’t prevent an act of evil unless it has already been chosen. Neither is correct.
Anything can be prevented by removing an essential link in the causal chain that makes it possible. The existence of the perpetrator is an essential link in the causal chain making an evil act possible.
If God declines to create the perpetrator, he has prevented the evil actions, and he has done so even though the perpetrator never made any choices.
I’ve had surgeries with and without anesthesia.
I can’t be sure one way or the other. I am hopeful
Why?
It seems you are making unwarranted pronouncements about things you don’t have a clue about. You don’t know that hell is worse than nonexistance
You have no way of knowing unless you have experienced both and you have experienced neither.
peace
Stop being dense.
If (notice the word IF) God created a world of Saints and you were part of that world then you would be a Saint….and so would your friends and family.
Yes I do.
I would not be part of that world.
I know myself and I can guarantee that there is no way that I would always choose the good.
That is just not who I am. I am selfish and arrogant and I have a mean streak.
peace
How exactly? Be specific.
Evidence biblical or otherwise would be nice.
peace
fifth,
Of course you ‘like to think’ that. The problem is that you think what you like to think instead of thinking what makes sense.
We all think what we like to think.
When our thinking makes sense we are by definition thinking God’s thoughts after him.
peace
I give up.
Take a guess.
Theorize.
Technical question – does anyone know if are there keyboard shortcuts for italics, quoting etc?
fifth,
Block those exits! By definition, if necessary.
fifth:
walto:
Not at all. My argument isn’t that it’s logically impossible for an omniGod to coexist with evil; it’s that Plantinga’s “Free Will Defense” fails to provide grounds for such a coexistence. He argues that libertarian free will is essential for genuine moral goodness, and that evil is the inevitable and necessary price that God pays for that libertarian free will. My argument shows that God doesn’t have to pay that price — evil need not accompany freely chosen goodness if God employs the strategy I’ve outlined.
maybe the best is yet to come
I will tell you if you are right
How so?
One person’s evildoer is another person’s problem solver. Some solutions being final.
With competing revelations, there are lots of problems to be solved.
I believe it is called cognitive dissonance
Exactly
As sufficiently explained by now, I am simply following your argument.
In your argument, we have to assume two contradictory things at the same time – non-creation both has and doesn’t have consequences.
1. Non-creation of people who would do evil has consequences to evil – evil would be prevented.
2. Non-creation of people who would have free will has no consequences to free will – free will would not be deprived.
Tha assumptions are all yours.
You never answered which way is it. You have to assume just one. I don’t care which one you pick, it’s all just to allow you to build a valid argument. But if you are not interested in fixing your argument, then nobody else has any reason to either.
Last a bit longer post.
But what could we do? Look at the evidence?
I mean, what kind of person does that?
Glen Davidson
God has all the hallmarks of abusive partner.
http://www.ilrctbay.com/upload/custom/abuse/content/abusers.htm
Characteristics of Abusers
– Keeps track of what you are doing all the time and criticizes you for little things.
– Constantly accuses you of being unfaithful.
– Destroys your property or things that you care about.
– Threatens to hurt you or the children or pets
– Are excessively jealous.
– Blame others for their own problems.
– May be cruel to animals and/or children.
– May think it is okay to solve conflicts with violence.
– May have unrealistic expectations.
Woodbine:
Fifth, the next time God is revealing something to you, you might want to gently suggest that he seek professional help.
Erik,
No, “we” don’t.
Correct.
Incorrect, as I’ve already explained:
Erik:
Correct. If you don’t exist, you don’t have free will, and it therefore cannot be taken from you.
So the fact that you remain uncreated definitely has consequences. You cannot choose, which means that a) you cannot choose evil, and b) you do not possess free will. But you haven’t been deprived of free will, because as an uncreated person, you could never have possessed it in the first place. You don’t exist.
And yet again I remind you, Erik, that if it were actually true that leaving a person uncreated amounted to depriving them of free will, that would be bad news for Plantinga’s argument. For his argument to work, free will needs to be important to God. For God to massively deprive zillions of uncreated people of their free will clashes with that assumption.
In other words, if God is so cavalier about free will that he willingly denies it to huge numbers of uncreated people, why should he object to denying it to those uncreated people who would otherwise go on to commit evil? It makes no sense.
Once you go there, the game’s over. The amount of evil in the actual world could be just what is needed to get the greatest aggregate level of good. Your speculations regarding how this or that one might have been eliminated and everything would be net better are speck speculations.
You attempt to shift the burden to Plantinga above but the claim that there could be a world with some good and no evil isn’t sufficient to show that this isn’t the best of all possible worlds. Is there a possible world in which you and only you exist just long enough to have an excellent orgasm–and then….nothing? Maybe. How about one in which there is nothing but me and my friends attending a great performance of a requiem that sounds exactly like Brahms’ (I’m guessing it couldn’t actually be Brahms Requiem unless Brahms existed). Then an excellent free meal with with great conversation (and no acrimony or jealousy) before…..POOF–end of world? Again, maybe so. Who cares. The question is whether the actual world could be the best of all possible worlds. That’s the assertion made in #3 of my rendering of the argument. To claim the argument is unsound you need to show that there could be a better world, not just a world with no evil in it. You can’t. Nobody can.