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!
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), followed by an excellent free meal (you should taste these crepes!) 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.
You’re right that he’s put that badly, but I think he’s trying to say something a bit different. I believe he’s saying you’re counting the deprivation of evil as a good thing that God might have done, but (assuming free actions are intrinsically good) you’re failing to count the deprivation of the free acts of bad guys as unpleasant results of such a shift in God’s creation. It seems like the answer to that would have to involve the total possible number of souls that could be created or something–the question of whether God could replace each bad actor with a good one in such a manner that no reduction in free acts takes place at all. Those bad guys could still have been created though, presumably. Even WITH all the good guys…unless there’s a limitation of soul space in every possible universe.
Who the fuck knows? It’s kind of amazing to me how scholastic y’all can get sometimes. I think it’s pretty obvious that we don’t/can’t know the answers to many of these (intrinsically dumb, IMO) questions.
Yeah, conversations like this give metaphysics a bad name.
Woodbine,
Well, its certainly better then the God you are proposing. You want one that would snuff out anyone who didn’t declare their tips on their taxes, thought of having an affair, or worked for a telemarketing company.
So, when you remain uncreated, it has consequences, for example you cannot choose.
What does “choose” mean? Elaborate how it’s not the same as free will or, even worse for you, how free will is not prior to it. You have to do it if the conclusion of your argument is to stand in its entirety.
This is as close you come, I guess, to conceding that your argument is invalid. Since you are not willing to fix it, it will remain broken.
ETA: I’m even drawing a little diagram for you. Do you agree or not with the following sequence?
creation -> free will -> choice -> deeds, both good and evil
Now, you have been amazingly arguing that when God does not create certain people, their evil deeds will be removed from the sequence and that’s good. At the same time, you say their free will is not being deprived. If you accept the sequence, you should see your argument doesn’t compute. If you don’t accept the sequence, well, offer something better. Such as a valid argument to prove whatever you want to prove.
There is nothing to snuff out, you never were. On the other hand we have the example of the Biblical God who snuffed all of created humanity save one family.
newton,
Well, woodbine wouldn’t have a problem with that would he? I guess they were all evil.
BTW, the old testament is allegory, so what.
If it is just an allegory those people never existed, just like the uncreated.
newton,
Right. So?
I don’t see how that helps Woodbines case that it would be a better world if anyone who ever did anything wrong never existed.
Seems a bit self-loathing.
The Biblical God had no qualms about doing away with those non existent people, why should the uncreated be any different? The God Woodbine is proposing isn’t anything new, it is the God of the Bible.
He didn’t seem to worry about abridging those non existent people’s free will. So while God might not eliminate all evil, certainly He could eliminate some. Mass murderers of children for instance.
Could you please explain that to FMM? Thanks.
walto,
Could you please explain it to Newton? Thanks.
Deal.
Newton, THE BIBLE IS AN ALLEGORY!!
I’m guessing s/he will take that as a sufficient explanation–but if not, and there are questions I’ll either try to answer them or pass them along to somebody who I think can.
Now it’s your turn to try to enlighten Fifth on this subject.
Here’s a bit more if what I’ve said so far doesn’t seem like enough of an explanation (although I did use all CAPS!!)
http://www.hiddenmeanings.com/6349.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretation_of_the_Bible
walto,
Well, actually I said the old testament. FMM, the old testament is allegorical.
Deal.
phoodoo,
Looks like phoodoo is still lost. I guess I need to repeat this point again:
phoodoo,
This isn’t about what you, or I, or Woodbine, or Marisa Tomei thinks would amount to a better world.
It’s about what a purported omniGod, who is by definition morally perfect, thinks, according to his own moral standards. When we are evaluating any particular omniGod’s “performance” with respect to the problem of evil, the theists who are asserting his existence must tell us what his moral standards are.
If they want to punt (in the American sense) and say that they don’t know, because God is a mystery, that’s fine — but then they forfeit the right to claim that, say, murder, or gay marriage, or eating shrimp, is wrong in God’s eyes.
Earlier I gave the example of Frank, the seahorse-hating omniGod. If I, as a theist, assert Frank’s existence, and I specify that his one and only overriding moral concern is the evilness of seahorses, then we can note the preponderance of seahorses in the oceans and question Frank’s existence on that basis.
You and I and Woodbine and Marisa Tomei may all think that seahorses are cute, not evil, but that doesn’t matter when we are considering the problem of evil.
Frank thinks seahorses are evil, and so the preponderance of seahorses is what creates a ‘problem of evil’ for those who believe in Frank.
Works for me, how about the resurrection, allegory or not? If not how do you tell?
No talking snakes either?
keiths:
walto:
Read my first sentence again:
walto:
Everything we “specks” think about is “speck speculation.” Who are we to say that the universe is 13.7 billion years old? We’re just specks trying to figure out what happened based on the scraps of evidence we can gather today. We might be completely wrong. Perhaps the cosmic microwave background was produced by some completely unknown mechanism, and we’ve been fooled into thinking that there was a Big Bang.
Shut down the universities, with all of their speck speculation. As you say:
Or…
…we could do the rational thing and try to figure things out to the best of our ability, based on the evidence available to us, while keeping in mind that absolute certainty is impossible.
I vote for the latter.
walto,
I’m not shifting the burden to Plantinga. He’s assuming it himself.
He is presenting his Free Will Defense as a hypothetical case in which evil is a necessary price for libertarian free will, which is necessary for the greater good. My argument shows that evil is not a necessary price for LFW.
Erik,
Are uncreated people being deprived of food, water, and adequate medical care? Do you want to circulate a petition demanding action from the UN?
Erik,
And yet again, suppose your argument actually made sense and that uncreated people really were being deprived of their free will.
It wouldn’t help Plantinga’s case at all.
If God were willing to deny free will to zillions of uncreated people, why would he be unwilling to deny it to those uncreated people who would otherwise go on to commit evil deeds? It makes no sense.
Plantinga’s argument depends on the importance of free will in God’s eyes. If your objection were correct, it would support the idea that free will is unimportant to God. You’d be undermining Plantinga, not helping him.
I already knew that.
It’s also true, Those two things are not incompatible 😉
peace
Except in this case, you have no evidence whatsoever. These are just idle speculations about God’s powers. And your analogy to the age of the earth is really stupid.
I’m not making the argument. You are.
Your argument either tackles Plantinga effectively or it doesn’t. As invalid, it doesn’t.
Does your argument demonstrate that there can be no possible reason for allowing evil in the world? If not what is the point? The LFW hypothetical is just one of a near infinite number of possible reasons available to be used as a defense any one of which would defeat the problem of evil.
Plantinga’s case is safe until you show that each and everyone of them is impossible.
There is a big difference between knowing God’s moral standard and knowing everything that is involved in God’s decisions.
peace
Yes, keiths is wrong again. Surprise, surprise.
To be more specific, he writes this:
And, as patiently explained numerous times by numerous posters, God may not be able to do that without reducing the net goodness in the universe. It doesn’t matter if God could create just any world with both freedom and moral goodness (and zero evil) in it. An omni God has to do better than that.
Shall we use the fossil record to show that he can?
Then he is not omnipotent.
I think the response to that is that if it were really possible not only could he do it, he WOULD. When I say he might not be able to do it, I just mean that for all we know….
I don’t think we’re in a position to know much more about this, fossil records notwithstanding. It’s just idle speculation being passed off as deep truths.
ETA: let me put it this way. There is no halfway decent reason to believe in god. That is all we know and all the theist needs to know.
Erik,
You are making a counterargument.
I’ve shown that your counterargument fails, and I’ve also shown that it wouldn’t help Plantinga’s case even if it succeeded.
Do you agree that Plantinga’s Free Will Defense fails? If not, why?
walto,
Sure we do. We’re living in a world full of evidence.
No, but your response certainly is. See if you can do better and support that assertion with an actual argument.
If you were honest, you’d have written, ‘Yes, I guess everybody’s right about this and I was wrong (again); I see it now. Thanks!’ But alas, honesty isn’t really your thing.
We do what we can.
Spell it out. Which counterargument am I making? This one? http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/a-critique-of-plantingas-free-will-defense/comment-page-12/#comment-145171
No, I am not arguing anything about free will this way or another. You are.
You are saying non-creation of people has no consequences on their free will, while it has consequences on their evil deeds. You can’t have both at the same time.
Erik,
Yes, he’s made a shitty argument. He will never admit that though. OTOH, the burden imposed by the problem of evil is on theists, not atheists. We don’t need keiths’ shitty argument anyhow.
What perpetrator? One who has never been created cannot perpetrate anything, much less an evil act.
Let say God never creates person 138,203,487,334 (person ‘x’) on His list of people not to be created. In what sense is ‘x’ a ‘perpetrator’ of acts never committed?
IIRC, on another, long fallow thread, keiths made another confused argument against Plantinga’s ontological argument. It was the same deal: the burden is on Plantinga and his argument doesn’t meet it. But it’s important to keiths that Plantinga be wrong for some confused reason he has concocted. Pretty much everybody knows Plantinga is wrong (he probably even does himself). And pretty much everyone can see why. But keiths has a hard on for the guy and wants to refute him in his own confused keithsian way.
It’s pointless. Counter-productive even. If we have good arguments, why trot out terrible ones? Just makes the entire project look pathetic.
The problem of evil as formulated by Epicurus does not account for free will. Neither does yours. Got an argument concerning the problem of evil that has free will in it?
For all its faults, keiths’ argument remarkably had free will in it. And it’s important to have it. This way it would really address theism. For theists, evil is a consequence of free will in the world.
Epicurean paradox, despite of how cool it sounds, is not effective. It never posed a puzzle for me anyway.
Mung,
That’s the point. God can prevent the evil that the person would otherwise commit, simply by declining to create him or her in the first place.
Let me try a variation on that which may help clarify.
2. Non-creation of people who would have free will has no consequences to the amount of good in the world.
For the argument of Plantinga is about “creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions).”
And you can’t prevent someone who has never been born from committing an evil act. Agreed, keiths? Such a person does not exist.
But you have been deprived of the opportunity, and the ability, to do good. And if God is good, you have been deprived of the opportunity, and the ability, to be ‘like’ God. To put it in a more biblical manner, you have been deprived of the ability to be ‘like’ God, in knowing good from evil.
walto,
Ask yourself “What Would A Good Philosopher Do?”
You could even have “WWAGPD?” engraved on a bracelet, to remind you.
Hint: A good philosopher, if he wanted to dismiss an argument as “stupid” or “shitty”, would have rational reasons for that judgment, would be able to present them when asked, and would be able to respond to counterarguments.
Mung,
You’re arguing that God has done a terrible thing by leaving zillions of people uncreated?
Mung,
God can prevent the evil act by leaving the person uncreated who would otherwise commit it.
All you’ve done is replace your former “the perpetrator” with “the person” and then repeated yourself. Which person? This person no more exists than does your perpetrator.
God can prevent the evil that the person [the perpetrator] would otherwise commit, simply by declining to create him or her [the perpetrator] in the first place.
There is no perpetrator. Since “the perpetrator” doesn’t exist, there are no acts for them to commit. Ever. And nothing to prevent. Ever.
Given your reasoning, God also prevents any good that a perpetrator might do. For people also perpetrate good acts, not just evil acts. Even perpetrators of evil acts have been known to perpetrate good acts.
Should God just flip a coin to decide which perpetrators to not create? Should God always and only create persons who will never perpetrate any evil act?
Mung:
Plantinga’s claim is that you can’t have good without (libertarian) free will, and that you can’t have free will without paying the price of necessary evil. I argue that God can avoid paying that price if he simply pre-filters people and creates only those who will go on to freely choose the good.
Do you disagree? If so, why?
The problem of evil doesn’t NEED free will I it. Natural disasters and childhood diseases don’t require free will.
The burden is on theists whatever may be the case with will.
stupid = shitty = invalid
You’ve been invited to put your argument in a form similar to the one walto made. Why not just do so?
Do you mean because of the good they might otherwise do? Should he create them all here on earth, do you think?
Actually, whatever a good philosopher who has already refuted a bad argument several times would do, a good psychologist (or even a sensible person) would have the sense not to argue with someone with so little intellectual honesty as you have.