Problem of Divine Freedom

[sven]

There was a thread about the Problem of Heaven in the Christianity section, so I'd thought I'd bring up a related counter-apologetic here: The Problem of Divine Freedom.

1) For an agent to be morally good, that agent must possess libertarian free will and thus the capacity to do evil. [Plantinga's Free Will Defense]

2) God is an agent, yet cannot do evil. [Common theological position/Divine Command Theory]

3) Therefore God does not have libertarian free will or moral goodness.

Now one response I anticipate is the claim that God could do evil, but he simply chooses not to do it. Despite being in contradiction with Divine Command theory, this makes it mysterious as to why God created beings who had the ability to do evil, and whom inevitably do so. After all, it's logically possible for God to have actualized the possible world where agents with libertarian free will never do evil.

This is a fun subject but in a way rather pointless to discuss if you're an atheist. Some pointless things are entertaining, however.
I am quite convinced that god is a fictional character. The idea of god exists, but not God himself. The problem that especially christianity is facing is that the more humanity progresses, the less credible the christian god seems. God simply does not make sense. There are too many holes in the story.
Now there is a thing authors call 'suspension of disbelief'. This is a method that is used so that a fiction is believable within its own framework. It can be a completely absurd fictional world or idea that is presented, but it has to be consistent. The christian god is not consistent. He has a lot of double standards, he is clearly not good all the time, and so on. If god is so good and omipotent, loves humanity etcetera, then why is he so cruel sometimes? Why does he allow so much heinous crap to go on? These are questions that even small children ask from time to time. Christianity simply lacks answers that are truly believable, so in order to make people christians you must use dogma, dishonest indoctrination, fear and so on. If you are not subjected to this, you will not become a christian. I am living proof of this.
I think the Gnostic idea of a distant god and a demiurge creator who is not always good and perfect is much more believable than the christian god.

[Senshi]

God is free to act as his nature dictates

This implies that god is not all powerful because he cannot do what his nature does not dictate. And, if it was true innocent children wouldn't have died in the great flood.

[fr0d0]

God is free to act as his nature dictates

This implies that god is not all powerful because he cannot do what his nature does not dictate. And, if it was true innocent children wouldn't have died in the great flood.

God is limited by logic.

If God knew that the children were innocent he wouldn't have killed them. As you can't know if they were innocent then you don't have enough knowledge to make that statement.

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It's a logical prerequisite. To create necessitates a positive force.

Why?

Would you say that about the creator of the landmine, or any sort of torture device?

But this is the first cause. If there were anything negative about it nothing would have been created.

[MindForgedManacle]

God can't do evil, because he is good. Good is his most basic property. If a positive ion couldn't change into a negative ion, then God would be the positive ion. The negative ion exists as a natural counterpart, but is never the positive ion.

You're contradicting yourself. If God is good and cannot change, it is because the inability to changenis his most basic property, not goodness.

1. For an agent to be morally good it must be free to act.

2. God is an agent for good

3. God is free to act as his nature dictates

That is a logically invalid argument. Abstracted, it takes this form:

If A, then B;
B;
Therefore A.

There is a clear affirmation of the consequent in premise #2. Secondly, there is an equivocation between #1 and #3. You're equivocating between "free to act" (which is libertarian free will) and "free to act as his nature disctates" (which is compatibilist free will).

Morality isn't applicable where there is no choice to do evil.

...That was part of my point. Without the possibility of choosing to do evil, God cannot be said to be morally good. If you disagree with this, that means you cannot accept Plantinga's Free Will Defense, which is founded on this very premise.

[Senshi]

God is limited by logic.

If God knew that the children were innocent he wouldn't have killed them. As you can't know if they were innocent then you don't have enough knowledge to make that statement.

"God is limited by logic."

Therefore he is not above the rule of law, again implying he is not all powerful.

Do you seriously believe that children can be held responsible for 'sinful' actions, how about toddlers and babies? Do you believe the ones that died in the flood died because they weren't innocent?

[MindForgedManacle]

To be fair, rarely have theists ever defined God as a being who can transgress logical axioms.

[Angrboda]

It seems that it's a non sequitur because it's not clear that God's inability to do evil is because he lacks free will. There may be other constraints besides a lack of free will that render him unable to commit evil acts. (It might even be definitional; if good is what God wills, even if he has free will, he cannot will something that is not good.) Just as our inability to fly isn't an impingement on our freedom, God may lack the capacity to choose evil acts, yet still have a range of options to choose from. Perhaps all acts that would be evil are logically impossible to God, and he can't do them because they are impossible rather than because he lacks free will.

I see where you're going with this, but I don't think you're there yet, as there's a disconnect between 1 and 2.

[MindForgedManacle]

Let me try and distill this down to the fundamentals (it might help me see if I'm wrong):

-The usual explanation for God's allowance of evil in the world is [libertarian] free will. The apparent reason for this is because apologists typically claim that only with libertarian free will can one be capable of morally good actions. Otherwise, they claim we would simply be automata simply following the deterministic process.

-But the capacity for morally good actions also entails the capacity for morally evil actions, otherwise one is still not free, and thus not actually capable of moral goodness.

-If God is not truly capable of choosing to do evil, how can we say he is free in any moral sense relevant here?

Am I just missing something obvious here?

[Angrboda]

Another problem. The first premise speaks to our limitations, not those of God. The second premise speaks to the reverse. It's not clear that moral constraints and abilities which apply to us also apply to God, unless you expand premise 1 to include God. In that case, it's not clear that premise one is still true, and it's coming close to begging the question.

[FreeTony]

But this is the first cause. If there were anything negative about it nothing would have been created.

So you're using positive = good and negative = evil?

You still haven't explained why an evil and/or negative God can't create something.