Paganism vs. Monotheism

[Mudhammam]

What I meant was that the way "free will" is commonly used in ordinary life makes no reference to metaphysical determinism.  One can look at Aristotle's discussion of this in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, of "voluntary" and "involuntary" actions.

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicoma...3.iii.html

Whether there is ultimately an earlier cause of what a person is, that makes no difference for the distinction between a voluntary (i.e. free) action and an involuntary action.

One can look at this another way.  A man may be good or bad, as he is.  It makes no difference how he became that way, as far as the judgement that he is good or is bad at present.  A murderer is a murderer, regardless of what caused him to be a murderer.

I don't think Aristotle was aware of the problem that determinism poses, as Epicurus later was, so his notions of voluntarily action only side-step the dilemma, rather than address it. The metaphysical vs. the practical import of "free will" as a concept most certainly conflict if we're thinking about the issue clearly. It has ramifications for morality, as well as reward and punishment, for good or bad persons ought then to be more properly considered lucky or unfortunate, healthy or sickly, and if the latter - including in the case of the murderer or rapist - treated with the care and compassion of a physician rather than abused and maligned as the source of the disease. It makes about as much sense to me to call a person morally good or bad, if determinism is true with respect to thought and action, as it would be to call a fallen tree or a shifting tectonic plate or the common cold morally good or bad.

Anyway, I forgot how we got here... lol. Problem of evil... free will defense... no free will... no evil... hmm. I guess to summarize my view, I agree that an all-powerful and all-knowing God cannot escape the problem of evil, though it doesn't negate the possibility of a God which is either amoral or restricted by some means in its power or knowledge. But it seems that if we do profess evil to exist, then so must the freedom to do good. ("ought implies can"). Freedom, that is, in a metaphysical sense, not as a sort of short-sighted approximation of the nearest causes to an event which soft determinism wishes to muddle by the term "free will."