The Problem of Evil (XXVII)

[wiploc]

@wiploc

Your characterization of the PoE argument as bulletproof is true if you are talking about the argument being logically valid. It is. That does not mean it is a successful argument because there are defeaters for the conclusion that must be addressed.

You have my attention, but I'm as confused as if you had said, "Yes, you have absolutely proven that seven is larger than six, but I know of a secret refutation."   

The question remains can God create an actual world with human free will devoid of suffering.

An omnipotent god could do that, because an omnipotent god could do anything that doesn't contradict logic.  There is no logical contradiction in free willed people not suffering.  

Your response is that God can do so because of his omnipotence.

Right.  That's what omnipotence is.  

You are right that is not a logical problem in the sense of possible worlds.

But it very well might be the case that actualizing such a world in practice is impossible.

No, that's the whole point of a magic-throwing god:  It can do things that couldn't be done "in practice."  Logic is the only obstacle, and there is no logical problem with creating a free-willed world without suffering.  

Plantinga admits, as he must, that such worlds are among the possible worlds.  An omnipotent god can do anything possible.  

Your statement "An omnipotent god can do anything that doesn't involve logical contradiction" is not true in this case because of the introduction of the uncertainty of free will.

An omniscient god would know of every decision that every person would make in every possible (and, according to Plantinga, in every impossible) world.  For an omniscient god, there is no uncertainty of free will.  

Thus it’s possible that every world feasible for God to create, which contains free will, is a world with suffering.

No so.  You can't arbitrarily select a category of worlds and say, "Maybe these aren't possible."  

"Possible worlds" is a known concept.  Any world that isn't impossible is possible.  Any world that doesn't have square circles, or some other logical contradiction, is possible.  There is no logical contradiction in happy people having free will.  Therefore, worlds in which happy people have free will are possible.  Therefore, an omnipotent god can create them.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_possibility

There is another misunderstandings about Plantinga.

Transworld depravity: Therefore, it is certainly possible that a person completes the world by only making morally good choices; that is, there exist possible worlds where a person freely chooses to do no moral evil. However, it may be the case that for each such world, there is some morally significant choice that this person would do differently if these circumstances were to occur in the actual world. In other words, each such possible world contains a world segment, meaning everything about that world up to the point where the person must make that critical choice, such that if that segment was part of the actual world, the person would instead go wrong in completing that world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plan..._depravity

I don't like that. 

That is, I find the whole transworld depravity thing difficult.  On the one hand, Plantinga claims that everything in one world is, in another world, the thing that is most similar.  Set aside the fact that this is arbitrary (you think Joe is me in world B because Joe looks like me, and I think Sara is me in world B because Sara thinks like me) it creates paradoxes.  If World C has three people, Joe, Sara, and Ignatius, and world D has only one person, Ray, then, according to Plantinga's logic, Ray is Sara because he is the thing most like Sara in world D.  But, by the same logic, Ray is also Joe and Ignatius.  So Sara is Joe and Joe is Ignatius. 

I have a problem with that. 

I understand that me having a problem is not a defeater.  And I understand that possible-world talk is really a way of expressing normal mundane concepts that are (sometimes, at least) not even controversial. 

The bottom line is that you're going to have to speak clearly and persuasively if you want to use transworld-depravity talk to convince me that something as simple as "seven is larger than six" isn't really true. 

Plantinga has already admitted that goodworlds with free will are possible.  And it is patently true that an omnipotent god can make possible worlds.  I'm not going to be moved by the notion that there are only a few possible worlds, and that it just happens that none of them have happy people with free will.  

As far as I can see, that may be Plantinga's notion, that we only get to roll the dice a few times, that god, though he knew all of the infinity of possible worlds, he was somehow restricted (by an even more powerful god?) to choosing from a limited selection of them. 

This is a difficult area for me.  Murky.  In the area that I understand clearly, it is obvious that a tri-omni god could make a goodworld with free will.  And it is obvious, if we adopted Plantinga's specious logic about god's creating a world robbing that world of free will, that a god couldn't make any world with free will. 

I'm willing to be instructed.  I'll keep an open mind.  But I don't see how you can lead me into the murk of transworld depravity and there convince me of something that is obviously false when viewed in clear light.