There is actually a thought experiment (not my own, natch) which addresses this exact issue.
Firstly, imagine a world where every single individual person had either a good nature or an evil one. Furthermore, imagine that this division between good and evil is exactly balanced. Finally, accept that the population of this world is in a steady state, ie, people are born and people die, but the overall population does not change.
Let us give our hypothetical world a population of 1000 individuals - 500 of them are good and 500 are evil. God dislikes this state of affairs and decides that the next 500 people who are born will have innately good natures, while the next 500 who die will be of the innately evil sort. To forestall the inevitable objection, God isn't scrapping free will. However, he knows (via omniscience) which people will be good and which will be evil, and opts to only allow the births of people who will be good, and preferentially singles out the evil people for early demises.
In rather short order, we are left with a world that is 100% good. The people of this world have an understanding and a conception of evil, they simply use their free will to behave in a fashion we can all agree to classify as 'good'.
Ta da.
Boru
Firstly, imagine a world where every single individual person had either a good nature or an evil one. Furthermore, imagine that this division between good and evil is exactly balanced. Finally, accept that the population of this world is in a steady state, ie, people are born and people die, but the overall population does not change.
Let us give our hypothetical world a population of 1000 individuals - 500 of them are good and 500 are evil. God dislikes this state of affairs and decides that the next 500 people who are born will have innately good natures, while the next 500 who die will be of the innately evil sort. To forestall the inevitable objection, God isn't scrapping free will. However, he knows (via omniscience) which people will be good and which will be evil, and opts to only allow the births of people who will be good, and preferentially singles out the evil people for early demises.
In rather short order, we are left with a world that is 100% good. The people of this world have an understanding and a conception of evil, they simply use their free will to behave in a fashion we can all agree to classify as 'good'.
Ta da.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
