The Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense

[Cheerful Charlie]

on this post, I will take on a common argument made against theists (mainly Christians) and show what the free will defense is and how it successfully defends Christianity from these arguments.
Purpose: I want to be clear this is not an argument against atheism or prove theism true. this is a free will defense and thus is only meant to defend Christianity from atheist arguments.
Argument:
to start, here is a common format of an argument against God using the problem of evil:
1. if God is omniscient, he knows that there is evil in the world and knows how to prevent it.
2. if God is omnipotent, he has the ability to prevent evil.
3. if God is morally perfect, he wouldn't want evil in the world.
4. there is evil in the world.
5. therefore, 1-3 can't all simultaneously be true of God since 4 is true.
6. 1-3 are in the necessary nature of God.
conclusion: therefore the God doesn't exist.


Objection: the idea of free will is inconsistent with God's omniscience, omnipotence, and divine plan.-- this is an objection I will return to later when I cover the subject of God, the nature of his omniscience and our free will.

Plantinga's free will defense is based on strawmen. Ir claims we have free will. Mayor Curley is offered a bribe. Of his own free will he takes it or rejects it. If he accepts, moral evil is done. God cannot undo that because God supports free will.

That is why moral evil must exist.

But read Romans 11. Why do the Jews reject Jesus as messiah? Because God hardened their hearts not to.

Plantinga is a Christian, so he knows better.

God, by Plantinga's own Bible, tells us God has no real deep attachment to free will. The real question here is, why does not God make all Jews believers? Or for that fact, all men.

Plantinga calls this a defense, not a theodicy. Its a foot in the door argument to keep atheism from making the problem of evil stick. But a key element of his defense is a strawman that dooms his defense. Islam is even worse on the free will issue.

He also claims it is possible all sentient beings may suffer from transworld depravity and will always do some moral evil, so evil must exist. he declares atheists must defeat this stopper to defeat the FWD.
In the case of defenses, what he does is this.

Presents a general case. Its possible a perfectly good God exists and logically can and must coexist with evil. And then makes a Russellian teapot claim we re told we must disprovve, maybe all beings suffer from transworld depravity.

What a Plantingian defense does is shift burden of proof illicitly to atheists.
Of course we can reverse it and state our theory, evil exists, and contradicts the definition of God, and then challenge the theists to disprove our "stopper', our own Russellian Teapot statement, Maybe gods are in principle impossible.

Plantingian defenses can be easily developed to 'prove' anything at all. Especially if you allow strawmen. That Plantinga has gotten away with this for years now and not been called on it tells you a lot about the state of religious philosophy



Cheerful Charlie

[Doubting Thomas]

Another problem for Christians with the idea of free will and evil existing is that it illustrates that apparently Hell is not big enough of a deterrent to keep people from doing evil, nor is Heaven big enough a reward.

[Cyberman]

I'm surprised no-one's pointed out that the POE argument isn't made against theists.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The problem with the free will defense of evil is that it completely negates the concept of Christian heaven, unless the Christian is willing to acknowledge that there is no free will there.

Not exactly. People become more of what they are. The decisions you make on earth set your direction. The righteous in Heaven have good habits that only get better unto eternity. The wicked continue to get worse because that is the direction they have set for themselves, which is to increase their slavery to the obsessions and compulsions they loved during life. The righteous however are freed from these compulsions and have the liberty to rejoice in God's love and truth in whatever manner they choose.

[Angrboda]

The problem with the free will defense of evil is that it completely negates the concept of Christian heaven, unless the Christian is willing to acknowledge that there is no free will there.

Not exactly. People become more of what they are. The decisions you make on earth set your direction. The righteous in Heaven have good habits that only get better unto eternity. The wicked continue to get worse because that is the direction they have set for themselves, which is to increase their slavery to the obsessions and compulsions they loved during life. The righteous however are freed from these compulsions and have the liberty to rejoice in God's love and truth in whatever manner they choose.

And you know this how exactly?

[Lemonvariable72]

The problem with the free will defense of evil is that it completely negates the concept of Christian heaven, unless the Christian is willing to acknowledge that there is no free will there. The problem with that, however, is that it demonstrates that free will is not so necessary that evil is an acceptable consequence of its existence. The argument is completely incompatible with Christian theology.

Throw in to that the fact that the christian god openly supports slavery.

[max-greece]

"3. if God is morally perfect, he wouldn't want evil in the world."

If this is a basic tenet of the argument then you cannot go on to define morality as:

"moral evil is the deliberate disobedience against God and his commandments."

This makes defining God as "morally perfect" a nonsense.

[bennyboy]

"3. if God is morally perfect, he wouldn't want evil in the world."

If this is a basic tenet of the argument then you cannot go on to define morality as:

"moral evil is the deliberate disobedience against God and his commandments."

This makes defining God as "morally perfect" a nonsense.

No. It makes it definitional.

[max-greece]

So God is morally perfect because he neither disobeys himself nor his own commandments?

In that sense I am morally perfect as I never disobey myself not my own commandments, nor does a frog, banana, other human....we're all morally perfect.

[Faith No More]

Not exactly. People become more of what they are. The decisions you make on earh set your direction. The righteous in Heaven have good habits that only get better unto eternity. The wicked continue to get worse because that is the direction they have set for themselves, which is to increase their slavery to the obsessions and compulsions they loved during life. The righteous however are freed from these compulsions and have the liberty to rejoice in God's love and truth in whatever manner they choose.

It doesn't matter if the righteous get better, or however you chooose to define it. It still demonstrates that free will and evil are not necessarily linked and that god easily could have made an existence full of goodness and pleasure that is free from evil and pain. If heaven is a place with free will and total goodness, regardless of whether you wish to explain that goodness by saying that the righteous improve upon themselves, it negates the entire premise of the argument, which is that god could not create free will without allowing evil. The two ideas are incompatible no matter how you try to explain it.