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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 8:13am

TJ on YouTube does an excellent dialogue on this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gAeYxgwuSo&feature=youtube_gdat...

I've found that most christian responses to this boil down to evil being a by-product of free will. The argument is at the crucifixion was God intervening against evil, so any evil in the world now is a by product of our own rejection of God. Kinda 'blame the victim' if you ask me...

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Permalink Reply by Simon Morris on December 9, 2011 at 8:17am

Now that's one I haven't heard... excellent.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 8:25am

I've always thought it was a twisted repsonse. I mean, if free-will equals evil (or, at least, evil is a potential outcome) then wouldn't that support the conclusion that authoritarian dictatorships are the best way to combat evil?

It leads to a discussion I love to have: how does heaven work? I can't conceive of a utopian society in the sky, without a) strict punishment for disobedience, or b) the removal of potential disobedience (I.e. the death of free will)

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 11:59am

In retrospect, a society based on the free and unlimited distribution of Taco Bell might be a fiesable basis for a utopia. :P

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Permalink Reply by Simon Morris on December 9, 2011 at 8:45am

If free will leads to evil no dictatorship can stop it. Remember the man in front of the tank on Tienanmen square?

More than likely, the argument goes along the lines... if you've lead a "good life" you'll go to heaven and you'll remain good, the alternate also being the case.

A poor argument by believers in my opinion, people change at many stages in their lives, there's no reason to suggest they wouldn't change in the afterlife.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 9, 2011 at 11:49am

This is the Logical (or Deductive) Problem of Evil (distinct from the Evidential Problem of Evil). It sets up a logical contradiction between the divine attributes of omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

But all we'd need to get around it is to show that there's a possible (not even an actual or a probable) reason for why God allows the state of affairs that prompt the argument's invocation in the first place: evil and suffering in a world created by a perfectly good being with the power to do otherwise.

So I'll go with Alvin Plantinga's response to J.L. Mackie and say that it is logically possible that God cannot bring about any possible world that he wishes that contains free persons with the capability to make significant choices. On the concept of transworld depravity, it is logically possible that that every free agent makes a wrong choice at some point and that everyone experiences suffering from it.

So now that I've showed that there is a logically possible reason for why God isn't able to create a world in which free persons with significant choice making capabilities don't cause suffering with their decisions, I've sidestepped the logical contradiction in the argument.

I'll let some others respond before I show why it doesn't work.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 12:01pm

Might the answer lie in suffering that can be traced to a natural origin? Say a hurricane or earthquake?

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 9, 2011 at 12:43pm

Ah but Plantinga has an answer ready for you. Satan and other fallen angels are created free creatures whose fall was caused by their decisions. They now go around causing havoc where ever they can, which includes suffering caused by natural events. Hence, Plantinga explains natural suffering through the same mechanism he uses to explain moral suffering (suffering caused by human decisions).

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 1:35pm

One Issue I can see from that argument is that Epicurus' argument still applies. Evil of any kind would still be evil. Even if God wanted a universe in which sentient beings possessed free will, the fact that he refuses to step in and combat said evil makes him impassive and nuetral.

A second would issue would come from the alleged omnipotence of God. If God is all knowing, then everything is pre-destined, not determined by free-will.

I am trying really hard to not wiki this right now :P

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 9, 2011 at 3:50pm

Even if God wanted a universe in which sentient beings possessed free will, the fact that he refuses to step in and combat said evil makes him impassive and nuetral.

The implicit proposition in Plantinga's response is that free will is such an unrivaled good that its existence overrides the resultant evil that comes about sometimes from people's free choices. So it is not the case, he would argue, that God refuses to step in to combat the evil in the world. To create free agents with significant choice making capabilities is already to create the best of all possible worlds.

A second would issue would come from the alleged omnipotence of God. If God is all knowing, then everything is pre-destined, not determined by free-will.

Plantinga (and William Lane Craig and others) would respond with Molinism. God has the complete knowledge of what would obtain as a consequence of any decision we and everyone else make. Your objection presupposes that God's foreknowledge consists of knowing only what we will decide. But Molinism argues that God's knowledge of the future isn't that he can see what we will do, but all futures, no matter what we and everyone else ultimately do. This reconciles God's foreknowledge and the free will of humans.

I am trying really hard to not wiki this right now :P

You should resist. These kinds of exercises are great for ensuring you have the responses at hand the next time you're confronted with them. Next time you won't have to wiki it. :)

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on December 9, 2011 at 4:48pm

At this point in the discussion, I would be at a loss.

When I discuss the existence of God with my theist friends, I try to keep the conversation as much in the realm of science as possible. I insist that claims be backed by proof, and am quick to point out logical fallacies. Its a bit like deep sea fishing for a marlin, as my friends will try to take the discussion deep into philosophical territory (like arguing that complexity implies design, or that ethics has to have a devine source), and I must then reel the conversation back into the realm science.

The only rebuttal I can come up with at this point, is that arguing wether free will is better then a universe without, or defining in detail the kind of omnipotence that God posesses is purely speculative, and can't been backed by emprical evidence (something else Epicurus is responsible for).

For some poeple, that may be a suffiencent answer, but I will admit that it doesnt address Plantinga's arguments on the same philosophical level.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 9, 2011 at 6:08pm

I'm with you in trying to keep thinks in the empirical realm, but even Darwin's theory of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution had no empirical support when he proposed it. His presentation in Origin is analogical. He moves from artificial selection to the conclusion "if we can do that in a few generations, imagine what nature can do in millions of years!" And his argument is convincing. But it's convincing despite the fact that he brings no empirical support; he never once points to an instance of natural selection.

Point is, empiricism is great, but we should acknowledge that we can and are sometimes swayed by rhetorical force as opposed to empirical force (and certainly in addition to). And, really, even though without empirical force an argument for the existence of God may not be a silver bullet, we can allow that a successful philosophical rhetorical argument may lead us to the conclusion that the existence of God was more likely than not. And, if so, that we should live our lives as if he does until new information comes along to call the hypothesis into question again. It's just that none of the arguments does this when you examine them.

Now this is what's great. You didn't wiki it, you just thought about it for a while, and you've come up with two important responses.

1. Plantinga's (and anyone else arguing the Free Will Defense) position is, as I indicated, that the existence of free will is such an unrivaled good that it overrules any suffering that may obtain as a consequence of our free decisions. But why is this so? According to who? This implicit premise in the response requires support before we should be willing to accept it. For, it seems, many people may allow that if they had the choice between having their choices constrained and being without the resultant evil, they would choose to be without the evil even so! And, note as well, God could make it so that even while our choices were constrained, we were none the wiser, believing all along that we did indeed have free will (indeed, it may right now be the case that some of our choices are constrained and we have no idea!). That are choices were constrained would be utterly unknown to us. Moreover, we all allow that there are many instances in which constraining the free choices of others brings about additional goods that wouldn't obtain without the constraint.

2. As it concerns omniscience (God's power of foreknowledge, included in his omnipotence but often enumerated separately as omniscience), Molinism still requires an answer to the question of how God distinguishes between the outcomes of our choices that occur and those that don't. Or does God only find out once we make them, in which case, that doesn't seem to be quite the kind of foreknowledge we mean we talk about omniscience. But the Molinist (and anyone arguing that God has omniscience) still needs to describe how God has his knowledge. There are 4 popular possibilities. I'll list them in case you or anyone else wants to critique them. 

i) Theological determinism (Calvinism)- God knows because he decrees what will happen.

ii) God is outside time and space. He sees everything as present.

iii) God knows us so well, our thoughts, feelings, desires, goals, everything, that he infers what our choices will be.

iiii) God just has the innate ability.

Now, to be sure, there are other responses to the PoE besides the FWD. So even if the FWD fails, there may be other responses that could succeed.

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