Suppose a gossipy neighbor were to tell you that Mrs. Jones just allowed someone to inflict unwanted pain upon her child.
Your first reaction to this news might be one of horror. But once you find out that the pain was caused by a shot that immunized Mrs. Jones as a danger to society. Generally, we believe the following moral principle to be true. In the immunization case, Mrs. Jones has a morally sufficient reason for overriding or suspending this principle.
A higher moral duty—namely, the duty of protecting the long-term health of her child—trumps the lesser duty expressed by If God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil and suffering, theists claim, it will probably look something like Mrs. Alvin Plantinga , has offered the most famous contemporary philosophical response to this question. He suggests the following as a possible morally sufficient reason:. God could not eliminate much of the evil and suffering in this world without thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will with whom he could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do good deeds.
MSR1 claims that God allows some evils to occur that are smaller in value than a greater good to which they are intimately connected. If God eliminated the evil, he would have to eliminate the greater good as well. God is pictured as being in a situation much like that of Mrs. Jones: she allowed a small evil the pain of a needle to be inflicted upon her child because that pain was necessary for bringing about a greater good immunization against polio. Before we try to decide whether MSR1 can justify God in allowing evil and suffering to occur, some of its key terms need to be explained.
It is the view that causal determinism is false, that—unlike robots or other machines—we can make choices that are genuinely free. According to Plantinga, libertarian free will is a morally significant kind of free will. An action is morally significant just when it is appropriate to evaluate that action from a moral perspective for example, by ascribing moral praise or blame. Persons have morally significant free will if they are able to perform actions that are morally significant.
Imagine a possible world where God creates creatures with a very limited kind of freedom. Suppose that the persons in this world can only choose good options and are incapable of choosing bad options.
So, if one of them were faced with three possible courses of action—two of which were morally good and one of which was morally bad—this person would not be free with respect to the morally bad option. That is, that person would not be able to choose any bad option even if they wanted to. Our hypothetical person does, however, have complete freedom to decide which of the two good courses of action to take. Plantinga would deny that any such person has morally significant free will.
People in this world always perform morally good actions, but they deserve no credit for doing so. It is impossible for them to do wrong. So, when they do perform right actions, they should not be praised. It would be ridiculous to give moral praise to a robot for putting your soda can in the recycle bin rather than the trash can, if that is what it was programmed to do. It has no choice about the matter. Similarly, the people in the possible world under consideration have no choice about being good.
Since they are pre-programmed to be good, they deserve no praise for it. According to Plantinga, people in the actual world are free in the most robust sense of that term. They are fully free and responsible for their actions and decisions. Because of this, when they do what is right, they can properly be praised. Moreover, when they do wrong, they can be rightly blamed or punished for their actions.
It is important to note that MSR1 directly conflicts with a common assumption about what kind of world God could have created. Many atheologians believe that God could have created a world that was populated with free creatures and yet did not contain any evil or suffering. Since this is something that God could have done and since a world with free creatures and no evil is better than a world with free creatures and evil, this is something God should have done.
Since he did not do so, God did something blameworthy by not preventing or eliminating evil and suffering if indeed God exists at all. In response to this charge, Plantinga maintains that there are some worlds God cannot create. In particular, he cannot do the logically impossible. MSR1 claims that God cannot get rid of much of the evil and suffering in the world without also getting rid of morally significant free will.
Consider the following descriptions of various worlds. We need to determine which ones describe worlds that are logically possible and which ones describe impossible worlds. The worlds described will be possible if the descriptions of those worlds are logically consistent. If the descriptions of those worlds are inconsistent or contradictory, the worlds in question will be impossible.
Is W 1 possible? In fact, on the assumption that God exists, it seems to describe the actual world. People have free will in this world and there is evil and suffering. God has obviously not causally determined people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong because there would be no evil or suffering if he had. So, W 1 is clearly possible. What about W 2? We are creatures with morally significant free will. If you took away our free will, we would no longer be the kinds of creatures we are.
We would not be human in that world. Returning to the main issue, there does not seem to be anything impossible about God causally determining people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. It seems clearly possible that whatever creatures God were to make in such a world would not have morally significant free will and that there would be no evil or suffering.
W 2 , then, is also possible. Is W 3 possible? In W 3 God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. And yet part of what it means for creatures to have morally significant free will is that they can do morally bad things whenever they want to.
Think about what it would be like to live in W 3. If you wanted to tell a lie, you would not be able to do so. Causal forces beyond your control would make you tell the truth on every occasion.
In fact, since W 3 is a world without evil of any kind and since merely wanting to lie or steal is itself a bad thing, the people in W 3 would not even be able to have morally bad thoughts or desires. If God is going to causally determine people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong in W 3 , there is no way that he could allow them to be free in a morally significant sense.
For if God brings it about or causes it to be the case in any manner whatsoever that the person either does A or does not do A, then that person is not really free. God can forcibly eliminate evil and suffering as in W 2 only at the cost of getting rid of free will.
Atheologians, as we saw above, claim that God is doing something morally blameworthy by allowing evil and suffering to exist in our world. They charge that a good God would and should eliminate all evil and suffering.
The assumption behind this charge is that, in so doing, God could leave human free will untouched. Plantinga claims that when we think through what robust free will really amounts to, we can see that atheologians are unbeknownst to themselves asking God to do the logically impossible.
Being upset that God has not done something that is logically impossible is, according to Plantinga, misguided. Consider W 4. Is it possible? Although there is no evil and suffering in this world, it is not because God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. In this world God has given creatures morally significant free will without any strings attached.
If there is nothing bad in this world, it can only be because the free creatures that inhabit this world have— by their own free will —always chosen to do the right thing.
Is this kind of situation really possible? Something is logically possible just when it can be conceived without contradiction. There is nothing contradictory about supposing that there is a possible world where free creatures always make the right choices and never go wrong. But improbability and impossibility, as we said above, are two different things.
It is important to note certain similarities between W 1 and W 4. Both worlds are populated by creatures with free will and in neither world does God causally determine people to always choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. The only difference is that, in W 1 , the free creatures choose to do wrong at least some of the time, and in W 4 , the free creatures always make morally good decisions.
In other words, whether there is immorality in either one of these worlds depends upon the persons living in these worlds—not upon God. People deserve the blame for the bad things that happen—not God. Plantinga , p. The essential point of the Free Will Defense is that the creation of a world containing moral good is a cooperative venture; it requires the uncoerced concurrence of significantly free creatures.
But then the actualization of a world W containing moral good is not up to God alone; it also depends upon what the significantly free creatures of W would do. Most people experience suffering at some time in their life. Religions attempt to explain suffering, to help people to cope with it and to learn from it.
For some religious people, the fact that people suffer can raise difficult questions about why God allows this to happen. Some people say that God allows humans to make decisions for themselves and that suffering is caused by the choices that people make.
But, as we have seen, no satisfactory justification appears to be available. The four types of theodicies considered so far all appeal to beliefs and evaluative claims that the theodicist thinks should be acceptable, upon careful reflection, to anyone, including those who are not religious.
Of course, if the religious beliefs to which one appeals, taken together, entail the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person, such a theodicy would be question-begging. But one can choose a subset that, even if it entails the existence of a very powerful and knowledgeable creator—or even an omnipotent and omniscient one—does not entail the existence of God.
There are many religions, and even within a given religion, very significant differences in the religious beliefs of people, and very different beliefs to which one might appeal, so there are many different religious theodicies that can be constructed.
Here I shall focus only on one general type. I think, however, that it will illustrate the kinds of objections that arise. The religious theodicy in question is as follows.
First, human beings, rather than having arisen through a process of natural evolution, were brought into existence by the creator of the universe. He placed the first two human beings in a perfect world, free of suffering and death. Those human beings, however, freely chose to disobey a command of the creator, and the result was the Fall of mankind, which meant not only that the first two humans became subject to suffering and death, but that all of their descendants did so as well.
The creator, however, lovingly engaged, several generations later, in a rescue operation, in which he, in the person of his son, became incarnated as a human being, and by undergoing a sacrificial death, made it possible for the creator to forgive every human who accepted this sacrifice, and who would then enjoy eternal beatitude living in the presence of the creator.
It is not, of course, a full theodicy, since it does not account for the suffering of non-human animals, at least before the Fall. Thus viewed, how successful is it? To be successful, a theodicy must appeal only to beliefs that it is reasonable to accept. Do the beliefs involved in the above story qualify? It would seem not. First of all, among the crucial beliefs is the belief that human beings, rather than coming into being via a natural process of evolution, were specially created.
In setting out the story, I have not specified how that was done. There are very good reasons for rejecting both of these accounts, since the evidence that humans are descended from earlier primates is extremely strong indeed. Fairbanks his book Relics of Eden , and which includes such as things as the evidence that human chromosome number two resulted by fusion from two primate chromosomes, together with facts about 1 transposable elements, including retroelements, 2 pseudogenes, and 3 mitochondrial DNA.
In the light of such evidence, it is not surprising that many Christian philosophers have accepted the hypothesis of common descent, and have adopted some form of theistic evolution, in which the creator intervened at some point to transform some earlier primates into members of a new species, Homo sapiens.
But while this version of special creation is an improvement, given the very close relations between human and chimpanzee DNA, and the fact that known mechanisms of chromosome rearrangement render the transition from some non-human species to Homo sapiens not at all improbable, the postulation of divine intervention at that particular point does not seem plausible.
Secondly, the story postulates not just a special creation, but also a special creation in which humans, initially, were not subject to suffering or death. Given, among other things, that that period was a very short one, one cannot offer positive historical evidence again the existence of such a short period that involved only two humans.
But the belief is surely a remarkable one that can be viewed as likely only if it is supported by evidence. The evidence that can be offered, however, consists entirely of the creation story in Genesis, so that question is, how reliable is such evidence? To answer that question, one can see what other stories one finds in Genesis.
One striking story is that of Noah—who apparently lived around years ago—according to which there was a worldwide flood that killed all animals on Earth, except for those that were on the ark. But there are excellent reasons for believing that such a story is very unlikely to be true, both in the light of the number of animal species that currently exist, and in the light of the evidence—attempts by authors such as Whitcomb and Morris in their book The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications to argue otherwise notwithstanding—that there has not been any world-wide flood in the past years.
In addition, those who view Genesis as a source of important truths do so because it is part of the Bible. So one can also ask about the reliability of the Bible when it testifies to remarkable events.
In many cases, of course, there is no way of checking whether those remarkable events actually took place, but when there is, one finds that there is good reason to believe that the event in question did not take place. One would surely expect non-Biblical records of such events if they had really taken place, but there are none.
Finally, the religious theodicy that we are considering also involves a number of very problematic moral claims. First, we are asked to believe that there is nothing morally problematic about a morally good deity making it the case that if one of the first two humans disobeys some command, all of the many billions of descendants of that human will, as a consequence, be subject to suffering and death to which they would not otherwise be exposed.
Secondly, we are also asked to believe that a morally good deity is unable to forgive people their misdeeds unless he becomes incarnate in the form of his son and suffers a sacrificial death.
Thirdly, while, according to this story, those who accept the sacrifice made on their behalf have all their tears wiped away and enjoy eternal happiness in the presence of God, those who do not accept the sacrifice fare considerably less well, and suffer eternal torment in hell.
So we are being asked to believe that such eternal punishment is not morally problematic. In short, the religious theodicy that we have been considering in this section is very implausible, not only on scientific and historical grounds, but on moral grounds as well. The question, accordingly, is whether there is some religious theodicy that is not exposed to scientific, or historical, or moral objections.
Confronted with such a case, it is natural to think that a satisfactory response will involve arguing that it is plausible that the terrible occurrence in question itself has some hidden property that makes it the case that allowing it to happen is not morally wrong all things considered.
But as Peter van Inwagen has argued—most recently in The Problem of Evil —there is a very different possibility, and one that he thinks is much more promising. The basic idea is as follows. First of all, one begins by focusing upon abstract formulations of the argument from evil, and one attempts to put forward a story that makes it plausible that the existence of, say, a great amount of horrendous suffering in the world, is actually desirable because there is some great good that outweighs that suffering, and that can only be achieved if that amount of suffering is present, or some greater evil that can only be avoided if that amount of suffering is present.
This story might either be a theodicy-style story that specifies the great good in question, or a defense-style story, which does not do so. Secondly, if that story provides a satisfactory answer to an abstract version of the argument from evil that focuses upon the existence of horrendous suffering, one can then turn to concrete versions of the argument from evil, and there the idea will be that God had good reason to allow a certain amount of horrendous suffering, and the terrible case of Sue is simply one of the cases that he allowed.
God could very well have prevented it, and had he done so, he would have eliminated an occurrence that was bad in itself, all things considered.
But had he done so, he would have had to have allowed some other horrendous evil that, as things stand, he prevented, and the reason that he would have had to do that would be to ensure that the global property of there being a certain amount of horrendous evil in the world was instantiated—something that was necessary to achieve a greater good, or to avoid a greater evil.
In short, defenses and theodicies that are based upon this idea, rather than appealing to the idea that apparent evils are not evils in themselves, all things considered, once all local properties—all properties that those events themselves have—are taken into account, appeal, instead, to the idea that there are global properties whose instantiation is important, and that can only be instantiated if there are events that are evil in themselves.
Does this shift from local properties to global properties help? It would seem that it cannot. Consider against the case of Sue.
An advocate of the evidential argument from evil claims that no matter how carefully one examines the case, and thinks about it, considering, as one does, all of the rightmaking and wrongmaking properties of which one has any knowledge, the conclusion is that the wrongmaking properties of allowing what happened to Sue clearly outweigh any rightmaking properties of allowing that event. But what exactly is the global wrongmaking property in question?
The answer, surely, is that no one has knowledge of any such wrongmaking property. But surely no one knows, or even has any reason for believing, that this is the case. The situation as regards an appeal to global properties is, in short, as follows. In response, the possibility of a relevant, morally significant global property is introduced. But this is a mere possibility, since there is no relevant morally significant global property of which one has knowledge, let alone which one has good reason to believe is present in the case in question.
So the possibility of a relevant global property is simply that: a mere possibility, and as such it gets dealt with in the way that all unknown morally significant properties, both rightmaking and wrongmaking, and both local and global, are dealt with in, for example, the logical probability version of the evidential argument from evil set out above in section 3. In revising this piece, I took into account some helpful suggestions and critical comments that I received from other philosophers.
I very much appreciate such feedback. Some Important Distinctions 1. Inductive Versions of the Argument from Evil 3. Attempted Total Refutations 5. Attempted Defenses 6.
Theodicies 7. Thus if, for simplicity, we focus on a conception of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, one very concise way of formulating such an argument is as follows: If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. Evil exists. For any state of affairs that is actual , the existence of that state of affairs is not prevented by anyone.
For any state of affairs, and any person, if the state of affairs is intrinsically bad, and the person has the power to prevent that state of affairs without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good, but does not do so, then that person is not both omniscient and morally perfect.
Therefore, from 1 , 2 , and 3 : There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person. If God exists, then he is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.
Therefore: God does not exist. The Choice between Incompatibility Formulations and Evidential Formulations How is the argument from evil best formulated? That formulation involved the following crucial premise: If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
These four approaches will be set out and considered in the sections that follow. Therefore it is likely that: For any such action, the totality of the wrongmaking properties, both known and unknown , outweighs the totality of the rightmaking properties, both known and unknown.
Any action whose wrongmaking properties outweigh its rightmaking properties is morally wrong. Therefore, from 2 and 3 : Such actions are morally wrong. For any action whatever, an omnipotent and omniscient being is capable of not performing that action.
Therefore, from 4 and 5 : If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then that being performs some morally wrong actions. A being that performs morally wrong actions is not morally perfect. Therefore, from 6 and 7 : If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, that being is not morally perfect.
God is by definition an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person. Therefore, from 8 and 9 : God does not exist. When this is done, the above inference can be compactly represented as follows: P No good that we know of has J. Therefore, probably: Q No good has J. For the question can be raised: How can we have confidence in this inference unless we have a good reason to think that were a good to have J it would likely be a good within our ken?
Of course, these inferences may be defeated. One is entitled to infer Q from P only if she has no reason to think that if some good had J it would likely not be a good that she knows of.
Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles. And the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seems to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems by far the most probable. Some of the objections directed against this premise are less than impressive—and some seem very implausible indeed, as in the case, for example, of Peter van Inwagen, who has to appeal to quite an extraordinary claim about the conditions that one must satisfy in order to claim that a world is logically possible: One should start by describing in some detail the laws of nature that govern that world.
Then one should tell in convincing detail the story of cosmic evolution in that world: the story of the development of large objects like galaxies and of stars and of small objects like carbon atoms. Finally, one should tell the story of the evolution of life. The question, accordingly, is whether this inductive step is correct.
Responses to the Argument from Evil: Refutations, Theodicies, and Defenses Given an evidential formulation of the evidential argument from evil, what sorts of responses are possible? Attempted Total Refutations There are at least three main ways in which one might attempt to show that the argument from evil does not succeed in establishing that evil is even prima facie evidence against the existence of God, let alone that the existence of God is improbable relative to our total evidence.
For assume that the following things are true: An action is, by definition, objectively morally right if and only if it is, among the actions that one could have performed, at least one of the actions that produces at least as much value as every alternative action; An action is objectively morally wrong if and only if it is not objectively morally right; One is morally blameworthy only if one performs some objectively wrong action when one could instead have performed an objectively right action; If one is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then for any action whatever, there is always some other action that produces greater value.
But there have certainly been notable exceptions—such as Anselm and Descartes, and, in the last century, Charles Hartshorne , Norman Malcolm , and Alvin Plantinga a, b If the ontological argument were sound, it would provide a rather decisive refutation of the argument from evil. Such a response, however, requires a satisfactory account of the truth conditions of modal statements—something that lies outside the scope of this article 6. Attempted Defenses In this section, we shall consider three attempts to show that it is reasonable to believe that every evil is such that an omnipotent and omniscient person would have a morally sufficient reason for not preventing its existence, even if one is not able to say, in every case, what that morally sufficient reason might be.
Theodicies What are the prospects for a complete, or nearly complete theodicy? And here I must say that most attempts to explain why God permits evil— theodicies , as we may call them—strike me as tepid, shallow and ultimately frivolous. Bibliography Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Aiken, H. Audi, Robert, and William J. Wainwright ed. Chrzan, Keith Clarke, Randolph.
Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. Conway David A. Draper, Paul Fairbanks, Daniel J. Fitzpatrick, F. Forrest, Peter Hartshorne, Charles Hasker, William Hick, John Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. Kane, G. Stanley Khatchadourian, Haig La Para, Nicholas Langtry, Bruce Lewis, C. Lewis, Delmas Mackie, John L. Martin, Michael McCloskey, H. Perkins, R.
Plantinga, Alvin Reichenbach, Bruce R. Rowe, William L. Schlesinger, George Religion and Scientific Method , Boston: D. Smith, Quentin Stump, Eleonore ed.
Those who argue that the deity is using evil to bring about good and so somehow good produces good have to contend with the following counter argument that establishes that there must be some evil that does not produce the good in any way: that there is a high probability that there exists purely gratuitous moral evil.
The Evidential Problem of Evil : The inductive argument against the existence of the all perfect deity. William Rowe :. It is possible that there are and have been acts of evil that have not led to any good result whatsoever. Thus, the argument to defend god based on the claim that the deity is using evil for some good purpose is defeated.
Based on the mere possibility of an act of evil, human suffering, that is completely gratuitous. It would be an act in which a human does an evil act and another human suffers as a result but he act is not witnessed by anyone and both the evil doer and the victim of the evil deed die without communicating it to anyone directly or indirectly.
It is possible for such an act to occur and is so then there would be no possibility for it to teach any lesson to anyone. There would be no possibility for it to lead to a greater good. This is an inductive argument because it is based upon possibility. It defeats the defense of the existence of an all perfect deity that is all good and all powerful and all knowing at the same time.
If there were a God, He would not have allowed any completely pointless instances of suffering. So, it is quite probable that God does not exist. This simple, concise proof makes the existence of God very unlikely granted the fact of pointless suffering in the world. Obviously this argument is valid, but the terms must be clarified to understand the full power of this demonstration. The God that Rowe is referring to is the traditional God of Christian Theism, a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly benevolent.
An instance of pointless suffering would be one that God "could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good" Rowe Thus, God would be permitting pointless suffering if, by not intervening, an obvious opportunity for some greater good was lost, or an even more horrific evil was to result. He mentions the example of a suffering young fawn: "suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire, the fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering" Rowe Now it seems quite evident that "no greater good.
Therefore, you may conclude that such suffering was, in all probability, pointless. Probability is dependent on the amount of background information and, therefore, one would require omniscience to know the full extent of the above example. To this objection, the atheist may respond in the form of a question: is it reasonable to hold that throughout the entire course of human history, there was not at least one case of pointless suffering?
Was not a single one of those deaths pointless, given the others? Think about the Crusades and the slaughtering of innocent women and children by "Christians" who claimed to have permission from God Himself. Is it not eminently reasonable to hold that at least one of these instances of innocent suffering was pointless? To establish the second premise, all that is needed is one such case.
Draper, although hopeful that theism is true, points out that there are two problems that may prevent theism from being true. Those two problems are evolution and evil. Draper attempts to show that evolution is more likely to be true on evolution than on theism. He points out that for naturalists, there is a lack of plausible alternatives to evolution, while for the theist, who starts out with such grandiose things as omniscience and omnipotence, anything is possible.
Some theists argue that the complex and well ordered evolution of some beings is not possible without divine intervention. Draper gives the example of the human eye. Some theists argue that evolution cannot completely explain exactly how the eye became so incredibly complex. However, Draper points out that no one has yet to offer solid reasons why evolution could not have achieved the complexity seen in the human eye.
While Draper admits that there are some gaps in the knowledge that we have regarding evolution, he counters the arguments based upon these gaps by saying that there is no good reason to believe that naturalist solutions to the problems or questions relating to evolution will eventually be found, as many have already been discovered.
Draper then goes on to discuss the pattern of pleasure and pain in conjunction with evolution as an evidential argument for naturalism over theism. Draper points out that there are countless connections between pain, pleasure and reproductive success. In order for humans to be successful in reproduction, they must maintain a constant body temperature. By pointing out that the blind process of natural selection is what drives evolution and that often a strong trait such as walking upright that gives a species reproductive advantages would be furthered even though it may also come with weaker traits such as back and foot problems , Draper argues that natural selection is much more probable on evolutionary naturalism than on theism.
Additionally, if natural selection drives evolution, it is most likely that the evolution of pain and pleasure also arose from natural selection, thus inherently linking pain and pleasure to reproductive success. Draper says that this idea is furthered by our knowledge that many parts of organic systems are methodically conjoined to reproductive success.
The moral randomness of pleasure and pain i. Although neither naturalism nor theism has been proven to be true or false, Draper argues that the ratio of the probability of naturalism is much greater than the ratio of the probability of theism.
Since theism and naturalism are opposite hypotheses, they cannot both be true simultaneously. Therefore, all things considered, evolution and natural selection provides a powerful argument against theism. Draper, Paul. Louis P. Pojman, ed. An Atheistic Perspective by Thomas Rauchenstein. For a Greater Good? Peter E. Evil and the Power of God by C. READ: C. Lewis and David Hume on the Problem of Evil. Perhaps the most common theodicy is the so-called free-will argument - very similar to Augustine's argument.
God creates humans with free will because that is better more perfect than to create them without free will. God who is all perfect must do what is the best.
To create humans who would only do good would be to deny them free will. It is free will that is the source of evil and not the God that created the evil doers.
Evil is the result of human error 2. Human error results from free-will the ability to do wrong 3. If we didn't have free-will we would be robots 4. God prefers a world of free agents to a world of robots 5. Evil is therefore an unfortunate - although not unavoidable outcome - of free-will 6. For God to intervene would be to go take away our free-will 7. Therefore, God is neither responsible for evil nor guilty of neglect for not intervening. Argument against the free will defense:.
Consider these cases meant to illustrate that the deity is not removed from responsibility for evil even if humans have free will. Free Will Defense 1: The deity is not responsible for the evil but people are responsible all by themselves and without the involvement of the deity because they have and use free will to choose evil.
If people do exactly what their deity created them to do then why would they be punished for doing what the creator created them to do? If the creator knows that the fetus will become a child and grow into a mass murderer and the deity proceeds to allow the conception and the birth and the growth of that human being and then allows that being to get the means together and commit the murders then why would the human being be punished for what the creator-deity made that human being to do?
If it is the choice of the human to kill was it not the choice of the creator to make the being that will choose to do the evil? Counter Example Situation 1. Let's say I run a sports and gun shop in a small town. Someone I know, Joe, comes running into the store and wants to but an automatic weapon. Joe is very agitated and angry and he tells me hat he hates all those women across the street in the bakery shop and he is going to teach them a lesson.
I tell him that he should not hurt anyone. He says sell me the gun and I do. He tells me he is going to kill those women. I tell him it is wrong to do that and he should not do that.
He asks me to sell him the ammunition for the weapon he just bought and I sell it to him. He says he will kill every last one of those women and I say he must not do it. I tell him it is very bad. He asks me to show him how to shoot the weapon and I teach him.
I warn him again not to use it to kill people. He goes out of the store and crosses the street and kills everyone of the women. When the police question me, I tell them the whole story and I point out that it was not my fault because Joe had free will and I warned him and told him not to do it! Well, most humans would hold me responsible just based on what it was reasonable to think that Joe would do given what Joe said before leaving my store.
If I am responsible in part for the killings then what about God who gave Joe life and knew for sure what Joe would do with that life? I only know pretty darn well what he would do with the weapon. God knows for sure and can stop anything. Or else, God does not know or God does not have all power.
Free Will Defense 2: The deity is not responsible for the evil but people are responsible all by themselves and without the involvement of the deity because they have and use free will to choose evil. Counter Example Situation 2. I ask some human being, say Susan, to baby sit for a group of eight children aged 3 to 7.
I ask Susan to watch them for 5 hours. They are playing in the very large ballroom of a mansion. In the ballroom are a large number of toys, electronic games and small rides for children. Some workers had been removing paint from the iron windows and left cans of paint at the far end of the ballroom where the windows are.
There is also paint remover, thinners, flammable liquids and a blowtorch they have been using to get the old paint off of the window frames.
I return five hours later to find the mansion on fire, Susan out in front with three of the children. The other children were trapped inside and burned to death. I ask her what happened and she said she stepped out of the ballroom for a break and when she returned it was on fire. I ask her how she could do such a thing and she replies that she only stepped out for five minutes and he warned the children before she did so not to touch the materials at the end of the ballroom near the windows.
She told them that it was very dangerous. They touched those things anyway. Now if some human made those claims there are few rational adults who would not think that the person who was left to watch the children was responsible for the harm that came to them.
That Susan should have known. If this is what we would think about Susan, then what should we think about GOD, who is supposed to know everything about the past, present and future and is all powerful as well? I f we would hold Susan responsible in part for the harm to the children then even more so we must hold the deity responsible for evil since the deity that is all knowing and all powerful could have and should have stopped it as Susan should have stayed with the children to prevent harm.
Counter Example Situation 3. Now think. If the deity made the humans to do the evil knowing they would choose the evil then is the deity also responsible for that evil? The deity says to you and I if we go through door 3 we will produce a child that will murder more than people. We hear what the deity tells us and believe that the deity knows the future and then we go through door 3.
The child grows up and kills people. Would you and I be responsible for those deaths in any way? We might have gone through door 1 or door 2 or door 4 etc Well, if we would be in part responsible so would the deity who knows in advance and then chooses to create or allow to be conceived the killer of people.
Free Will Defense 3: The deity is supposed to be all perfect and all good , all knowing and all powerful at the same time. A manufacturer of automobiles make two different models. The testing of one model prior to sale indicates that it has defects in the brake system likely to cause brake failure, accidents, injuries and deaths. The other model is tested and the results indicate no problems at all. The manufacturer decides to proceed with the production and sale of both models.
The model with known faults does have numerous brake failures resulting in many injuries and deaths. The manufacturer is held liable for those injuries and deaths due to prior knowledge of the defect and the likelihood of brake failure resulting in injuries and deaths. Now if instead of the manufacturer of automobiles the deity is the creator of humans.
The deity knows in advance how each human will use free will the deity has given the human. The deity knows in advance which humans will use free will to choose evil. The deity chooses which humans will actually be born and survive and live to do those things he deity knows in advance that they will choose to do of their own free will.
There would be no denial of free will and no making of puppets out of humans if the deity choose that the humans who choose evil instead of good are not born in the first place. Such humans would be conceived but not born, experiencing a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage or were to die soon after birth and before the start of the evil doing. But evidence is that if there is a deity then the deity chooses not to act in this way and so the deity chooses the evil to occur through the actions of the humans that were created by the deity knowing in advance of their actual physical existence that they would choose evil.
Thus, the deity is responsible for the evil acts and their consequences. Therefore the deity cannot be all good and all knowing and all powerful at the same time. The Free Will Defense does not really solve the Problem of Evil for the deity is seen as not being all good because the being is in part responsible for evil. Free Will Defense 4: The deity is testing humans by giving them free will in order to determine if they will use that free will to do good or to do evil.
Those who use free will to choose the good will be rewarded and those who choose evil will be punished. If god is giving a test what kind of a being would that make god? If god is all-knowing would god know the results of all such tests before the tests were even administered? If god made humans and made them with free will and knows before they are born how they will use that free will and then goes ahead and makes them be born,.
Counter Example Situation 4 If I knew in advance everything my dog was going to do and then let my dog loose and it bit someone I would be responsible for that harm! Why isn't the deity responsible for what the deity knows its creations will do before they are even created?
After all according to the belief system in the Supreme Being that is all-perfect, the deity chooses who to create!!!!! Counter Example Situation 5 If an instructor gave an examination to a class and the instructor knew that the materials on the exam had not been covered in the course and that few , if any, students would be able to pass the examination, well what sort of an instructor would that be?
Why is not the deity that is all knowing not in the same position as that instructor in terms of fairness and justice? This argument by analogy is offered to defeat the defense of the deity as being all good based on the idea that the deity is using evil to test humans creatures with free will. This defense Evil is part of a Test does not really solve the Problem of Evil for it challenges the characteristic of an all perfect being being all good and all just.
What each of the defenses of the supreme being does is to subtly alter the idea of the Supreme Being by weakening or ignoring one or more of the characteristics of that being that led to or created the inconsistency or contradiction that is termed the "Problem of Evil". In each of these defenses the deity permits or creates evil or is unable or unwilling to reduce or remove evil.
The defenses do not succeed against the criticisms and do not solve the Problem of Evil so that the traditional nature of the Supreme Being is preserved and seen as consistent with the existence of moral evil because they in one form or another rely upon the altering of the idea of the supreme being by either reducing or denying one of its characteristics that is responsible for the problem in the first place.
If the Problem of Evil as it has been approached by the theodicists has not been solved or dealt with in a manner that satisfies critics what other approaches may be taken? The other three options will now be examined. Evil is only a part of the overall good and does not exist in itself.
I f the deity is all perfect then any universe created by that deity could not be anything less than perfect. This universe that does exist must therefore be the best possible. If this is so and there is what appears to be evil in this universe then that evil is not really evil at all but some necessary part or feature of the best of all possible worlds. Humans do not have the viewpoint of the deity. Humans cannot see the universe as seen by the deity. Humans focus on some aspect of the whole and give it a name "evil" and then think that evil has some existence or fore on its own.
When the entire creation is seen by the deity it appears to be beautiful and what humans call evil is seen by the deity as necessary feature of the overall beautiful creation. Humans cannot get past the human perspective that is finite.
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