I first examine Plantinga’s Free Will Defence for God’s possible reason for allowing evil, then give a theodicy, what that reason actually is. Does the good outweighs the evil in the world?
It’s been two years. Lets talk about free will. It seems to me to be at the heart of the problem of free will(unsurprisingly), the problem of evil, predestination, God’s qualities, and human limitations. In our daily lives, we make choices frequently, both unconsciously and consciously. Consciously, I am making the choice(I hope), to write this article because the scenario where I have too many thoughts about this problem and can’t ignore it anymore has occurred. Unconsciously or subconsciously, I breathe, I have feelings towards things, I make split second judgements about the people I meet, and the interactions I have. (I use the term unconscious and subconscious loosely and synonymously here, simply meaning the actions which I do not have to direct my will towards. Conscious actions are those that I do direct my will towards doing, or not doing.)
Do we really have free will? From a deterministic perspective, everything that happens is simply following from its prior cause. Because of this, from a deterministic perspective, its not quite clear where the line between conscious and unconscious actions can be drawn anyhow. For example, I direct my attention towards writing, but oftentimes, I get stuck. Consciously, I stop writing and take a break, only to find that my subconscious suddenly gives me an answer. Call it an inspiration. But was my decision to stop writing in the first place really conscious? It may be that this decision itself was my subconscious knowing that it needed time to process the ideas I was dealing with, and hence causing me to put down my pen. Freud would certainly agree, but I digress. You see, even two concepts alone, the topic can very quickly escalate down a rabbit hole. So bear with me here, as I try to give an answer to why God created evil, and how free will fits into this picture, in applying Plantinga’s Free Will Defence to tackle the problem of evil.
First, what is the problem of evil?
1. God exists.
2. God is all powerful and all good.
3. Evil exists in a world that God created. It exists in our exercising of it, enabled by free will.
4. An all powerful and all good God would do everything in his power to prevent evil.
Conclusion- 5. Our evil world shows that God has not done that, so either god does not exist, is not all powerful, or is not all good.
We’re in trouble, and it should be pretty evident why. No Christian can claim to be a believer of Christ if they believe the conclusion of this argument. Mackie claims the conjunction of premises 1-4 is an implicitly contradictory set of propositions. Plantinga believes in incompatibilism: causal determinism and freedom are necessarily incompatible. Under this view, his Free Will Defence responding to the problem of evil is that a world where we perform more significantly morally free actions that are good than evil is better than one without free creatures at all. Moral significance in the sense that doing so holds moral weight that is either good or bad: e.g. eating a big mac vs fruits. Freely significant in that we are capable of both moral good and evil. Moral evil exists because of human exercising of free will. Natural evil is all else(so if your a naturalist, natural evil is nature’s forces: e.g. earthquake causing death).
Since we must accept 1-3, lets see how to reject the fourth premise. I think for many of us, it is so natural to think that of evil and good as being directly opposite, as if the existence of one must necessarily preclude the other. But is this really true from a biblical perspective? The question of “why is there evil in the world” is a derivative of “why does god allow evil in the world?” Genesis 1:1 says: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” But creation here under two different meanings can have vastly different outcomes insofar as interpreting the validity of the argument, and whether the conclusion follows from the premises. Namely, it would follow if God caused sin in creation. It would not follow if God merely allowed free will in the sense of providing sufficient conditions, with sufficient conditions being different from causation.
God could have created the world in two ways. If God created in the sense of weakly actualizing, he has instantiated reality, but not caused all that happens after the initial moment of creation, the big bang. If God created in the sense of strongly actualizing it, then he has instantiated reality and all that happens within it, including the choices we make. A strong actualization approach is consistent with incompatibilism, leaving us in a deterministic universe without free will. So on quick grounds, we reject this view, as Christians do have free will from a biblical standpoint, though the deterministic nature of our universe is not quite as clear. Curiously enough, Alvin Platingas “Free Will Defence” assumes an incompatibilist conception of freedom on the grounds that God could “have his cake and eat it too.” (I think this is precisely the problem that leads to the third problem stemming from the conclusion in premise 5. We’ll get back to this). A weak actualization approach is only consistent if you accept compatibilism, the thesis that free will can exist in conjunction with determinism.
It seems at first neither interpretation of God’s act of creating leads to a negative outcome that doesn’t serve to reject premise 4. Let’s start with the problem of interpreting creation in the sense of weak actualization, as here’s where the having cake and eating it too comes in. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why not weakly actualize a world where humans always choose good and never sin? (It is at this point, that I introduce free will, and the whole host of problems that will increase the permutation of problems we’ve thus far come across dealing with different interpretations of creation and the problem of evil.)
It can be a bit hard to imagine such a hypothetical word given how we sin every day in our current world. But I think a large part of sin, and perhaps even all of it, is due to circumstance. From the smallest scale of the way our atoms are composed, to the shifting of synaptic connections within our brain to the grandest scale of universal forces of gravity dictating the interaction of celestial bodies within the universe, the physical circumstances of the world we live in, and the mental(if you believe in mind body duality) one within ourselves determine our actions. Given God’s omnipotence and omniscience, can’t an all powerful God could just create a world in which humans always choose good? In our world today, many of the problems we face as a society stem from economic scarcity, the gap between unlimited desire and limited resources. What if that gap never existed and we never lacked any resources? What if we were never let down(causing us the sin of anger)? Of course, I do not make the naive argument that sin is merely the cause of scarcity, or the inefficient distribution of resources, as some of my favourite movies like “Wall-E” and “Elysium” serve as reminder enough of a dystopian future where resources are no longer a problem. But my point is simple, an omnipotent and omniscient God can weakly actualize a world where the circumstances play out in such a way that humans never sin.
Alvin Plantinga denies the existence of such a world on the grounds that any creature in such a world would necessarily suffer from transworld depravity(Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 188). This is the property that at any given time t, any truly creature C would commit at least one wrong action A. In other words, God cannot create such a world where humans(or any to her creature) are capable of moral good and not moral evil. Therefore, to Plantinga, our world is the best case scenario of reality playing out.
Plantinga’s argument for this, named the free will defence, is as follows:
It rests on compatibilism being true, which I will assume it is for now, but we will revisit this.
Plantinga denies the jump from premise 4 to conclusion 5 by establishing that indeed “an all powerful and all good God would do everything in his power to prevent evil,” but the conclusion does not follow the premises, and the argument itself is invalid. This is because our evil world does in fact show that God has done everything in his power to prevent evil, contrary to conclusion 5.
Two problems arise, the first being that God is no longer omnipotent. Secondly, Plantinga never explicitly defends the property of transworld depravity that he attributes as a necessary property for all created creatures in these alternative worlds to have. Plantinga line of argument was that because transworld depravity is a logically possible true condition for all creatures in alternate worlds where no one ever chooses sin, it must be true that God has created the best version of our world. However, as I think LaFollett intuitively responds, logical possibility is not necessity, and we have no reason to think that God could not weakly actualize a world in which we always choose good. The logical possibility of transworld depravity being a necessary condition does not equate at all to this property in fact being a necessary condition that all creatures would have. He simply assumes this, and as Hugh LaFollett rightly points out with Goldbach’s conjecture, though it hasn’t been disproven that every even integer greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers, the fact that it hasn’t been proven means it is not necessarily true. The same principal when applied to Plantinga, leaves his Free Will Defence in shambles given that the whole argument rested on creatures in this hypothetical world necessarily having the property of transworld depravity.
I reject Plantinga’s approach of arguing against the validity of the problem of evil, but agree that the problem of evil argument proposed above is not a valid argument against God’s existence or qualities(omnipotence and omniscience). To be clear, I accept counterfactuals as possible actions are a superset of actualizable actions: all actualizable actions are included in possible actions. I accept that if there were logically possible worlds where we could have only chosen good, then these worlds are actualizable by God. I simply deny that these possible worlds exist under a compatibilist view, though not because of transworld depravity. LaFollett makes the same wrong assumptions as Geirsson and Losonsky in rejecting Plantinga’s Free Will Defence. I argue that these mistakes come from a wrong interpretation of the nature of God’s omnipotence in premise 2. I use omnipotence from here on to include both the power of being all knowing(omniscience) and all powerful for the sake of brevity. I do this given that if God lacked neither traits, the conclusion from the problem of evil would come true anyways.
LaFollett, Geirsson and Losonsky mistake logical possibility for human conceptual possibility. By doing so, they assume God’s omnipotence as being necessitated to actualize the best conceptual possibility, which may oftentimes be illogical. This of course is for the very reason that when we refer to conceptual possibility, we are by definition referring to a human conceived conceptual possibility. To ask God to create a world in which people are fully free yet do not at least once choose evil is a logical impossibility, just as it would be logically impossible for God to create squares that have three edges, or create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it. Such things are only conceptually possible, and I’d argue that even our understanding of such things as conceptually possible is flawed stemming from sin. Try drawing a square circle. You will quickly find this is impossible. God’s nature itself is logic, and we essentially ask for paradoxes here when claiming God could create free creatures that could only love. In fact, one could take a step further and ask whether such things as drawing a square circle are even conceptually possible in the first place, as it seems there are degrees to what we mean by this. To the degree that we can have an abstract concept of something, a square circle is possible, but in any more concrete sense, it is impossible to even truly conceive of. Thus, if one is to accept God’s nature as being logical, then it follows the conclusion that our evil world shows that God has not done everything in his power to prevent sin is false. The counterfactual CF = “If God were to actualize a world where free agents always choose the good, then no one would ever make bad choices” is proposed as the best case of premise 4 not being true, with the intent of showing that an all powerful and all good God would do everything in his power to prevent evil, but it fails given the mistaken equivalence of conceptual and logical possibility. Given CF is false, conclusion 5 is also false:
Premise 1: God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
Premise 2: An omnipotent being can only actualize that which is logically possible.
Premise 3: Free will, in the meaningful sense, involves the genuine ability for a moral agent to choose between good and evil.
Premise 4: If it were the case that free moral agents always chose the good, this would suggest they don’t actually have the freedom to choose otherwise, thus contradicting the notion of free will as described in Premise 3.
Conclusion 1 (from Premise 4): Therefore, it is logically impossible for truly free agents to always choose the good.
Conclusion 2 (from Premises 2 and Conclusion 1): Therefore, even an omnipotent being cannot actualize a world where free agents always choose the good.
Final Conclusion: The counterfactual statement “If God were to actualize a world where free agents always choose the good, then no one would ever make bad choices” is logically impossible
Proving CF is false also disproves Leibniz argument for the problem of evil(which arrives at a similar conclusion) by rejecting premise 2 and maintaining the this world is necessarily the best of all possible worlds.
Premise 1: If God were all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, then this world would be the best possible world.
Premise 2: But surely this world is not the best possible world.
Conclusion: Thus, God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.
Indeed, this world is the best possible world.
But the problems aren’t over. Transworld depravity states that truly free creatures must be equally capable of moral good and moral evil. While we have maintained God’s omnipotence with the necessity of the transworld depravity property, we haven’t provided justification for incompatibilism being true in the first place. The Free Will Defence assumes an incompatibilist view, where free will and determinism are mutually exclusive, both cannot exist at the same time. That is to say, if our actions are causally determined by prior events, those actions aren’t free.
I’ve made two necessary assumptions so far. Firstly, I’ve taken an incompatibilist stance when applying the Free Will Defence towards the problem of evil argument above. Later on, we must also explore the compatibilist interpretation of free will and determinism insofar as the implications to the problem of evil is concerned, and any possible contradictions. Secondly, I’ve assumed that CF is indeed that best case scenario, and from this assumption argued that if CF is impossible, then all inferior cases of a “possible world” argument to support the problem of evil is false. By showing the best case scenario of CF is false, I can reject the problem of evil’s conclusion 5. I can think of no better outcomes for a counterfactual than CF- “If God were to actualize a world where free agents always choose the good, then no one would ever make bad choices,” and so I will leave this assumption as true for the remainder of the post, though as a reader you are free to ponder alternative challenges.
At this stage, three issues remain. Two come from different interpretations of incompatibilism(which the free will defence rests on), while one comes from the nature of heaven and free will. Before I dive, I want to clarify that I take free will as being able to make choices within limitations of natural law, and not the ability to supersede our biological nature, contrary to sovereign free will, which only God has. Natural law made up of the conjunction of: 1. the intuition for what is good, which I equate with the holy spirit. 2. Physical laws that the universe operates by. Free will also does not have degrees: bacteria does not have less free will than a human, they have less outcomes from their exercising, but their capacity of exercising is the same. As a reminder, I equate sovereign free will with omnipotence and have so far shown that this omnipotence is power over logical possibility, not what is impossible(which would be God defying his own nature of logic). Plantinga has stated that its impossible we never use our freedom for evil, echoing the economic idea that the true oppportunity cost of something is the alternatives we have, as that is what makes something free in the first place, which I agree with. But unlike Alvin planting’s defence for free will, I take it that merely giving a possibility is not enough to explain the problem of evil. I do not purport to know what God’s reasoning is for permitting evil, but merely that we must approach the truth. I also do not claim that something with the ability for choice makes us inherently greater than something that does not as st. Augustine would have it: “…A runaway horse is better than a stone which does not run away because it lacks self-movement and sense perception, so the creature is more excellent which sins by free will than that which does not sin only because it has no free will.”(quotation)
Now here’s the new(ish) problems. If incompatibilism is true, either free will exists and determinism doesn’t, or free will doesn’t exist and determinism does. The former is libertarian free will, and raises the question of how God could truly be omnipotent and predestine anything if we have libertarian free will? This we have solved by redefining omnipotence as not being able to doing anything conceptually possible, but all that is logically possible. God’s is logical, God does not contradict himself, he designed the universe in a logical way, part of that logic in his design is predestination. Therefore, God’s omnipotence and human libertarian free will are not contradictory. God, in His omnipotence and logic, has created a universe where predestination (in the form of knowing and incorporating all possible outcomes of free choices) and libertarian free will (in the form of humans’ ability to make choices freely) coexist.
The latter is hard determinism, and raises up a question of why a good God would predestine the majority of people to die? The way this issue is raised from hard determinism is from the following:
Premise 1: We have free will that is limited.
Premise 2: Our free will comes from God.
Premise 3: Our limitations come from God
Premise 4: Free will is what allows for sin
Premise 5: Without free will, we would not sin and consequently die.
The Repugnant Conclusion- 6: Death is ultimately not only given, but determined by god.
Why would a good God predestine the majority of people to die?
If God predestined the majority of people to die, it seems by definition God did not make it possible for everyone to be saved, and that furthermore, we cannot die once saved. On this view of predestination, salvation is a binary event with no in betweens from 0-1, it is all or nothing. Predestination and determinism certainly support each other here. If god chose certain people to go to heaven, god chose people to go to hell. If we mean predestine in terms of causation, then God’s goodness and omnipotence comes into question. Mathew 23:37, god gathered people but people didn’t listen. Peoples choice affects gods choice. God made those people choose that way in the first place. Those choices led to them rebelling, and the way they were able to rebell was because of God. God enabled/predestined/chose them to rebell. Not made, but enabled in providing the sufficient conditions. Is providing sufficient conditions the same as causing? I can’t think of a sufficient conditioner sin not from God that causes us to sin. If the answer is yes, then we accept that God has caused the majority of people to die, which is a problem If no, then God has merely provided sufficient conditions for people to die, which given what we’ve established prior, that if the best possible scenario of an alternate world CF is not possible and the current scenario where we have freely chosen to die is the best case, God’s omnipotence, omniscience and existence are not at risk, I will elaborate further on why this risk evaporates.
- Regularity Theory posits that causation is a matter of regular succession — event A is a cause of event B if A is regularly followed by B. If God’s predestination is regularly followed by death, it would be considered the cause under this theory. However, if there are instances where predestination does not lead to death or if there are other factors consistently preceding death, it may not be seen as the direct cause.
- Counterfactual Theories of causation hold that event A causes event B if, in the closest possible world where A does not occur, B also does not occur. Under this theory, if in a hypothetical scenario where God does not predestine, death also does not occur, then God’s predestination is considered the cause of death. However, if death can occur independently of God’s predestination, then it is not the cause.
- Probabilistic Causation suggests that causes change the probability of their effects. A causes B if A’s occurrence changes the probability of B. If God’s predestination significantly increases the probability of death, then it would be viewed as the cause under this theory. However, if death can still occur at a similar rate without God’s predestination, then it would not be seen as the cause.
- Causal Process Theories posit that causes are physical processes or chains of events that connect cause and effect. If God’s predestination initiates a process or chain of events that inevitably leads to death, it would be viewed as the cause under this theory. However, if death can occur outside this process or chain of events, then it would not be seen as the cause.
- These theories consider causes to be intentional interventions that lead to certain outcomes. If God’s predestination is an intentional intervention that inevitably leads to death, then it would be considered the cause. However, if death can occur even without God’s intervention, or if God’s intervention does not always lead to death, it would not be viewed as the cause. Regularity, Counterfactual, Probabilistic, Causal Process, and Agency/Interventionist Theories all point to God’s provision of sufficient conditions as tantamount to causing death.
Intuitively I think that they are not the same, if not only for the reason that sufficiency and causation would have no real distinction in meaning if we used these two words synonymously. Two propositions can simultaneously be sufficient for one another, however, in terms of causation, at most only one can be the cause of the other.
Let A and B be two propositions.
A → B (A implies B) means “A is a sufficient condition for B.”
A ⇒ B (A causes B) means “A is a cause of B.”
A symmetric relation is denoted by ↔, meaning if A ↔ B, then B ↔ A.
An asymmetric relation is denoted by ↛, meaning if A ⇒ B, then B ↛ A.
Sufficiency is symmetric: If A → B (A is a sufficient condition for B), then it also holds that ¬B → ¬A (the non-occurrence of B is a sufficient condition for the non-occurrence of A), meaning A ↔ B.
Causation is Asymmetric: If A ⇒ B (A causes B), then it does not hold that B ⇒ A (B does not cause A), meaning A ⇒ B and B ↛ A.
Therefore, A ↔ B (sufficiency) and A ⇒ B and B ↛ A (causation) cannot both hold, as a relation cannot be both symmetric and asymmetric.
For example, consider the increased molecular motion that comes with heating a substance. Heating a substance (A) ensures faster molecular motion (B), signifying A is a sufficient condition for B. This relationship is symmetric, meaning if B doesn’t happen (no faster molecular motion), then A didn’t happen (no heating). However, heating a substance (A) leading to faster molecular motion (B) is a case of causation. This relationship is asymmetric – if B doesn’t happen, it doesn’t necessarily mean that A didn’t happen. Causation is asymmetric, one happens before the other, while sufficiency is symmetric.
When causation is understood as either
- a matter of regular succession where the constant conjunction of A and B establishes a causal relationship
- a change in probability, where the occurrence of A increases the likelihood of B
- physical chains connecting cause and effect
All three conceptions of causality lead to lead to sufficient conditions as being equivalent of causation at the expense of temporal precedence which distinguish sufficiency and causality, forgetting the asymmetric nature of causation and symmetric nature of sufficiency. But have we exhausted all options for denying sufficiency as being different from causation? Typically, ‘A is a sufficient condition for B’ means that if A occurs, then B will also occur, vs ’A causes B’ implies not only does A precede B in time, but the occurrence of A is necessary for B to occur.
If we accept that sufficiency is not the same as causation, the question becomes why would a good God would provide sufficient conditions for the majority of people to die? The implication being that a good God not would not do such a thing, so either he is not good, not all powerful, or doesn’t exist. We’ve rejected this on grounds that existing theories of causation supporting the equivalence of causation and sufficient conditions do not account for temporal ordering, that causation is linear. Critics may argue for backwards causation where an effect can precede its cause in time, or perhaps broadening the scope of the regularity framework of causation to include counterfactual dependance, but rejecting this, we’ve made some more progress in knowing that because sufficiency is not causation, God did not cause death. But just because God didn’t cause death does not mean providing sufficient conditions for death is good. If providing sufficient conditions for death isn’t good, then we are left with the repugnant conclusion, which we are trying to avoid here. Romans 9 gives an answer along the lines of you don’t have grounds to question me, but intuitively it seems like a good God would give an answer here.
Consider a highly skilled mathematician that has the ability to explain and communicate complex mathematical concepts effectively to others.God, as an omnipotent being, possesses even greater abilities and understanding than any human mathematician.Given the importance of understanding God’s motivations and actions, it would be beneficial for God to provide explanations and communicate with humanity. Therefore, based on the greater abilities and importance of the subject matter, it seems reasonable to expect that God, being more capable than any mathematician, would make an effort to explain His motivations and actions to humanity. i would think that the greater the mathematicians ability, the more capable he is of explaining it to me, or least try. given God’s omnipotence is greater than any mathematician, the importance of this subject, it seems weird he not only didn’t explain, but didn’t try to explain at all.
Response: Even if God were to try, we wouldn’t be able to understand anything
Counter: No because if he did, we would be able to understand at LEAST x amounts of knowledge, given that faith requires at least x amounts of knowledge. X here is the simplest indivisible version of a piece of knowledge that allows sufficiency for one to be able to act on such knowledge. For example, we have to know the gospel as an x knowledge point to believe in god.
Response: Just like an existence proof in mathematics shows that a solution must exist, the suffering of His Son on the cross demonstrates that there must be a good reason for evil, is his evidence of trying, even if we don’t know what that reason is.
Counter: this merely proves there is a reason, but once more, if we are benefitted from knowing why god does things, why doesn’t he explain himself.
Response: it might be better that he doesn’t explain. you assume that it is better for us to understand part of his plan than to not understand it at all and just believe him with faith, this is not true.
Counter: Yes, and reasonably enough, but if I had x more knowledge I would believe in him more likely. why not prove only one thing, if even that one thing would bring us closer to him and that would be better than not being closer? if I didn’t make this assumption, if I made no assumption at all and don’t know whether his plan is good, then I also don’t know why god didn’t try to explain himself, then I am left with the repugnant conclusion that god is either not good not all powerful or nonexistent again. The motivation of course, being that had I had 1 percent certainty of god from having x amount of knowledge revealed to me by him, pascals wager would have me be a martyr, which would be better than not knowing god at all.
Response: proving only one thing might be illogical to God’s nature, just as knowing 1 percent of his plan might not be possible in the first place, unless we view the universe as made of perfect pieces, which would allow god to give us knowledge of individual perfect pieces. But given we’ve accepted linear causation, the universe is interconnected, knowledge of anything about the universe itself is impossible without full knowledge. Impossibility of partial knowledge here mirror the impossibility of partial faith, as divine revelation suggests that certainty or faith in god is binary, all or nothing. Only 0 or 100 percent, no in between. While on the other hand, proving everything would take away our free will.
This is of course, discounting that faith occurs in a range. it is more accurate to view faith as a spectrum, with varying degrees of certainty.The belief state B can be represented by a binary variable, where B ∈ {0,1}. If B = 0, it signifies the absence of belief, and if B = 1, it signifies the presence of belief. Spectrum of Confidence: Confidence level C in that belief, on the other hand, can be represented by a continuous variable, where 0 ≤ C ≤ 1. A confidence level of 0 signifies absolute uncertainty (despite the presence of belief), and a confidence level of 1 signifies absolute certainty. In other words, C represents the degree of belief. Hence, if B = 1 (belief is present), C can still range from 0 to 1. If B = 0 (belief is absent), C is not defined because you cannot have a confidence level in a non-existent belief. So, when we say that belief or faith is binary, we refer to B. When we talk about degrees of belief or faith, we are discussing C. When asserting Faith as Binary one is saying faith is only a level of certainty that is either 0% or 100%. This conflates the binary nature of faith (the existence or absence of faith, represented by B) with the degree of certainty in that faith (a spectrum, represented by C). In our model, faith is indeed binary, but it does not imply a fixed degree of certainty. You can possess faith (B = 1), but the confidence in that faith (C) can vary from 0 to 1.
Consider a light switch. The switch itself has two states: it can be either ‘on’ or ‘off’. This is binary. However, suppose this light switch is attached to a dimmer, controlling a light bulb. While the switch itself can only be ‘on’ or ‘off’, the brightness of the light (when the switch is ‘on’) can vary widely, from very dim to very bright. This is a spectrum. In this analogy, the light switch represents belief or faith, and the brightness of the light represents the degree of confidence in that belief. You either believe something (switch is ‘on’) or you don’t (switch is ‘off’). But if you do believe, your confidence in that belief can range from low (dim light) to high (bright light). So, when we say belief or faith is binary, we’re talking about the light switch: you either believe or you don’t. When we say the degree of confidence in that belief exists on a spectrum, we’re talking about the brightness of the light: your confidence can range from low to high. This is in line with the idea that those who are saved by faith cannot die, and faith is given from god, as something given from god is absolute and cannot be taken away. Faith’s existence is binary, and we have varying degrees of its quality in a range.
Recall that previously I rejected that God doesn’t explain because we wouldn’t understand, and was faced with the counter that “proving only one thing might be illogical to God’s nature, just as knowing 1 percent of his plan might not be possible in the first place, unless we view the universe as made of perfect pieces, which would allow god to give us knowledge of individual perfect pieces.” Having any such individual perfect knowledge pieces requires faith’s existence at the very least, given that faith is what allows for knowledge of god. Since established faiths existence is binary and its quality can have a range, by the same token, knowledge of God(through faith) must also bear the same nature. Whether or not we know God is binary, but the quality of which we know God varies(with our faith). Therefore, the “we wouldn’t understand” explanation for God’s non justification for providing sufficient conditions for death via free will cannot stand. It is also for this reason that a Christian can know God fully(no free will), or not know him at all(not a Christian) (If your looking at the glaring assumption I made, I might explore this in a later post: how does faith allow us to know God?)
We are back at our core problem, which can be restated in a couple of ways:
Why would a good God would provide sufficient conditions for the majority of people to die?
How can God be right in providing sufficient conditions for free will?
How is not wrong to provide sufficient conditions for free will?
Why can’t the existence of a world with creatures transworld depraved be better than one without?
Can life be inherently valuable without the capacity for moral good and evil?
One argument to defend God’s creation being good is:
Premise 1: God is morally good and just.
Premise 2: Free will is a valuable and morally significant capacity.
Premise 3: For free will to be genuine, individuals must have the ability to make choices and face consequences.
Premise 4: Death is a natural consequence of the human condition.
Premise 5: Death provides a significant consequence that affects human choices and actions.
Conclusion- 6: It is right for God to provide sufficient conditions for free will and the possibility of death because it upholds the moral value of free will and allows for meaningful choices with consequential outcomes.
But it’s not apparent to me that premise 2 is true. On my view, a world in which free will causes more suffering than good makes its existence a net negative. Furthermore, free will is not inherently valuable, life is. We would not even be able to exercise free will if we were not alive. It seems obvious to say that life is a precondition for free will. What’s wrong with a world without free creatures? Presumably, it is not good. But if we are to take life as innately valuable, isn’t the existence of a world with creatures transworld depraved better than one without? Plantinga denies the existence of such a world as the creation of it would require creatures with transworld depravity, contradicting with God’s own nature. We’ve made significant progress thus far in establishing(in order):
- Free Will is from God, and because of this ability, all have sinned and died
- Transworld depravity is a necessary property of any CF alternative making it impossible, and our world the best possible version in an incompatibilist conception of determinism and free will
- Sufficiency and causation are different, and God provided sufficient conditions for free will
- Knowledge of God follows from faith. Faith and knowledge of God both have a first dimension of existence that is binary, and a second dimension of quality Q that ranges from 0< F < infinity, which is preconditioned on the firsts truth.
- The Gospel is an x/minimum truth all Christians have. Increases in knowledge points of x would increase our faith, God cannot give us all knowledge points of xyz either. x’s, yet we know it is necessary he at least must give a singular knowledge point x being the gospel.
The initial question: why would a good God would provide sufficient conditions for the majority of people to die? Given the establishment of faith as having both an existence and quality dimension, we’ve made progress to the right question that can bring us closer to an answer: How is god morally good in providing sufficient conditions for free will(which leads some to death), given that he can neither give only a singular knowledge point, nor prove everything.
All points until the last we’ve established. Lets look at the last bullet point: 1. God cannot show us everything as full knowledge of him would take away free will. Because causation is linear and connects everything, proving everything would take away free will for the reason that full knowledge necessitates belief(the question of why Satan could fall despite having debatably full knowledge of God is irrelevant here) 2. Yet, we must be able to at least know a singular piece of knowledge x, the gospel, as it is a necessary condition for belief.
I stress condition, because unlike the bible which is a sufficiency preconditioned on the gospel, the gospel is a necessity. The implication of course being that, we must know God before we understand the bible. Christ alone is sufficient for salvation, no bible needed, Christ is the Gospel. The bible only helps in knowing him more. So if we must at least know the gospel, and yet God cannot prove only a single piece of knowledge to us because there is no partial knowledge about anything in universe because of the linearity of causation, how do we solve this contradiction?
It is here we have to consider carefully what sense of knowledge of the gospel is necessary, otherwise the contradiction becomes quickly apparent. What sense of knowing of Christ, of the Gospel, are we able to, and must have? Put a simpler way, in what way do we actually know Christ? This, I think is a deeper question than it seems. Jesus’ dual nature allows Him to bridge the gap between human limitations and divine knowledge, but we are not Jesus, so this isn’t a cop out we can use. Yet at the same time, we need him, and we at least need to know him in some way. So what sense of knowing allows us to not understand him fully, yet know him enough such that we meet the necessary condition for salvation? I think whats becoming clear here is that whether knowing has degrees of from 0-100, or is a two option binary 0-1, 100 and 1 here are equivalent to faith, as the smallest faith is enough.
The difficulty is distinguishing between which sense of knowing is correct, one with a range with infinite degrees, or binary in only have two options. I’ve established above faith has both an existence and quality dimension, but the nature of “knowing” we have of the gospel and of God remains elusive. I will explore this in a later post dedicated solely to this, as it requires more expansion.
A second issue remains. As a reminder, initially I had stated “to Plantinga, our world is the best case scenario of reality playing out.” While we’ve justified our world as the best case scenario and rejected a compatibilist alternate world with the hypothetical CF world, we’ve not explained the contradictions that arise from our current world. More specifically, between the future state of our current world and a libertarian form of free will. Previously we asked: “if heaven is a place we don’t sin because we have everything we need, then why couldn’t god make a world where we have that in the first place and never sinned. We know this is asking for the logical impossible, which God cannot do because his very nature is logic. The question we now ask: If heaven is a place without sin, how can people be free in heaven? Such a being would have to have the capacity for moral good and evil, never choose evil, yet do so in such a way that they do not have the property of transworld depravity as we previously established any such being must have.
The bible tells us that in heaven we do not sin, but it is not clear whether that is because we do not have the capacity for sin, leading us to have transworld depravity, or because we have everything we need. If it is the latter, having everything we need is synonymous with the circumstances being right, and if that is the case, we are in a circular argument.
1. True free will means having the ability to choose between good or evil, and these choices depend on our circumstances.
2. In heaven, the circumstances are such that beings can only choose good, so by definition they lack true free will
3. God, despite being omnipotent, cannot create beings that always choose good, as they would exhibit ‘transworld depravity’ — choosing evil in at least one possible scenario under certain circumstances.
4. Yet, in heaven, God has created anew beings who only choose good.
The created anew beings in reference here are those saved by Christ, and the question here is whether we only choose good because of the circumstances in heaven, or because of something else. If it is because of the circumstances, we fall back into a previous paradox: how can an omnipotent God create beings in heaven whose circumstances lead them to only choose good (thereby lacking true free will), yet cannot create beings that only choose good due to the potential for transworld depravity under different circumstances? It cannot be solely because of the circumstances. God does not determine us using circumstances to use our free will not to sin. The possibility of sin needs to really be there. At any given point in time in heaven, we need to have the ability to sin, and to fall again, it’s just that we don’t, albeit for different reasons. On a compatibilist view, we have free will but don’t sin in heaven because it is determined we don’t. On an incompatibilist view like that which Plantingas “Free Will Defence” rests on, free will and determinism cannot co-exist. Either we don’t have free will to sin, or determinism is false and God does not determine(using circumstances) that we don’t sin in heaven.
One way to reconcile (a) the redeemed in heaven have free will, and (b) the redeemed in heaven are no longer capable of sinning, is the Concession Strategy. The Concession Strategy gives up winning the war to win a particular battle. It reconciles the tension under a compatibilist view, but gives up an incompatibilist view and Plantinga’s Free Will Defence which rests on it. John Donnelly argues for the compatibilist Concession Strategy based on the importance of free will: “to think that when one attains heaven, due to the achievement of some degree of moral perfection, one no longer needs to be free, is to misunderstand the Christian notion of heaven.(“Eschatological Enquiry,” p. 27) Augustine argues against the Concession Strategy even winning the battle on the front of a compatibilist view. Augustine argues that eternal peace and knowledge that one cannot sin is a defining characteristic of heaven, and part of the infinite joy of heaven comes from this characteristic. Between an individual who has this assurance, and an individual that does not, only the one who has assurance of never sinning again can have infinite joy. Therefore, if a second fall from grace is possible in heaven, it is not heaven, and the Concession Strategy is flawed.
Alternatively, a molinist strategy for reconciling (i) and (ii) is to maintain that God uses his middle knowledge of contingent counterfactuals(If agent A were in circumstances C, A would freely do X) to set circumstances up so we have free will and can still sin, but never do because of circumstances. The dilemma that Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe say this faces on page 8 in (https://kevintimpe.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2018/12/heavenly_freedom.pdf) is if we have free will and can still sin, even if we don’t carry it out, we aren’t perfect. If we cannot sin, then we’re not truly free, or at the very least, we are less free than on earth. Eerily similar right? More broadly speaking, we’re trying to reconcile goodness with free will now(for our nature in heaven), rather than goodness with omnipotence(in the case of god).
Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe’s agree with Aquinas that heaven is a place where our moral state is like concrete, which once hardened, can no longer change. The lives we live on earth mold our spiritual concrete in this way and that, but once hardened, it cannot change. Aquinas calls this version of free will where we can deliberate among goods but not choose evil, non-derivative free will. Aquinas writes, “The will of Christ, though determined to good, is not determined to this or that good. Hence it pertains to Christ, even as to the blessed, to choose with a free will confirmed in good.” (Summa theologiae, III q.18 a.4 ad.3.) and after being purified of an imperfect will and body, we can no longer sin. They reconcile the tension between (a) and (b) by giving up the ability to do evil as a necessary component of free will. Freely chosen actions with a moral quality need not have the possibility of evil to justify either their moral quality or free will itself. In the eternal garden, I might choose to tend to roses or lilies of my own free will, but I won’t be plotting to use the garden hose for a surprise water attack on the saints. Similarly, I may choose to play the flute or piano, but at no point will I have an inclination to drop kick the apostles.
This non-derivative view of free will is tempting to me, as it is close to solving the tension between (a) and (b), as well as the problem of Evil, if it were not for giving up the possibility of evil as a component for free will. I think this is a crucial part of free will that can’t be given up, and it is relatively easy to show as much. In the garden of eden, god created man and woman, and they free chose evil. If we did not have the ability to choose evil in heaven, then we would have a “less,” or at the very least, different kind of free will than Adam. Recall the more refined question we’ve reduced the problem of Evil down to: If heaven is a place without sin, how can people be free in heaven? How can we have the capacity for moral good and evil, never choose evil, yet do so without catching a flu of the illogical transworld depravity property?
Perhaps my assumptions are wrong. On what grounds do I have to maintain that the ability to choose evil is necessary for true free will, and that subsequently a being that can choose evil has a higher degree of free will than one who cannot? Intuitively, I have this inclination because the traditional definition of freedom as having the ability to make morally significant choices, and morality only exists when there is a standard of good and evil. But does morality requiring a standard of good and evil necessitate at least one instance of both to happen/be actualized? If yes, then heaven doesn’t seem to pass this necessity, since people can’t sin. If we accept that moral standards can exist independent of their being an instance of good and bad being carried out, then I can argue beings in heaven incapable of sin are not less free than their counterparts that can sin.
A part of the holy spirit lives inside each of us, Christian or un-christian. When we sin, the spirit withers. To what degree it withers, and to what degree it needs to be alive to go to heaven I won’t touch on for now. But the point is this: It is the holy spirit inside us that allows for consciousness, this consciousness inherently biases us towards the good, and allows for even honour among thieves. If even I never have the thought to murder a baby, it’s not hard to imagine that someone who lives a perfect, sinless life of perfection, beauty, and honour will never have the thought of sin. This man is Jesus. Jesus is what God sees prior to entering heaven, and afterwards, it is what he sees in us as well. We are one in him. Jesus could have sinned, but didn’t. It is the same heaven for us. The problem(s) have finally been solved.
Let’s recap. We started with the problem of Evil, and raised a challenge of why God(given his omnipotent, omniscient qualities), couldn’t created a counterfactual CF world where circumstances play out in such a way that humans never sin. Planting in his Free Will Defence says its because Plantinga denies the existence of such a world on the grounds that any creature in such a world would necessarily suffer from transworld depravity(Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 188). This is the property that at any given time t, any truly creature C would commit at least one wrong action A. In other words, God cannot create a world where humans(or any to her creature) are capable of moral good and not moral evil. I accept this, as God cannot contradict his own nature of logic. God cannot create a sinless earth because it would have the property of transworld depravity, but he can create a sinless heaven. Our nature after being cleansed by Grace is cemented in a state without sin. We don’t choose sin in heaven because we don’t want to, but we could, so free will remains. This non-derivative free will is no less free than the kind we have on earth to choose good or evil. It is consistent with both incompatibilism and compatibilism. Incompatibilism is satisfied because the option to do otherwise exists; compatibilism is satisfied because actions flow from internal states without external coercion.