I want to begin my discussion of the question above by focusing on Mother Teresa. She was a wonderful woman who did great things for the poor. Her decision to act in such a way likely owed a great deal to the external environment to which she was exposed. I don’t know much about her life, but I do know that she was born into the Catholic faith, and was likely raised to see helping the less fortunate members of society as a good thing.
This, for me, raises the question of how much of her life we can attribute to her exercising her will. After all, it is likely that if she had been born to secular parents she would have lived a different life, and we never would have known of her great example. Do we have free will, or are we restricted by the environment in which we are born and raised?
If our environment does play a significant role in our development, why did God not alter the environment of Hitler, Stalin, or any other person who commits atrocity? We can put it even more simply:
Why does God allow children to be raped or murdered? What makes preserving one’s free will superior to a child’s well-being?
If we don’t have free will, why did God create a world in which we are determined to act wickedly?
