One final time: freedom of will does NOT logically lead to evil actions

[tdgesq]

First of all: welcome back!

Thank you. It’s very good to be back.

I see the source of some misunderstanding. With Chiral we came to the agreement that both PAP and LCC are necessary to talk about meaningful freedom to choose.

That’s great that you have an agreement. Now how is it that God can necessarily actualize a world where all persons freely do what is right? God certainly cannot proximately cause the person to always do what is right. If he did there would be no LCC, and, therefore, no free will. Similarly, if one believes in PAP as a valid measure of free will, then God also cannot make it impossible to do otherwise. If God made it impossible to do otherwise (impossible to choose immorally) then free will would not exist. So how exactly do you propose that God, if he wanted to, could have actualized a world where all persons freely do what is right?

Is total brainwashing really necessary? It does not seem to be.

Do you mean could a child be socially conditioned by his parents such that the conditioning is the true cause of his actions? Sure. I don’t care if you call that brainwashing or something else. The fact is that under that circumstance the child is not responsible for his actions because his actions are not free. The same is true if God “makes it” so that the child will never choose to commit an immoral act. No freedom because PAP and LCC are violated.

And I would like to add: in the OP I did not try to assert that God can create a world without evil which is comprized of an arbitrarily chosen set of individuals, say a bunch of incurable psychopaths. But the creation of free agents who do not wish to commit evil acts is within the power of God.

You mean that the creation of agents who freely do not wish to commit evil acts is within the power of God. And I ask you – why is that necessarily the case? According to you, if the agents are truly free then they have the ability to do otherwise (commit an immoral act) and they are the cause of the choice (agent causation) to only commit moral acts. But who is to say that any possible agent would choose to exercise his freedom in this way? To claim that there must be some possible persons who would exercise their freedom to always choose what is right is to beg the question.

These agents all know which decision would be deemed moral and which one would be deemed immoral. They all have the LCC to make a decision. They all have the PAP to act either way. Therefore they are truly free to choose. They just happen to make the correct decison, because they want to.

It is up to the person to decide that. You have no basis to state that there will necessarily be some possible persons out there who will always freely choose to do what is right. Here are a bunch of different scenarios:

(1) There are some possible persons who will always choose to do what is right;
(2) There are some possible persons who will sometimes choose to do what is right;
(3) There are some possible persons who always choose to do what is wrong;
(4) All possible persons will always choose to do what is right;
(5) All possible persons will sometimes choose to do what is right;
(6) All possible persons will always choose to do what is wrong.

Why do you assume that (1) is necessarily true rather than (6)? If I were to tell you that it is necessarily true that all possible persons will always choose to do what is wrong you would scream bloody murder, and rightfully so. Yet you seem to have no problem asserting that it is necessarily true that there are some possible persons who will always choose to do what is right. There is simply no basis upon which you can even claim that (1) is probably true, much less necessarily true. That being the case, you really need to stop telling folks that God necessarily could have created a state of affairs where persons always freely refrain from committing evil acts.

 

[Spock]

It is up to the person to decide that. You have no basis to state that there will necessarily be some possible persons out there who will always freely choose to do what is right. Here are a bunch of different scenarios:

(1) There are some possible persons who will always choose to do what is right;
(2) There are some possible persons who will sometimes choose to do what is right;
(3) There are some possible persons who always choose to do what is wrong;
(4) All possible persons will always choose to do what is right;
(5) All possible persons will sometimes choose to do what is right;
(6) All possible persons will always choose to do what is wrong.

Why do you assume that (1) is necessarily true rather than (6)? If I were to tell you that it is necessarily true that all possible persons will always choose to do what is wrong you would scream bloody murder, and rightfully so. Yet you seem to have no problem asserting that it is necessarily true that there are some possible persons who will always choose to do what is right. There is simply no basis upon which you can even claim that (1) is probably true, much less necessarily true. That being the case, you really need to stop telling folks that God necessarily could have created a state of affairs where persons always freely refrain from committing evil acts.

First, I would not scream “bloody murder”.

Second, your scenario is unnecessarily complicated. It is easy to get lost in the too many possibilities. To analyze the situation a much simpler model will suffice, and that is what I attempted to do all along.

The model is this: one agent, one decision. There are two possible outcomes:

W-M: The agent freely makes the correct choice.
W-I: The agent freely makes the incorrect choice.

I say that God can actualize either one of these. You say that God cannot actualize either one, because the process of actualization will “rob” the agent of his freedom to choose otherwise.

Instead your proposed model is this:

W-U: God creates “a” world, where the agent will choose either correctly or incorrectly, and God’s foreknowledge has no bearing on the issue. However, the agent can only choose one way or the other. You say that it is the agent who resolves the isse, and therefore it is the agent who actualizes the world - which will “become” either W-M, or W-I - based upon the decision. So far, so good. Now God’s foreknowledge comes into the picture. The world is not created yet. The agent has not made his decision. God can foresee which way the agent will decide, and based upon this foreknowledge he can actualize the world if the agent will make the correct choice, and decline to actualize the world if the agent makes the incorrect choice.

I see the difference as pure semanitcs. Both worlds are possible. Neither one is “necessary”. If the agent would decide correctly, God “allows” him to make the decision by actualizing him. If the agent would decide incorrectly, God does not create him. Where is the problem?

 

[Spock]

One consolation, for those “naive” enough to genuinely believe, comes from the conviction that justice will ultimately be served even while evil is given free reign to play out its hand during our temporary stay here on earth. And justice means: whatever is required to make things right. In this view, all victims, past present, and future will be consoled, made whole, satisfied with Gods judgments. And plenty of victims over the years have persevered with just this kind of faith.

Justice is just a human concoction to hide the fact that past injustices cannot be made right. There is no “undo” key in reality. Whatever happened stays the way it was. Of course, if you happen to believe that “justice” will make things right, that may very well be a consolation for you. But what about those who do not believe that? They die without consolation.

 

[john_doran]

W-U: God creates “a” world, where the agent will choose either correctly or incorrectly, and God’s foreknowledge has no bearing on the issue. However, the agent can only choose one way or the other. You say that it is the agent who resolves the isse, and therefore it is the agent who actualizes the world - which will “become” either W-M, or W-I - based upon the decision. So far, so good. Now God’s foreknowledge comes into the picture. The world is not created yet. The agent has not made his decision. God can foresee which way the agent will decide, and based upon this foreknowledge he can actualize the world if the agent will make the correct choice, and decline to actualize the world if the agent makes the incorrect choice.

I see the difference as pure semanitcs. Both worlds are possible. Neither one is “necessary”. If the agent would decide correctly, God “allows” him to make the decision by actualizing him. If the agent would decide incorrectly, God does not create him. Where is the problem?

well, if free agents, and not god, actualize the worlds that contain their free choices, then the “problem” is that possibly there is no world at which every free agent always chooses correctly.

your original scenario depended on god being the sole actualizer of worlds containing acts of free agency; but if god cannot actualize the free choices of other beings (and a fortiori the worlds containing the states of affairs caused by those choices), and if this is true:

1. possibly (no free agent always chooses correctly);

which entails:

1. possibly (there is no possible world containing both free agents and no moral evil)

then god cannot actualize a world without moral evil.

(this is the molinist position, as developed by plantinga and thomas flint, among others)

 

[fhansen]

Justice is just a human concoction to hide the fact that past injustices cannot be made right. There is no “undo” key in reality. Whatever happened stays the way it was. Of course, if you happen to believe that “justice” will make things right, that may very well be a consolation for you. But what about those who do not believe that? They die without consolation.

Sure, and you believe faith to be a human concoction as well, based on wishful thinking, while I’ve experienced it to be a powerful gift that confirmed the sense I vaguely had that hope and love and goodness might be foundational in some way to this universe and that existence-even in this world-is worth it. And by far most people -victims, et al-agree with this-cherishing their existence over the alternative. And if God promises and gives me the faith that “All manner of things shall be well” in the end-unimaginably well, in fact-then that’s a good thing, even for those who may not believe it right now. But if we dwell on the notion that we’re being short-changed, that the world should’ve somehow been better-and feeling deprived is a common enough human pastime, whether its justified or not -then our glass will always be half full and we’ll always be shaking our fist at the God we may or may not say we believe in.

 

[Spock]

well, if free agents, and not god, actualize the worlds that contain their free choices, then the “problem” is that possibly there is no world at which every free agent always chooses correctly.

your original scenario depended on god being the sole actualizer of worlds containing acts of free agency; but if god cannot actualize the free choices of other beings (and a fortiori the worlds containing the states of affairs caused by those choices), and if this is true:

1. possibly (no free agent always chooses correctly);

which entails:

1. possibly (there is no possible world containing both free agents and no moral evil)

then god cannot actualize a world without moral evil.

(this is the molinist position, as developed by plantinga and thomas flint, among others)

In the scenario there is only **one **free agent, who makes **one **morally significant decison. God can foresee if the agent will choose correctly, and if so, he can actualize the world. If God foresees that the agent will choose incorrectly, he will not actualize the world.

If you say that the agent can only choose incorrectly, and therefore there is no world for God to actualize, then the agent had no free will to begin with. The existence of free will ensures that the agent can choose correctly and therefore there is a world for God to actualize.

In any case, the agent makes the decison, but God foresees what the decison will be and based upon the outcome he actualizes the world or not, depending on the outcome of the decision. No contradiction there. If the agent did make the correct decision, we have a world, with free will and no moral evil. If the agent made the incorrect decision, there is no world at all. If this were the case, then God can put another quarter into his world-generator pinball machine - and start all over. He can play around with another world-to-be. If, for any possible agent and any possible moral decision, the agent will **always **make the incorrect decision, then where is the “free will” we are talking about?

(Side notion: nice to see again. )

 

[fhansen]

If you say that the agent can only choose incorrectly, and therefore there is no world for God to actualize, then the agent had no free will to begin with. The existence of free will ensures that the agent can choose correctly and therefore there is a world for God to actualize.

The fact that the agent can choose correctly doesn’t ensure that he ever will. For all we know it may be logically impossible for a human being to choose morality-as defined by God-without first experiencing whatever he will during his life in this world.

 

[Alindawyl]

Spock, here’s the conclusion you came to in your original post:

1. The final possible scenario is where there are “N” moral agents, and each of them makes “M” decisons. Both “N” and “M” can be any arbitrary number, so this scenario precisely reflects our current world. Since each agent makes “M” decisions, the number of possible worlds is “(N + 1)*(M + 1)”. Of these possible worlds there is one where each agent makes only moral decisions. In all the other ones at least one agent makes at least one immoral decision. God can also instantiate or actualize any one of these worlds, since none of them contains a logical contradiction.

Result: No matter how many moral agents are in a world, and no matter how many decisions are made, there is at least one possible world where all the agents make only morally upright decisions - while retaining their free will. God can actualize this world since it contains no logical contradiction.

Italics added for emphasis.

I won’t let you try to sneak free will in as a given without justification. Since your entire proof depends on the existence of free will in the perfect world, I’d like to hear your reasoning on that.

 

[Spock]

The fact that the agent can choose correctly doesn’t ensure that he ever will. For all we know it may be logically impossible for a human being to choose morality-as defined by God-without first experiencing whatever he will during his life in this world.

Which translates into having no free will. Free will is defined as: “the agent is the causative factor” (LCC) and “agent can choose either correctly or incorrectly” (PAP). If in every possible scenario (moral decision) every possible agent will always choose incorrectly - that means that the agent has no free will, because then it is necessarily true that the agent will always choose incorrectly. Bear in mind: we are talking about a very simple scenario here: one agent is confronted by one decision.

 

[Spock]

I won’t let you try to sneak free will in as a given without justification. Since your entire proof depends on the existence of free will in the perfect world, I’d like to hear your reasoning on that.

I have no idea what are you talking about. The assumption of free will is something we agree upon. It cannot be proven or disproven. It is a basic assumption.

If we would discard the existence of free will, then God could easily create a world without evil - by creating “robots”. As a matter of fact, that is precisely what any good designer would do. Create something that will always stay within the design parameters and does never allow deviation. In other words: the world would work as intended.

 

[john_doran]

In the scenario there is only **one **free agent, who makes **one **morally significant decison. God can foresee if the agent will choose correctly, and if so, he can actualize the world. If God foresees that the agent will choose incorrectly, he will not actualize the world.

If you say that the agent can only choose incorrectly, and therefore there is no world for God to actualize, then the agent had no free will to begin with. The existence of free will ensures that the agent can choose correctly and therefore there is a world for God to actualize.

In any case, the agent makes the decison, but God foresees what the decison will be and based upon the outcome he actualizes the world or not, depending on the outcome of the decision. No contradiction there. If the agent did make the correct decision, we have a world, with free will and no moral evil. If the agent made the incorrect decision, there is no world at all. If this were the case, then God can put another quarter into his world-generator pinball machine - and start all over. He can play around with another world-to-be. If, for any possible agent and any possible moral decision, the agent will **always **make the incorrect decision, then where is the “free will” we are talking about?

well, that’s fair as far as it goes, but it only goes as far as a world with one moral agent who makes one free choice - the point i was making was with regard to the possibility that there is no possible world sufficiently similar to this one in which (there are free agents and) there is no moral evil.

i will agree to stipulate that there are possible worlds that contain moral good and no moral evil; it’s just that those worlds also lack the other goods that make the actual world (and its modal neighbours) choiceworthy for god.

think of it like the choice whether or not to have children: i was aware, when i was considering becoming a father, that my child would necessarily endure a certain amount of suffering throughout the course of his life, suffering that i would be powerless to stop, and suffering in which in some sense i would be complicit, since i could always simply have chosen not to father him. however, that “complicity” is morally recitifiable precisely because it is, at worst, a foreseen but unintended side-effect of my primary intention, which was the good of the existence of my son. which is to say that there are obviously goods the pursuit of which provide moral warrant for the suffering experienced in that pursuit…

god’s choice of this world from of the modal nursery is pretty much the same…

(Side notion: nice to see again. )

thanks (i’m not sure who this is - i never knew a spock when i was posting before)…

 

[Alindawyl]

I have no idea what are you talking about. The assumption of free will is something we agree upon. It cannot be proven or disproven. It is a basic assumption.

If we would discard the existence of free will, then God could easily create a world without evil - by creating “robots”. As a matter of fact, that is precisely what any good designer would do. Create something that will always stay within the design parameters and does never allow deviation. In other words: the world would work as intended.

But that’s the entire point of my post. I don’t agree with your basic assumption of free will applying to all of the theoretical worlds in your original post. The totally depraved world in which none of the multiple agents ever make a good decision can only exist without free will, as you yourself have stated in post 287. By the same reasoning, the totally good world in which none of the multiple agents ever make an evil decision can only exist without free will.

Both are removed from consideration, leaving as the only possible option worlds in which there is at least one evil decision.

 

[tdgesq]

First, I would not scream “bloody murder”.

Okay, well maybe that was going a little far. But you certainly wouldn’t accept it.

Second, your scenario is unnecessarily complicated. It is easy to get lost in the too many possibilities.

It really isn’t that complicated, and it is a scenario that you have to deal with if you want your argument to be successful. Your argument isn’t that God could have created “one world” with “one choice.” It’s that God could have created this world with one difference – everybody freely chooses to do what is right. But there is that huge unfounded assumption on your part: you assume that some possible persons will always freely choose to do what is right. But you simply have no basis for that assumption. It is no more likely than the assumption that all possible persons will perform at least one wrong act.

To analyze the situation a much simpler model will suffice, and that is what I attempted to do all along.

The simpler model isn’t helpful to your argument for two reasons. First, your argument is claiming far more than a “one world” with “one choice” scenario. Second, it suffers from the same defect as explained above. You are making an unfounded assumption about how all possible persons will freely choose.

The model is this: one agent, one decision. There are two possible outcomes:

W-M: The agent freely makes the correct choice.
W-I: The agent freely makes the incorrect choice.

I say that God can actualize either one of these. You say that God cannot actualize either one, because the process of actualization will “rob” the agent of his freedom to choose otherwise.

Yes. God cannot actualize the choice made by the agent or else the choice isn’t free by definition. He could actualize a world where the choice is freely made, but that’s it. God can’t determine the agents’ choice for them. That is determinism. I very much agree with you that God can actualize a world where the choice is freely made by the actor. But you are again making an implicit and unfounded assumption. That there is a possible agent W-M out there that will make the correct choice. Maybe all possible agents are W-I.

Instead your proposed model is this:

W-U: God creates “a” world, where the agent will choose either correctly or incorrectly, and God’s foreknowledge has no bearing on the issue. However, the agent can only choose one way or the other. You say that it is the agent who resolves the isse, and therefore it is the agent who actualizes the world - which will “become” either W-M, or W-I - based upon the decision. So far, so good.

This is all accurate.

Now God’s foreknowledge comes into the picture. The world is not created yet. The agent has not made his decision. God can foresee which way the agent will decide, and based upon this foreknowledge he can actualize the world if the agent will make the correct choice, and decline to actualize the world if the agent makes the incorrect choice.

I agree. Now let me make an assumption like the one you have been making. There is not a single agent who will exercise his freedom to make the correct choice. It’s just as legitimate as your assumption that there is a possible agent who will make the correct choice. Now if my assumption is correct and yours is incorrect, then there isn’t a possible agent who will make the correct choice. There is no world for God to create where an agent would make the correct choice.

I see the difference as pure semanitcs. Both worlds are possible. Neither one is “necessary”. If the agent would decide correctly, God “allows” him to make the decision by actualizing him. If the agent would decide incorrectly, God does not create him. Where is the problem?

It is not merely semantics. In one case God directly determines the choice of the actor. What that means is that we know that if God is good he will always cause the person to choose correctly. In the other case it is the person that makes the choice, which means that all such persons might decide to always make the wrong choice. The problem is that you are guessing when you assert that there is an agent out there that would decide correctly. It’s no better than my guess that all agents would decide incorrectly, in which case there is no world for God to create where an agent decides correctly. Perhaps an example will help.

The biblical story of the Fall (which I consider an allegory) tells us that Adam was the first human being created by God. We will leave Eve out of it for the time being in order to stay with your “one world” and “one action” scenario. Now the first morally significant choice that we know of for Adam is whether he will pick the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or whether he will follow God’s command never to eat the fruit from the tree. And no, I don’t believe there was an actual tree with fruit on it. What I believe is that this story is describing the first morally significant choice of the first human being on Earth.

In any case, so what does Adam do? He exercises his free will to pick the fruit from the tree. Many non-theists will now ask: why didn’t God just create a man who would freely choose not pick the allegorical fruit? To which I reply: why do you assume that anybody else would have chosen differently than Adam? Maybe all other agents would have made the same decision as Adam. Your entire argument, even in the “one world” and “one action” scenario, is based upon an unfounded assumption. You really don’t have any basis to assert that if He’d wanted to God could have actualized a world where everybody freely chooses to do what is right. That’s a guess on your part.

 

[Spock]

well, that’s fair as far as it goes, but it only goes as far as a world with one moral agent who makes one free choice…

Well, I am simply overwhelmed with happiness. I never thought that I will be able to get this far. For the record: we agree that it is possible to have a very simple world (with one agent and one moral decision) where it is possible for God to actualize the world with free will and no moral evil. That is all I ask you to confirm - just to be sure that we are on the same wavelength.

Of course you know that this validates my OP. There is nothing in the “free will defense” which would stipulate the number of agents or the number of moral dilemmas. It flatly states that maybe God cannot actualize a world with both free agents and no moral evil. Now we agree that there is at least one such world, albeit a very simple one, where these two requirements are met.

• the point i was making was with regard to the possibility that there is no possible world sufficiently similar to this one in which (there are free agents and) there is no moral evil.

We shall get there. Not tonight, it is getting pretty late here, and you deserve all my attention. However, just to help me: would you mind telling me what the phrase “sufficiently similar” means? Is it the number of people? Is it the number of decisions? Unless I know what do you mean by “sufficiently similar” I cannot address the question. I am ready to prove that having “N” moral agents who all make “M” number of moral decisions (each) - where “N” and “M” are as large as you want - it is still possible to actualize a world with both free will and no moral evil.

i will agree to stipulate that there are possible worlds that contain moral good and no moral evil; it’s just that those worlds also lack the other goods that make the actual world (and its modal neighbours) choiceworthy for god.

think of it like the choice whether or not to have children: i was aware, when i was considering becoming a father, that my child would necessarily endure a certain amount of suffering throughout the course of his life, suffering that i would be powerless to stop, and suffering in which in some sense i would be complicit, since i could always simply have chosen not to father him. however, that “complicity” is morally recitifiable precisely because it is, at worst, a foreseen but unintended side-effect of my primary intention, which was the good of the existence of my son. which is to say that there are obviously goods the pursuit of which provide moral warrant for the suffering experienced in that pursuit…

god’s choice of this world from of the modal nursery is pretty much the same…

That is a whole different ballgame. I am more than willing to explore it, but in this thread I am only interested in the “free will defense”.

thanks (i’m not sure who this is - i never knew a spock when i was posting before)…

No, I was writing under a different pen name back then. Then I left, forgot my password, so I just created a new persona. (Fortunately for me that is not against the rules.) If you are interested, I will PM it to you.

 

[tdgesq]

Well, I am simply overwhelmed with happiness. I never thought that I will be able to get this far. For the record: we agree that it is possible to have a very simple world (with one agent and one moral decision) where it is possible for God to actualize the world with free will and no moral evil.

Spock, John will have to speak for himself, but I believe him to mean that it is contingently possible. There is no proof that would show it is necessarily possible that an actor would choose correctly in any given “one world” and “one moral decision” scenario. If such a proof exists, I should like to see it.

 

[4EverHis]

For one final time I am going to show that it is possible to have a world, where there is free will and there are no evil choices. I am tired of seeing the nonsensical argument that there are only two possibilities, either having free will and actual evil choices, or dummies (or robots) who are preprogrammed to do everything “right”. The proof will be a mathematical one, unquestionable.

keep in mind, in Heaven, people still have free will yet they make no evil choices. So yes, it is possible to have free will and still choose goodness.

However, Adam and Eve chose evil, and this was because they were tempted by the devil. Perhaps if they were not tempted by the devil, they would not have chosen it… do you see what I mean? and because of them, we inherited their sinful nature, and so sin also.

what I’m saying is that free will is not the only factor here… there is also temptation by the enemy (influences), and our corrupted (fallen) nature. That is why we have baptism and why salvation is a process…cause our natures need to be restored. It’s not a matter of free will alone.

God bless

 

[fhansen]

Which translates into having no free will. Free will is defined as: “the agent is the causative factor” (LCC) and “agent can choose either correctly or incorrectly” (PAP). If in every possible scenario (moral decision) every possible agent will always choose incorrectly - that means that the agent has no free will, because then it is necessarily true that the agent will always choose incorrectly. Bear in mind: we are talking about a very simple scenario here: one agent is confronted by one decision.

The agent is still the causative factor but his will would change if he were to become “more moral” with time and circumstances. In Catholic thinking the agent chooses wrong because he is wrong, or out-of-sync, in some basic way, if only by virtue of being in the disordered state of mistrusting/not loving God. But whatever the reason, even if his “wrongness” is predetermined in some capacity he’s free to rectify that situation.

So what I’m saying is that God may get the world He’s after-with beings who’ve come to see the wisdom in never choosing immorality to any degree-after they first experience good and evil, evil being that which is outside His will, learning what God doesn’t have to learn-that there’s nothing to be gained and everything to be lost by straying outside His will. But His will is not known merely by reading a book or set of rules, whether they’re right or wrong. His will is revealed and confirmed to us internally, the author of nature communicating with humankind, the only part of nature we know of possessing the potential to comprehend.

 

[Spock]

It is not merely semantics. In one case God directly determines the choice of the actor. What that means is that we know that if God is good he will always cause the person to choose correctly. In the other case it is the person that makes the choice, which means that all such persons might decide to always make the wrong choice. The problem is that you are guessing when you assert that there is an agent out there that would decide correctly. It’s no better than my guess that all agents would decide incorrectly, in which case there is no world for God to create where an agent decides correctly. Perhaps an example will help.

The biblical story of the Fall (which I consider an allegory) tells us that Adam was the first human being created by God. We will leave Eve out of it for the time being in order to stay with your “one world” and “one action” scenario. Now the first morally significant choice that we know of for Adam is whether he will pick the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or whether he will follow God’s command never to eat the fruit from the tree. And no, I don’t believe there was an actual tree with fruit on it. What I believe is that this story is describing the first morally significant choice of the first human being on Earth.

In any case, so what does Adam do? He exercises his free will to pick the fruit from the tree. Many non-theists will now ask: why didn’t God just create a man who would freely choose not pick the allegorical fruit? To which I reply: why do you assume that anybody else would have chosen differently than Adam? Maybe all other agents would have made the same decision as Adam. Your entire argument, even in the “one world” and “one action” scenario, is based upon an unfounded assumption. You really don’t have any basis to assert that if He’d wanted to God could have actualized a world where everybody freely chooses to do what is right. That’s a guess on your part.

Spock, John will have to speak for himself, but I believe him to mean that it is contingently possible. There is no proof that would show it is necessarily possible that an actor would choose correctly in any given “one world” and “one moral decision” scenario. If such a proof exists, I should like to see it.

Let me answer both of your posts, since you said the same thing with somewhat different wording.

Indeed, in any particular world the outcome of the decision is contingent upon the agent’s choice. Now, let’s suppose that in every possible world the agent will make the wrong decision - this is what you propose. According to Plantinga, if a contingent proposition is true in every possible world, then the proposition is necessarily true.

If it is necessarily true that the agent will choose incorrectly in every possible world then what does the agent’s free will mean? Nothing at all. It is exactly the assumption of the agent’s free will that ascertains the possible correct and incorrect outcomes. Therefore it is necessarily true that there is at least one world where the agent will choose correctly.

 

[Spock]

The agent is still the causative factor but his will would change if he were to become “more moral” with time and circumstances. In Catholic thinking the agent chooses wrong because he is wrong, or out-of-sync, in some basic way, if only by virtue of being in the disordered state of mistrusting/not loving God.

We are not talking about the Catholic thinking here in general. This is a purely hypothetical scenario, neither theistic or atheistic. Yes, we rely on the Catholic assumption that God can create any world - as long as it does not contain or lead to a logical contradiction and also that God’s foreknowledge does not invalidate the agent’s freedom to act either correctly or incorrectly. No other assumptions - like “why” does the agent choose incorrectly are pertinent to this discussion.

But whatever the reason, even if his “wrongness” is predetermined in some capacity he’s free to rectify that situation.

No. The past is unchangable, whatever happened, happened, and it cannot be restored, it cannot be “undone”. The concept of making a restitution is inherently faulty. The only real restitution would be to restore the original state of affairs, and that is contradicted by the unchangability of the past.

 

[john_doran]

Well, I am simply overwhelmed with happiness. I never thought that I will be able to get this far. For the record: we agree that it is possible to have a very simple world (with one agent and one moral decision) where it is possible for God to actualize the world with free will and no moral evil. That is all I ask you to confirm - just to be sure that we are on the same wavelength.

almost: it’s possible for god to actualize the world up to the point of the free choice of the agent, at which point it is the agent that actualizes the world-segment containing the choice.

Spock:

Of course you know that this validates my OP. There is nothing in the “free will defense” which would stipulate the number of agents or the number of moral dilemmas. It flatly states that maybe God cannot actualize a world with both free agents and no moral evil. Now we agree that there is at least one such world, albeit a very simple one, where these two requirements are met.

see above: god is still not actualizing the world segments containing the free choices of the moral agents in any world.

Spock:

We shall get there. Not tonight, it is getting pretty late here, and you deserve all my attention. However, just to help me: would you mind telling me what the phrase “sufficiently similar” means? Is it the number of people? Is it the number of decisions? Unless I know what do you mean by “sufficiently similar” I cannot address the question. I am ready to prove that having “N” moral agents who all make “M” number of moral decisions (each) - where “N” and “M” are as large as you want - it is still possible to actualize a world with both free will and no moral evil.

well, there’s no forensically precise definition for the idea of modal similarity, but i’m not sure that one is needed. it’s like the idea of “similarly tall”, or “almost as beautiful” - it’s (modal) colloquial, but tolerably clear for all that.

i suggest that you propose your solution and then we’ll see how many of the morally salient features of this world are shared by that world.

Spock:

No, I was writing under a different pen name back then. Then I left, forgot my password, so I just created a new persona. (Fortunately for me that is not against the rules.) If you are interested, I will PM it to you.

sure, PM me - it’s always nice to meet old friends along the road…