Problem: God & Possible Evil Free World

[Chesterton_SJ]

We are examining the argument for a perfect God’s non-existence based on evil.
Of course I readily went to saying that evil is only a result of a misuse of free will – free will being necessary to love (a point which my professor objected to). However, he says that free will merely implies the possibility of evil, not the actuality of it.

He gives an example in which Adam and Eve always choose the good and never sin. Meaning that while the choice for evil is there, they never go down the wrong alleyway. Because this world (the one in which we always choose the good – pre-fall world) is a possibility and because God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent he would have wanted to and could have created this world. However he did not.

Any thoughts of how to approach a refutation?

So far I have defining love, that love is the highest good and in order to love we need free will. This freedom cannot be anything less than authentic (meaning God cannot override our will in order to love him). Defining evil as a privation and misuse of good (because he asserts that evil is a positive thing, not merely a deprivation or twisting of some good).
Then I have either the approach: For me the only reason the atheist can make an argument is because there is evil in the world. Therefore the example of a possible perfect world doesnt hold weight. Rather we need to discuss the nature of the existence of evil in the world…bringing us back to misuse of free will.
Or: God did create this perfect world. It is heaven. (Of course, why did he not simply create us to always be in heaven.)

Thanks for any direction you could provide

 

[Perplexity]

Many Catholics would deny that free-will implies or requires the possibility of choosing evil:

“St. Augustine and others urged most admirably against the Pelagians that, if the possibility of deflection from good belonged to the essence or perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, and the angels and saints, who have not this power, would have no liberty at all, or would have less liberty than man has in his state of pilgrimage and imperfection.” - Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Allowing us the ‘freedom’ to choose evil but never letting us do so violates free will.

I would try avoiding the use of free will & love in this argument. Rather, you should ask him to prove that a perfect God is incompatible with evil.

 

[Stumblesalot]

Hi,

I would have thought the major question would have been why an omniscient God would create Lucifer and the rebellious angels, knowing what the consequences would be? And why it was necessary for an omniscient God to ‘test the angels love for Him’ prior to allowing them to see His face? In answer to the original question, I think if free will and the existence of very powerful rebellious angels (who became demons) is established; then their superior intelligence etc. compared to mortal man would leave us completely susceptible to their behavioural manipulation and eternal damnation if choose temptation instead of the infinite love and mercy of God. Indeed, one of the enemys’ major weapons is encouraging the belief of the non-existence of both him and God. I don’t know how much help that is!?

God bless

 

[danserr]

We are examining the argument for a perfect God’s non-existence based on evil.
Of course I readily went to saying that evil is only a result of a misuse of free will – free will being necessary to love (a point which my professor objected to). However, he says that free will merely implies the possibility of evil, not the actuality of it.

**He gives an example in which Adam and Eve always choose the good and never sin. Meaning that while the choice for evil is there, they never go down the wrong alleyway. Because this world (the one in which we always choose the good – pre-fall world) is a possibility and because God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent he would have wanted to and could have created this world. However he did not. **

Any thoughts of how to approach a refutation?

So far I have defining love, that love is the highest good and in order to love we need free will. This freedom cannot be anything less than authentic (meaning God cannot override our will in order to love him). Defining evil as a privation and misuse of good (because he asserts that evil is a positive thing, not merely a deprivation or twisting of some good).
Then I have either the approach: For me the only reason the atheist can make an argument is because there is evil in the world. Therefore the example of a possible perfect world doesnt hold weight. Rather we need to discuss the nature of the existence of evil in the world…bringing us back to misuse of free will.
Or: God did create this perfect world. It is heaven. (Of course, why did he not simply create us to always be in heaven.)

Thanks for any direction you could provide

Your professor seems to be failing to account for human free will, even though he would claim he is. He is right that free will only implies the possibility of evil, but that doesn’t help him.

Let’s suppose God creates a world and determines to give Adam free will to choose to love God or reject him. Let’s say that God gives Adam this choice, and Adam chooses to reject God. In this case, can God create a world where Adam chooses God? Not if God leaves it up to Adam (ie gives him free will)!

Think about what your professor is asking. He wants God to create a world where people will always freely choose the good. But your professor has no way to account for human choice. It may (or may not) be the case that God could create a world where all people in it freely choose him, but maybe this world has over-riding drawbacks that would lead God to not create it like, for example, having a small number of people.

Is there a possible world then that God can’t actualize? Well, maybe, but this doesn’t mean that God is not omnipotent. A proper definition of omnipotence in going to include God’s ability to do things that are logically possible, but will also account for the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (or free human choices). So, there might be a logically possible world where Adam chooses the good, but, taking into account Adam’s free choice, if God leaves it to Adam and Adam rejects God, then we have seen that there is a possible world that God cannot actualize because he leaves it to Adam’s free choice.

Now maybe someone would claim that if God can’t actualize all possible worlds, then he is not omnipotent. This is untrue and shows a poor understanding of omnipotence, that can be remedied by reading the section on omnipotence in Craig’s article, The Coherence of Theism.

At least those are my brief thoughts. I still need to do some more reading on the associated issues, but I do think free will goes a long way in helping.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I’m one of those Catholics who says that it would be possible to have a world with free will but no evil, a world in which everyone always freely chooses to reject sin. Even aside from the question of the predestination of free choices, this would still in any case be possible through the limitations of circumstance.

That God chose to instead create a world in which people do in fact sin indicates that there is a reason God permits evil other than the simple preservation of free will.

I think a key thing to keep in mind is that a perfectly good God would create the world that it was best for Him to create. That might not necessarily be the best possible world in the sense of no evil and the greatest possible number and magnitude of created goods (which is probably limitless in theory, anyway). Since God is in fact perfectly good, and since He has in fact permitted evil to come into existence in his world, we can conclude that He has allowed this for the sake of some greater good that would otherwise have been logically impossible (and that means a greater good other than simply free will). I say logically impossible because if it were logically possible for God to bring about the greater good without the evil then a perfect God would obviously choose the way without evil.

In fact, it appears to me that the world that would be best for God to create would be that which have the highest end (that is, would serve the greatest purpose), and which would as a whole best accomplish that end. Since there could be no greater purpose for Creation than the glorification of God, it seems to me that God has created a world and predestined/permitted a history for it which optimally glorifies Himself. Part of this glorification may be the manifestation of God’s mercy and justice within it, and without sin there could be neither. Certainly free will does come into play, since it is only by the free decision of creatures that evil could enter the world without God directly ordaining it, but still God permits it to happen, again for the sake of an otherwise logically impossible greater good.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Your professor seems to be failing to account for human free will, even though he would claim he is. He is right that free will only implies the possibility of evil, but that doesn’t help him.

Let’s suppose God creates a world and determines to give Adam free will to choose to love God or reject him. Let’s say that God gives Adam this choice, and Adam chooses to reject God. In this case, can God create a world where Adam chooses God? Not if God leaves it up to Adam (ie gives him free will)!

But God is omniscient and knows ahead of time what choice Adam will make. God can imagine 2 worlds before he makes them, one for each choice. He can then choose to create the one in which Adam’s choice was to accept God.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

I think a key thing to keep in mind is that a perfectly good God would create the world that it was best for Him to create. That might not necessarily be the best possible world in the sense of no evil and the greatest possible number and magnitude of created goods (which is probably limitless in theory, anyway). Since God is in fact perfectly good, and since He has in fact permitted evil to come into existence in his world, we can conclude that He has allowed this for the sake of some greater good that would otherwise have been logically impossible (and that means a greater good other than simply free will). I say logically impossible because if it were logically possible for God to bring about the greater good without the evil then a perfect God would obviously choose the way without evil.

So God was unable bring about a greater good without evil. Therefore God needed and used evil for a good end. I am pretty sure it is impossible, according to Catholic morality, to achieve a good end through evil actions.

 

[danserr]

But God is omniscient and knows ahead of time what choice Adam will make. God can imagine 2 worlds before he makes them, one for each choice. He can then choose to create the one in which Adam’s choice was to accept God.

Well, I could avoid that conclusion simply by denying God foreknowledge as open theists do, though I don’t like that route and don’t need to take it.

I have two options:

1. It is possible that a world where no one sins is a world that has over-riding drawbacks (such as a very small number of people) that would lead God not to create it. You do not account for this possibility.
2. There may be two possible worlds, one where Adam rejects God and one where he chooses God, but for Adam’s choice to be free, then Adam must himself be the one making this choice, not God.
   Or consider again how I expressed it the first time: let us suppose that God decides to create Adam, and God decides to leave it up to Adam if he will follow God or not. Can God make sure that Adam will choose God? Not if he leaves it up to Adam.

• Related to this, I am not sure that you consider sufficiently the proper understanding of God’s omnipotence (because you seem to be assuming that God can actualize any broadly logically possible world. But this is not at all obvious.
  -Consider the following understanding of omnipotence (by Craig, but he is relying on Thomas Flint’s Article “Maximal Power,”):

An agent is omnipotent at a certain time if and only if the agent can at that time actualize any state of affairs which is not described by counterfactuals about the free acts of others and which is broadly logically possible for someone to actualize, given the same hard past at that time and the same true counterfactuals about creaturely free acts of others.

For God to actualize a possible world, that world must be broadly logically possible (which you follow), but, also “not described by counterfactuals about the free acts of others.” An agent has control over counterfactuals about his own free decisions, but not over those of others. Hence, if God is to leave it to Adam whether Adam chooses God or not, then there may be a possible world where Adam chooses God that God cannot actualize.

So God was unable bring about a greater good without evil. Therefore God needed and used evil for a good end. I am pretty sure it is impossible, according to Catholic morality, to achieve a good end through evil actions.

Not if it falls under the Principle of Double Effect. God wills that man should have free will, he does not will that man should abuse it, though he foresees this as a possible side effect. So God is not willing, doing, or needing evil. The evil is simply an undesirable side effect of giving man free will. More details on the principle at the website.

 

[Alterum]

We are examining the argument for a perfect God’s non-existence based on evil.
Of course I readily went to saying that evil is only a result of a misuse of free will – free will being necessary to love (a point which my professor objected to). However, he says that free will merely implies the possibility of evil, not the actuality of it.

He gives an example in which Adam and Eve always choose the good and never sin. Meaning that while the choice for evil is there, they never go down the wrong alleyway. Because this world (the one in which we always choose the good – pre-fall world) is a possibility and because God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent he would have wanted to and could have created this world. However he did not.

Any thoughts of how to approach a refutation?

So far I have defining love, that love is the highest good and in order to love we need free will. This freedom cannot be anything less than authentic (meaning God cannot override our will in order to love him). Defining evil as a privation and misuse of good (because he asserts that evil is a positive thing, not merely a deprivation or twisting of some good).
Then I have either the approach: For me the only reason the atheist can make an argument is because there is evil in the world. Therefore the example of a possible perfect world doesnt hold weight. Rather we need to discuss the nature of the existence of evil in the world…bringing us back to misuse of free will.
Or: God did create this perfect world. It is heaven. (Of course, why did he not simply create us to always be in heaven.)

Thanks for any direction you could provide

The argument needs more nuance.

Some have argued that, according to a certain understanding of free will (incompatibilist), if God were to create incompatibilist free creatures, it would not be logically possible for Him to have knowledge of free, contingent, future actions. Swinburne argues this. The basic idea is that foreknowledge means belief, and such future contingents cannot be determined by beliefs, else they are not free. Another way of thinking of this is that such future contingents simply don’t have truth-values until they actually happen.

However, this position is dogmatically rejected by Dei Filius.

I think the more reasonable position is that there is no “best possible world,” absolutely-speaking, that God can create. There is only a “best” secundum quid, according to something or other. For Leibniz the criteria were unity and diversity. For some the sheer number of created substances determines the “goodness” (ontologically-speaking) of the world. Aquinas suggests this at some point, but he also notes that God cannot create the same things essentially better than they are, since to alter an essence is to have a different thing.

Regarding the Fall, it is true, indeed, that God could have created a world in which human beings would not have sinned. But to say that God could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would not have sinned is sloppy: since Adam and Eve have sinned, the claim seems to be dealing with so-called “conditionals of freedom”. It has been argued (for example, by Robert Adams) that deliberative conditionals of freedom, even those pertaining to God if I recall, simply have no truth value, basically because attaching a truth-value to them (either true or false) is incomprehensible. (A deliberative conditional of freedom is one in which the agent’s consideration of the effects of his choice can alter his choice (or its effects) before he makes it: for instance, David’s asking God is he will be surrendered to Saul. God said yes, so David avoided Saul [1 Sam 23]).

Regarding the claim that God’s omnibenevolence entails that a “better world,” e.g., a world free of sin, would exist: this is a misconstrual of omnibenevolence. I believe Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham all held that God is not morally good. For Aquinas, being morally good entails following the eternal law, but God is the eternal law. Moreover, all of these men basically argue that God has no obligations to His creatures (since He is free). Doubtlessly, we can say something about God’s goodness by analogy with created goodness, but that does not give us insight into God’s essence. There is no logically formal contradiction between the claim that God exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and the claim that evil exists – so atheists have to give you more than that if they want an argument.

Oh, and also note that incompatibilist free will probably has to be rejected. Freedom “to sin” is not freedom; it’s a deficiency. Freedom is an ability which has to be developed into an effective power, the power to spontaneously and correctly do good, and thus to satisfy one’s deepest desires.

 

[Alterum]

We are examining the argument for a perfect God’s non-existence based on evil.
Of course I readily went to saying that evil is only a result of a misuse of free will – free will being necessary to love (a point which my professor objected to). However, he says that free will merely implies the possibility of evil, not the actuality of it.

The argument needs more nuance.

Some have argued that, according to a certain understanding of free will (incompatibilist), if God were to create incompatibilist free creatures, it would not be logically possible for Him to have knowledge of free, contingent, future actions. Swinburne argues this. The basic idea is that foreknowledge means belief, and such future contingents cannot be determined by beliefs, else they are not free. Another way of thinking of this is that such future contingents simply don’t have truth-values until they actually happen.

However, this position is dogmatically rejected by Dei Filius.

I think the more reasonable position is that there is no “best possible world,” absolutely-speaking, that God can create. There is only a “best” secundum quid, according to something or other. For Leibniz the criteria were unity and diversity. For some the sheer number of created substances determines the “goodness” (ontologically-speaking) of the world. Aquinas suggests this at some point, but he also notes that God cannot create the same things essentially better than they are, since to alter an essence is to have a different thing.

Regarding the Fall, it is true, indeed, that God could have created a world in which human beings would not have sinned. But to say that God could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would not have sinned is sloppy: since Adam and Eve have sinned, the claim seems to be dealing with so-called “conditionals of freedom”: it seems to say that if God had done p (instead of what He actually did), then Adam and Eve would not have sinned. It has been argued (for example, by Robert Adams) that these conditionals of freedom have no truth-value, basically because attaching a truth-value to them (either true or false) is incomprehensible. He also argues that deliberative conditionals of freedom, even those pertaining to God if I recall, have no truth-value. A deliberative conditional of freedom is one in which the agent’s consideration of the effects of his choice can alter his choice (or its effects) before he makes it: for instance, David’s asking God is he will be surrendered to Saul. God said yes, so David avoided Saul (1 Sam 23). The relevant deliberative conditional here is God’s “deliberation” regarding whether. if He creates Adam and Eve, they will sin. (We don’t have to agree with these claims, but they are interesting to think about!)

Regarding the claim that God’s omnibenevolence entails that a “better world,” e.g., a world free of sin, would exist: this is a misconstrual of omnibenevolence. I believe Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham all held that God is not morally good. For Aquinas, being morally good entails following the eternal law, but God is the eternal law. Moreover, all of these men basically argue that God has no obligations to His creatures (since He is free). Doubtlessly, we can say something about God’s goodness by analogy with created goodness, but that does not give us insight into God’s essence. There is no logically formal contradiction between the claim that God exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and the claim that evil exists – so atheists have to give you more than that if they want an argument.

Oh, and also note that incompatibilist free will probably has to be rejected. Freedom “to sin” is not freedom; it’s a deficiency. Freedom is an ability which has to be developed into an effective power, the power to spontaneously and correctly do good, and thus to satisfy one’s deepest desires.

 

[fhansen]

Perhaps evil is inevitable in a world where sentient created beings possess free will, due to the inherent imperfection of creation relative to the Creator, who, alone, is perfect. Perhaps anything created is inherently inferior, in some basic manner, to its creator. And therefore the wisdom of a created being to exercise that free will perfectly, or correctly, would also be compromised, or inferior, if only to a slight degree.

In this case the question should be, “Was is wise-or just-for God to create a world that included sentient beings with free will at all?” And, if we value our existence, if we cling to existence, if we’d resist giving it up at any instance if given the opportunity, then I think we’re at least tacitly agreeing with God that existence is good, even in this messed up world.

In any case, we need to consider that God must deem creation to all be worth it in the end, determining to bring a greater good out of the evil that came about due to free will
**

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Well, I could avoid that conclusion simply by denying God foreknowledge as open theists do, though I don’t like that route and don’t need to take it.

Indeed, if there is no foreknowledge, then there is the possibility that God’s plans could be thwarted. Moreover, predictions made by the prophets could not have been divinely inspired, as God could not have known the future.

I have two options:

1. It is possible that a world where no one sins is a world that has over-riding drawbacks (such as a very small number of people) that would lead God not to create it. You do not account for this possibility.

That is true, but when we compare “evil” against “population size” I don’t believe there is a number you could give to the latter to justify the former. However, it is possible that there is some other drawback which God sought to avoid. We must realize though that this is effectively saying that there is an inherent downside to perfect goodness.

1. There may be two possible worlds, one where Adam rejects God and one where he chooses God, but for Adam’s choice to be free, then Adam must himself be the one making this choice, not God.
   Or consider again how I expressed it the first time: let us suppose that God decides to create Adam, and God decides to leave it up to Adam if he will follow God or not. Can God make sure that Adam will choose God? Not if he leaves it up to Adam.

• Related to this, I am not sure that you consider sufficiently the proper understanding of God’s omnipotence (because you seem to be assuming that God can actualize any broadly logically possible world. But this is not at all obvious.
  -Consider the following understanding of omnipotence (by Craig, but he is relying on Thomas Flint’s Article “Maximal Power,”):

Indeed, God could have created every possible world. However, we still have the problem that God chose to create the evil worlds. God did not distinguish between good and evil worlds so can we truly say he is good? Instead, this course makes him seem a-moral since he did not take morality into account.

An agent is omnipotent at a certain time if and only if the agent can at that time actualize any state of affairs which is not described by counterfactuals about the free acts of others and which is broadly logically possible for someone to actualize, given the same hard past at that time and the same true counterfactuals about creaturely free acts of others.

For God to actualize a possible world, that world must be broadly logically possible (which you follow), but, also “not described by counterfactuals about the free acts of others.” An agent has control over counterfactuals about his own free decisions, but not over those of others. Hence, if God is to leave it to Adam whether Adam chooses God or not, then there may be a possible world where Adam chooses God that God cannot actualize.

Correct, God could create a being which would always chose to reject God. He would therefore be unable to make a world where such a being chose to accept God. However, God could then simply decide to make a different being.

Not if it falls under the Principle of Double Effect. God wills that man should have free will, he does not will that man should abuse it, though he foresees this as a possible side effect. So God is not willing, doing, or needing evil. The evil is simply an undesirable side effect of giving man free will. More details on the principle at the website.

The point was made that evil allowed God to bring about a greater goodness than good alone. I said that therefore God required and used evil to make a better world. If we accept that God was trying to make this a “better” world as described by Aelred, we must also accept that evil was a necessary means to that end.

 

[Alterum]

Regarding the Fall, it is true, indeed, that God could have created a world in which human beings would not have sinned. But to say that God could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would not have sinned is sloppy: since Adam and Eve have sinned, the claim seems to be dealing with so-called “conditionals of freedom”: it seems to say that if God had done p (instead of what He actually did), then Adam and Eve would not have sinned. It has been argued (for example, by Robert Adams) that these conditionals of freedom have no truth-value, basically because attaching a truth-value to them (either true or false) is incomprehensible.

Whoops, these should be “counterfactuals of freedom” (the same ones mentioned briefly in post #10, I think). I am not, however, suggesting that God cannot actualize what are, from our temporal standpoint, counterfactuals of freedom (as that post suggests). I just don’t know. I am pointing out that propositions involving counterfactuals of freedom may have no truth-values.

 

[Alterum]

Correct, God could create a being which would always chose to reject God. He would therefore be unable to make a world where such a being chose to accept God. However, God could then simply decide to make a different being.

Hey, I didn’t realize this when I posted earlier, but I was saying something relevant to the discussion you two are having.

In fact, I think this is incorrect for two reasons. First, there’s a pretty standard Thomistic line of thinking on compatibilist free will according to which God can efficaciously move someone to freely do some action. If that is true (in my opinion, it is), then indeed God could have prevented Adam and Eve from sinning. This, I think, sidesteps post #10’s restrictions on God’s omnipotence, since post #10 claims that God can’t actualize states of affairs involving counterfactuals of freedom now. (Basically, it claims that God can’t affect past free actions; He is temporally bound. I’m giving it some thought, but I’m not sure what to think of that.) But the question is not what God can do now, but what He could have done.

Second, although God has no obligations to creatures, at least some of the medievals hold that God has “obligations” to Himself. Aquinas and Scotus hold this against Ockham, who argues that God actually has no obligations whatsoever. For Aquinas, though, God can’t do anything contradicting His nature. (Lest you think that limits His omnipotence, there are numerous logical contradictions to be unpacked in claims to the contrary.) In light of that, and given my first point, God cannot cause any creature to do evil; in fact God can’t cause evil at all. With that qualification, you’re probably right in claiming that it’s logically possible for God to create a creature (with intellect and will necessarily directed at the good) which is the first cause of its always doing moral evil. But God, if He willed, could always prevent the creature from doing evil without destroying its (compatibilist) free will.

One more thing: The debate really does seem to reduce to what you think about free will. If creatures have incompatibilist free will, there is a good argument to be made that counterfactuals of freedom have no truth-values. But if they have compatibilist free will, that argument fails, since “If God had moved them efficaciously to do x free, they would have done x freely” is true.

 

[danserr]

Indeed, if there is no foreknowledge, then there is the possibility that God’s plans could be thwarted. Moreover, predictions made by the prophets could not have been divinely inspired, as God could not have known the future.

I have no objection to admitting that God’s plans can be thwarted. In giving his creatures free will, God recognizes that some may use it in ways he does not will; this is not a limit on his power. As to prophecy, this is a valid point, but only partial. For instance, God can still predict what he will do. So a prophet could still foretell the coming of the Messiah. Since this is the most important use of prophecy, I’ll take it. That being said, I am not an open theist; I only mention it as a possible option.

That is true, but when we compare “evil” against “population size” I don’t believe there is a number you could give to the latter to justify the former. However, it is possible that there is some other drawback which God sought to avoid. We must realize though that this is effectively saying that there is an inherent downside to perfect goodness.

No, I don’t agree that this shows a downside to perfect goodness. It only shows that omnipotence must take into account counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

Indeed, God could have created every possible world. However, we still have the problem that God chose to create the evil worlds. God did not distinguish between good and evil worlds so can we truly say he is good? Instead, this course makes him seem a-moral since he did not take morality into account.

No, I did not say that God could create every possible world. Actually, if you read my post number nine, I try to be very clear that there may indeed be possible worlds that an omnipotent being could not create because of the need to account for counter-factuals of creaturely freedom.

None of this implies that God created an evil world as opposed to a good one or that he is amoral. God remain morally perfect and the paradigm of moral goodness. That God created a world in which some creatures would choose evil shows nothing more than that God must have had morally sufficient reasons for giving his creatures free will, which he foresaw might result in some of them using it badly.

Correct, God could create a being which would always chose to reject God. He would therefore be unable to make a world where such a being chose to accept God. However, God could then simply decide to make a different being.

So you are saying that God should not create any person who would reject him. In other words, you are simply expressing another way of saying “why God can’t create a world where everyone is saved?” But maybe there are over-riding drawbacks to a world where all creatures are saved; one example might be that the world would have only a very small number of people.

Originally Posted by danserr View Post
Not if it falls under the Principle of Double Effect. God wills that man should have free will, he does not will that man should abuse it, though he foresees this as a possible side effect. So God is not willing, doing, or needing evil. The evil is simply an undesirable side effect of giving man free will. More details on the principle at the website.

The point was made that evil allowed God to bring about a greater goodness than good alone. I said that therefore God required and used evil to make a better world. If we accept that God was trying to make this a “better” world as described by Aelred, we must also accept that evil was a necessary means to that end.

That’s fine, if you think that Aelred expressed himself less clearly that he might have. In that case, the theist should simply be clearer that God does not will evil, but wills the good of free will. In willing the good of free will for his creatures, he foresees that some may do evil, but this evil is the unwilled an undesirable side effect of God willing that his creatures have free will. In this case this would fall under the principle of double effect and so not constitute willing evil that good might come of it.

 

[danserr]

Oh, and also note that incompatibilist free will probably has to be rejected. Freedom “to sin” is not freedom; it’s a deficiency. Freedom is an ability which has to be developed into an effective power, the power to spontaneously and correctly do good, and thus to satisfy one’s deepest desires.

The problem with compatiblism is that it seems to make God responsible for evil and also seems hard to square with free will.

Incompatibilist free will does not imply that God must be free to sin, and it also allows us to say that people are free in heaven even though they do not sin, but how this is different here. Consider what Fulton Sheen says about different types of freedom here.

First, there’s a pretty standard Thomistic line of thinking on compatibilist free will according to which God can efficaciously move someone to freely do some action. If that is true (in my opinion, it is), then indeed God could have prevented Adam and Eve from sinning.

Then the problem is why doesn’t God do so?

Second, although God has no obligations to creatures, at least some of the medievals hold that God has “obligations” to Himself.

I agree that God probably has no duties. His essence is the paradigm of moral goodness, and moral duties are probably from divine commands. Since God doesn’t issue commands to himself, it is hard to say that God has any moral duties. Rather, his goodness, consists in that he is essentially good, that he is the paradigm of moral goodness.

 

[Alterum]

The problem with compatiblism is that it seems to make God responsible for evil and also seems hard to square with free will.

Incompatibilist free will does not imply that God must be free to sin, and it also allows us to say that people are free in heaven even though they do not sin, but how this is different here.

There are difficulties both ways. There are fairly involved arguments which show that man is the first (deficient) cause of evil and God only permits evil. They make sense to me. Also, Aquinas hold that in the beatific vision all are necessarily moved to will God. His argument is based on the structure of the intellect and will. Basically, the intellect presents the will with an unlimited good (and it knows it to be unlimited), and since the will is necessary inclined toward the good, there’s no chance of defection toward some lesser good. But the capacity or power of freedom, as Aquinas understands it, is still in place.

The problem with incompatibilist free will, depending on how you want to use it, is that it denies God’s omniscience (if you use it to argue that He can’t know future free contingents, or that He can only know them through middle knowledge or something like that), or it denies His omnipotence (if you use it to argue that He can’t move someone efficaciously and freely).

Of course, whatever you do, you’re still left with the question you asked: Why doesn’t God move people to always do good? Even given incompatibilist free will, God certainly has the resourcefulness to present goods so appealing that no one can resist them. As I implied earlier, I don’t think this question is such a problem. On what grounds is the claim made that God must always move people to do good, or even that God must ever move people to do good?

 

[qOLOp]

We are examining the argument for a perfect God’s non-existence based on evil.

Most objections I have seen against God’s benevolence have to do with the existance of suffering and death; yet this has always confused me since suffering and death are not intrinsically evil.

 

[Heliotropium]

He gives an example in which Adam and Eve always choose the good and never sin. Meaning that while the choice for evil is there, they never go down the wrong alleyway. Because this world (the one in which we always choose the good – pre-fall world) is a possibility and because God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent he would have wanted to and could have created this world. However he did not.

Any thoughts of how to approach a refutation?

Actually God did make that world; however, Adam and Eve did not choose to go to God in their time of temptation. Notice they never asked God for help, they never question the serpent, etc. Adam and Eve never utilized any of the means God gave them to avoid the fall, and the same is true for mankind in the present day since they likewise deny and waist many graces God sends them to change their lives and practice virtue. Being in a relationship is about cooperation and mutual self giving. The world God made the first time was and is the best world because it fulfills this purpose and allows His people to have a true relationship with Him or to reject this relationship and be selfish.