serious challenge to belief in the existence of a perfect God. If God
were all-knowing, it seems that God would know about all of the
horrible things that happen in our world. If God were all-powerful,
God would be able to do something about all of the evil and suffering.
Furthermore, if God were morally perfect, then surely God would want
to do something about it. And yet we find that our world is filled
with countless instances of evil and suffering. These facts about
evil and suffering seem to conflict with the orthodox theist claim
that there exists a perfectly good God. The challenged posed by this
apparent conflict has come to be known as the problem of evil.
This article addresses one form of that problem that is prominent in
recent philosophical discussions–that the conflict that exists between
the claims of orthodox theism and the facts about evil and suffering
in our world is a logical one. This is the "logical problem of evil."
The article clarifies the nature of the logical problem of evil and
considers various theistic responses to the problem. Special attention
is given to the free will defense, which has been the most widely
discussed theistic response to the logical problem of evil.
1. Introducing the Problem
Journalist and best-selling author Lee Strobel commissioned George
Barna, the public-opinion pollster, to conduct a nationwide survey.
The survey included the question "If you could ask God only one
question and you knew he would give you an answer, what would you
ask?" The most common response, offered by 17% of those who could
think of a question was "Why is there pain and suffering in the
world?" (Strobel 2000, p. 29). If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and
perfectly good, why does he let so many bad things happen? This
question raises what philosophers call "the problem of evil."
It would be one thing if the only people who suffered debilitating
diseases or tragic losses were the likes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph
Stalin or Osama Bin Laden. As it is, however, thousands of
good-hearted, innocent people experience the ravages of violent crime,
terminal disease, and other evils. Michael Peterson (1998, p. 1)
writes,
Something is dreadfully wrong with our world. An earthquake kills
hundreds in Peru. A pancreatic cancer patient suffers prolonged,
excruciating pain and dies. A pit bull attacks a two-year-old child,
angrily ripping his flesh and killing him. Countless multitudes suffer
the ravages of war in Somalia. A crazed cult leader pushes eighty-five
people to their deaths in Waco, Texas. Millions starve and die in
North Korea as famine ravages the land. Horrible things of all kinds
happen in our world—and that has been the story since the dawn of
civilization.
Peterson (1998, p. 9) claims that the problem of evil is a kind of
"moral protest." In asking "How could God let this happen?" people are
often claiming "It's not fair that God has let this happen." Many
atheists try to turn the existence of evil and suffering into an
argument against the existence of God. They claim that, since there is
something morally problematic about a morally perfect God allowing all
of the evil and suffering we see, there must not be a morally perfect
God after all. The popularity of this kind of argument has led Hans
Küng (1976, p. 432) to call the problem of evil "the rock of atheism."
This essay examines one form the argument from evil has taken, which
is known as "the logical problem of evil."
In the second half of the twentieth century, atheologians (that is,
persons who try to prove the non-existence of God) commonly claimed
that the problem of evil was a problem of logical inconsistency. J. L.
Mackie (1955, p. 200), for example, claimed,
Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational
support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts
of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one
another.
H. J. McCloskey (1960, p. 97) wrote,
Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is
involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the
omnipotence and omniscience of God on the other.
Mackie and McCloskey can be understood as claiming that it is
impossible for all of the following statements to be true at the same
time:
(1) God is omnipotent (that is, all-powerful).
(2) God is omniscient (that is, all-knowing).
(3) God is perfectly good.
(4) Evil exists.
Any two or three of them might be true at the same time; but there is
no way that all of them could be true. In other words, (1) through (4)
form a logically inconsistent set. What does it mean to say that
something is logically inconsistent?
(5) A set of statements is logically inconsistent if and only if:
(a) that set includes a direct contradiction of the form "p & not-p";
or (b) a direct contradiction can be deduced from that set.
None of the statements in (1) through (4) directly contradicts any
other, so if the set is logically inconsistent, it must be because we
can deduce a contradiction from it. This is precisely what
atheologians claim to be able to do.
Atheologians claim that a contradiction can easily be deduced from (1)
through (4) once we think through the implications of the divine
attributes cited in (1) through (3). They reason as follows:
(6) If God is omnipotent, he would be able to prevent all of the
evil and suffering in the world.
(7) If God is omniscient, he would know about all of the evil and
suffering in the world and would know how to eliminate or prevent it.
(8) If God is perfectly good, he would want to prevent all of the
evil and suffering in the world.
Statements (6) through (8) jointly imply that if the perfect God of
theism really existed, there would not be any evil or suffering.
However, as we all know, our world is filled with a staggering amount
of evil and suffering. Atheologians claim that, if we reflect upon (6)
through (8) in light of the fact of evil and suffering in our world,
we should be led to the following conclusions:
(9) If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world,
knows how to eliminate or prevent it, is powerful enough to prevent
it, and yet does not prevent it, he must not be perfectly good.
(10) If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows how
to eliminate or prevent it, wants to prevent it, and yet does not do
so, he must not be all- powerful.
(11) If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil and
suffering, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about
all of the suffering or know how to eliminate or prevent it—that is,
he must not be all-knowing.
From (9) through (11) we can infer:
(12) If evil and suffering exist, then God is either not
omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good.
Since evil and suffering obviously do exist, we get:
(13) God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good.
Putting the point more bluntly, this line of argument suggests that—in
light of the evil and suffering we find in our world—if God exists, he
is either impotent, ignorant or wicked. It should be obvious that (13)
conflicts with (1) through (3) above. To make the conflict more clear,
we can combine (1), (2) and (3) into the following single statement.
(14) God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good.
There is no way that (13) and (14) could both be true at the same
time. These statements are logically inconsistent or contradictory.
Statement (14) is simply the conjunction of (1) through (3) and
expresses the central belief of classical theism. However,
atheologians claim that statement ( 13) can also be derived from (1)
through (3). [Statements (6) through (12) purport to show how this is
done.] (13) and (14), however, are logically contradictory. Because a
contradiction can be deduced from statements (1) through (4) and
because all theists believe (1) through (4), atheologians claim that
theists have logically inconsistent beliefs. They note that
philosophers have always believed it is never rational to believe
something contradictory. So, the existence of evil and suffering makes
theists' belief in the existence of a perfect God irrational.
Can the believer in God escape from this dilemma? In his best-selling
book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner
(1981) offers the following escape route for the theist: deny the
truth of (1). According to this proposal, God is not ignoring your
suffering when he doesn't act to prevent it because—as an all-knowing
God—he knows about all of your suffering. As a perfectly good God, he
also feels your pain. The problem is that he can't do anything about
it because he's not omnipotent. According to Kushner's portrayal, God
is something of a kind-hearted wimp. He'd like to help, but he doesn't
have the power to do anything about evil and suffering. Denying the
truth of either (1), (2), (3) or ( 4) is certainly one way for the
theist to escape from the logical problem of evil, but it would not be
a very palatable option to many theists. In the remainder of this
essay, we will examine some theistic responses to the logical problem
of evil that do not require the abandonment of any central tenet of
theism.
2. Logical Consistency
Theists who want to rebut the logical problem of evil need to find a
way to show that (1) through (4)—perhaps despite initial
appearances—are consistent after all. We said above that a set of
statements is logically inconsistent if and only if that set includes
a direct contradiction or a direct contradiction can be deduced from
that set. That means that a set of statements is logically consistent
if and only if that set does not include a direct contradiction and a
direct contradiction cannot be deduced from that set. In other words,
(15) A set of statements is logically consistent if and only if it
is possible for all of them to be true at the same time.
Notice that (15) does not say that consistent statements must actually
be true at the same time. They may all be false or some may be true
and others false. Consistency only requires that it be possible for
all of the statements to be true (even if that possibility is never
actualized). (15) also doesn't say anything about plausibility. It
does not require the joint of a consistent set of statements to be
plausible. It may be exceedingly unlikely or improbable that a certain
set of statements should all be true at the same time. But
improbability is not the same thing as impossibility. As long as there
is nothing contradictory about their conjunction, it will be possible
(even if unlikely) for them all to be true at the same time.
This brief discussion allows us to see that the atheological claim
that statements (1) through (4) are logically inconsistent is a rather
strong one. The atheologian is maintaining that statements (1) through
(4) couldn't possibly all be true at the same time. In other words,
(16) It is not possible for God and evil to co-exist.
The logical problem of evil claims that God's omnipotence, omniscience
and supreme goodness would completely rule out the possibility of evil
and that the existence of evil would do the same for the existence of
a supreme being.
3. Logical Consistency and the Logical Problem of Evil
How might a theist go about demonstrating that (16) is false? Some
theists suggest that perhaps God has a good reason for allowing the
evil and suffering that he does. Not just any old reason can justify
God's allowing all of the evil and suffering we see. Mass murderers
and serial killers typically have reasons for why they commit horrible
crimes, but they do not have good reasons. It's only when people have
morally good reasons that we excuse or condone their behavior.
Philosophers of religion have called the kind of reason that could
morally justify God's allowing evil and suffering a "morally
sufficient reason."
Consider the following statement.
(17) It is possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for
allowing evil.
If God were to have a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil,
would it be possible for God to be omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly
good, and yet for there to be evil and suffering? Many theists answer
"Yes." If (17) were true, (9) through (12) would have to be modified
to read:
(9′) If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the
world, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, is powerful enough to
prevent it, and yet does not prevent it, he must not be perfectly
good—unless he has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil.
(10′) If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows how
to eliminate or prevent it, wants to prevent it, and yet does not do
so, he must not be all-powerful—unless he has a morally sufficient
reason for allowing evil.
(11′) If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil and
suffering, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about
all of the suffering or know how to eliminate or prevent it (that is,
he must not be all-knowing)—unless he has a morally sufficient reason
for allowing evil.
(12′) If evil and suffering exist, then either: a) God is not
omnipotent, not omniscient, or not perfectly good; or b) God has a
morally sufficient reason for allowing evil.
From (9′) through (12′), it is not possible to conclude that God does
not exist. The most that can be concluded is that either God does not
exist or God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil. So,
some theists suggest that the real question behind the logical problem
of evil is whether (17) is true.
If it is possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for
allowing evil and suffering to occur, then the logical problem of evil
fails to prove the non-existence of God. If, however, it is not
possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil,
then it seems that (13) would be true: God is either not omnipotent,
not omniscient, or not perfectly good.
An implicit assumption behind this part of the debate over the logical
problem of evil is the following:
(18) It is not morally permissible for God to allow evil and
suffering to occur unless he has a morally sufficient reason for doing
so.
Is (18) correct? Many philosophers think so. It is difficult to see
how a God who allowed bad things to happen just for the heck of it
could be worthy of reverence, faith and worship. If God had no morally
sufficient reason for allowing evil, then if we made it to the pearly
gates some day and asked God why he allowed so many bad things to
happen, he would simply have to shrug his shoulders and say "There was
no reason or point to all of that suffering you endured. I just felt
like letting it happen." This callous image of God is difficult to
reconcile with orthodox theism's portrayal of God as a loving Father
who cares deeply about his creation. (18), combined with the
assumption that God does not have a morally sufficient reason for
allowing evil, yields
(19) God is doing something morally inappropriate or blameworthy
in allowing evil to occur,
and
(20) If God is doing something morally inappropriate or
blameworthy, then God is not perfectly good.
If (19) and (20) are true, then the God of orthodox theism does not exist.
What would it look like for God to have a morally sufficient reason
for allowing evil? Let's first consider a down-to-earth example of a
morally sufficient reason a human being might have before moving on to
the case of God. Suppose a gossipy neighbor were to tell you that Mrs.
Jones just allowed someone to inflict unwanted pain upon her child.
Your first reaction to this news might be one of horror. But once you
find out that the pain was caused by a shot that immunized Mrs. Jones'
infant daughter against polio, you would no longer view Mrs. Jones as
a danger to society. Generally, we believe the following moral
principle to be true.
(21) Parents should not inflict unwanted pain upon their children.
In the immunization case, Mrs. Jones has a morally sufficient reason
for overriding or suspending this principle. A higher moral
duty—namely, the duty of protecting the long-term health of her
child—trumps the lesser duty expressed by (21). If God has a morally
sufficient reason for allowing evil and suffering, theists claim, it
will probably look something like Mrs. Jones'.
4. Plantinga's Free Will Defense
What might God's reason be for allowing evil and suffering to occur?
Alvin Plantinga (1974, 1977) has offered the most famous contemporary
philosophical response to this question. He suggests the following as
a possible morally sufficient reason:
(MSR1) God's creation of persons with morally significant free
will is something of tremendous value. God could not eliminate much of
the evil and suffering in this world without thereby eliminating the
greater good of having created persons with free will with whom he
could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do
good deeds.
(MSR1) claims that God allows some evils to occur that are smaller in
value than a greater good to which they are intimately connected. If
God eliminated the evil, he would have to eliminate the greater good
as well. God is pictured as being in a situation much like that of
Mrs. Jones: she allowed a small evil (the pain of a needle) to be
inflicted upon her child because that pain was necessary for bringing
about a greater good (immunization against polio). Before we try to
decide whether (MSR1) can justify God in allowing evil and suffering
to occur, some of its key terms need to be explained.
To begin with, (MSR1) presupposes the view of free will known as
"libertarianism":
(22) Libertarianism=df the view that a person is free with respect
to a given action if and only if that person is both free to perform
that action and free to refrain from performing that action; in other
words, that person is not determined to perform or refrain from that
action by any prior causal forces.
Although the term "libertarianism" isn't exactly a household name, the
view it expresses is commonly taken to be the average person's view of
free will. It is the view that causal determinism is false,
that—unlike robots or other machines—we can make choices that are
genuinely free.
According to Plantinga, libertarian free will is a morally significant
kind of free will. An action is morally significant just when it is
appropriate to evaluate that action from a moral perspective (for
example, by ascribing moral praise or blame). Persons have morally
significant free will if they are able to perform actions that are
morally significant. Imagine a possible world where God creates
creatures with a very limited kind of freedom. Suppose that the
persons in this world can only choose good options and are incapable
of choosing bad options. So, if one of them were faced with three
possible courses of action—two of which were morally good and one of
which was morally bad—this person would not be free with respect to
the morally bad option. That is, that person would not be able to
choose any bad option even if they wanted to. Our hypothetical person
does, however, have complete freedom to decide which of the two good
courses of action to take. Plantinga would deny that any such person
has morally significant free will. People in this world always perform
morally good actions, but they deserve no credit for doing so. It is
impossible for them to do wrong. So, when they do perform right
actions, they should not be praised. It would be ridiculous to give
moral praise to a robot for putting your soda can in the recycle bin
rather than the trash can, if that is what it was programmed to do.
Given the program running inside the robot and its exposure to an
empty soda can, it's going to take the can to the recycle bin. It has
no choice about the matter. Similarly, the people in the possible
world under consideration have no choice about being good. Since they
are pre-programmed to be good, they deserve no praise for it.
According to Plantinga, people in the actual world are free in the
most robust sense of that term. They are fully free and responsible
for their actions and decisions. Because of this, when they do what is
right, they can properly be praised. Moreover, when they do wrong,
they can be rightly blamed or punished for their actions.
It is important to note that (MSR1) directly conflicts with a common
assumption about what kind of world God could have created. Many
atheologians believe that God could have created a world that was
populated with free creatures and yet did not contain any evil or
suffering. Since this is something that God could have done and since
a world with free creatures and no evil is better than a world with
free creatures and evil, this is something God should have done. Since
he did not do so, God did something blameworthy by not preventing or
eliminating evil and suffering (if indeed God exists at all). In
response to this charge, Plantinga maintains that there are some
worlds God cannot create. In particular, he cannot do the logically
impossible. (MSR1) claims that God cannot get rid of much of the evil
and suffering in the world without also getting rid of morally
significant free will. (The question of whether God's omnipotence is
compatible with the claim that God cannot do the logically impossible
will be addressed below.)
Consider the following descriptions of various worlds. We need to
determine which ones describe worlds that are logically possible and
which ones describe impossible worlds. The worlds described will be
possible if the descriptions of those worlds are logically consistent.
If the descriptions of those worlds are inconsistent or contradictory,
the worlds in question will be impossible.
W1: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will;
(b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to
choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and
(c) There is evil and suffering in W1.
W2: (a) God does not create persons with morally significant free will;
(b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose
what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and
(c) There is no evil or suffering in W2.
W3: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will;
(b) God causally determines people in every situation to choose
what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and
(c) There is no evil or suffering in W3.
W4: (a) God creates persons with morally significant free will;
(b) God does not causally determine people in every situation to
choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong; and
(c) There is no evil or suffering in W4.
Let's figure out which of these worlds are possible. Is W1 possible?
Yes. In fact, on the assumption that God exists, it seems to describe
the actual world. People have free will in this world and there is
evil and suffering. God has obviously not causally determined people
in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong
because there would be no evil or suffering if he had. So, W1 is
clearly possible.
What about W2? Granting Plantinga's assumption that human beings are
genuinely free creatures, the first thing to notice about W2 is that
you and I would not exist in such a world. We are creatures with
morally significant free will. If you took away our free will, we
would no longer be the kinds of creatures we are. We would not be
human in that world. Returning to the main issue, there does not seem
to be anything impossible about God causally determining people in
every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. It
seems clearly possible that whatever creatures God were to make in
such a world would not have morally significant free will and that
there would be no evil or suffering. W2, then, is also possible.
Now let's consider the philosophically more important world W3. Is W3
possible? Plantinga says, "No." Parts (a) and (b) of the description
of W3 are, he claims, logically inconsistent. In W3 God causally
determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to
avoid what is wrong. People in this world couldn't do morally bad
things if they wanted to. And yet part of what it means for creatures
to have morally significant free will is that they can do morally bad
things whenever they want to. Think about what it would be like to
live in W3. If you wanted to tell a lie, you would not be able to do
so. Causal forces beyond your control would make you tell the truth on
every occasion. You would also be physically incapable of stealing
your neighbor's belongings. In fact, since W3 is a world without evil
of any kind and since merely wanting to lie or steal is itself a bad
thing, the people in W3 would not even be able to have morally bad
thoughts or desires. If God is going to causally determine people in
every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong in
W3, there is no way that he could allow them to be free in a morally
significant sense. Peterson (1998, p. 39) writes,
if a person is free with respect to an action A, then God does not
bring it about or cause it to be the case that she does A or refrains
from doing A. For if God brings it about or causes it to be the case
in any manner whatsoever that the person either does A or does not do
A, then that person is not really free.
God can't have it both ways. He can create a world with free creatures
or he can causally determine creatures to choose what is right and to
avoid what is wrong every time; but he can't do both. God can forcibly
eliminate evil and suffering (as in W2) only at the cost of getting
rid of free will.
The fact that W3 is impossible is centrally important to Plantinga's
Free Will Defense. Atheologians, as we saw above, claim that God is
doing something morally blameworthy by allowing evil and suffering to
exist in our world. They charge that a good God would and should
eliminate all evil and suffering. The assumption behind this charge is
that, in so doing, God could leave human free will untouched.
Plantinga claims that when we think through what robust free will
really amounts to, we can see that atheologians are (unbeknownst to
themselves) asking God to do the logically impossible. Being upset
that God has not done something that is logically impossible is,
according to Plantinga, misguided. He might say, "Of course he hasn't
done that. It's logically impossible!" As we will see in section V
below, Plantinga maintains that divine omnipotence involves an ability
to do anything that is logically possible, but it does not include the
ability to do the logically impossible.
Consider W4. Is it possible? Yes! Most people are tempted to answer
"No" when first exposed to this description, but think carefully about
it. Although there is no evil and suffering in this world, it is not
because God causally determines people in every situation to choose
what is right and to avoid what is wrong. In this world God has given
creatures morally significant free will without any strings attached.
If there is nothing bad in this world, it can only be because the free
creatures that inhabit this world have—by their own free will—always
chosen to do the right thing. Is this kind of situation really
possible? Yes. Something is logically possible just when it can be
conceived without contradiction. There is nothing contradictory about
supposing that there is a possible world where free creatures always
make the right choices and never go wrong. Of course, it's highly
improbable, given what we know about human nature. But improbability
and impossibility, as we said above, are two different things. In
fact, according to the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, it was
God's will that significantly free human beings would live in the
Garden of Eden and always obey God's commands. If Adam and Eve had
followed God's plan, then W4 would have been the actual world.
It is important to note certain similarities between W1 and W4. Both
worlds are populated by creatures with free will and in neither world
does God causally determine people to always choose what is right and
to avoid what is wrong. The only difference is that, in W1, the free
creatures choose to do wrong at least some of the time, and in W4, the
free creatures always make morally good decisions. In other words,
whether there is immorality in either one of these worlds depends upon
the persons living in these worlds—not upon God. According to
Plantinga's Free Will Defense, there is evil and suffering in this
world because people do immoral things. People deserve the blame for
the bad things that happen—not God. Plantinga (1974, p. 190) writes,
The essential point of the Free Will Defense is that the creation
of a world containing moral good is a cooperative venture; it requires
the uncoerced concurrence of significantly free creatures. But then
the actualization of a world W containing moral good is not up to God
alone; it also depends upon what the significantly free creatures of W
would do.
Atheist philosophers such as Anthony Flew and J. L. Mackie have argued
that an omnipotent God should be able to create a world containing
moral good but no moral evil. As Flew (1955, p. 149) put it, "If there
is no contradiction here then Omnipotence might have made a world
inhabited by perfectly virtuous people." Mackie (1955, p. 209) writes,
If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes
prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have
made men such that they always freely choose the good? If there is no
logical impossibility in a man's choosing the good on one, or on
several occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his
freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced
with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who,
in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the
obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but
always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this
possibility is inconsistent with his being both omnipotent and
perfectly good.
According to Plantinga, Mackie is correct in thinking that there is
nothing impossible about a world in which people always freely choose
to do right. That's W4. He is also correct in thinking that God's only
options were not "making innocent automata and making beings who, in
acting freely, would sometimes go wrong." In other words, worlds like
W1 and W2 are not the only logically possible worlds. But Plantinga
thinks he is mistaken in thinking that W3 is possible and in not
recognizing important differences between W3 and W4. People can freely
choose to do what is right only when their actions are not causally
determined.
We might wonder why God would choose to risk populating his new
creation with free creatures if he knew there was a chance that human
immorality could foul the whole thing up. C. S. Lewis (1943, p. 52)
offers the following answer to this question:
Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though
it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any
love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures
that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The
happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness
of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other…. And for
that they must be free. Of course, God knew what would happen if they
used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the
risk.
Plantinga concurs. He writes,
A world containing creatures who are sometimes significantly free
(and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all
else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.
Now God can create free creatures, but he cannot cause or determine
them to do only what is right. For if he does so, then they are not
significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To
create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, he must create
creatures capable of moral evil; and he cannot leave these creatures
free to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so….
The fact that these free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts
neither against God's omnipotence nor against his goodness; for he
could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by excising
the possibility of moral good. (Plantinga 1974, pp. 166-167)
According to his Free Will Defense, God could not eliminate the
possibility of moral evil without at the same time eliminating some
greater good.
5. Divine Omnipotence and the Free Will Defense
Some scholars maintain that Plantinga has rejected the idea of an
omnipotent God because he claims there are some things God cannot
do—namely, logically impossible things. Plantinga, however, doesn't
take God's omnipotence to include the power to do the logically
impossible. He reasons as follows. Can God create a round square? Can
he make 2 + 2 = 5? Can he create a stick that is not as long as
itself? Can he make contradictory statements true? Can he make a rock
so big he can't lift it? In response to each of these questions,
Plantinga's answer is "No." Each of the scenarios depicted in these
questions is impossible: the objects or events in question couldn't
possibly exist. Omnipotence, according to Plantinga, is the power to
do anything that is logically possible. The fact that God cannot do
the logically impossible is not, Plantinga claims, a genuine
limitation of God's power. He would urge those uncomfortable with the
idea of limitations on God's power to think carefully about the absurd
implications of a God who can do the logically impossible. If you
think God really can make a round square, Plantinga would like to know
what such a shape would look like. If God can make 2 + 2 = 5, then
what would 2 + 3 equal? If God can make a rock so big that he can't
lift it, exactly how big would that rock be? What Plantinga would
really like to see is a stick that is not as long as itself. Each of
these things seems to be absolutely, positively impossible.
Many theists maintain that it is a mistake to think that God's
omnipotence requires that the blank in the following sentence must
never be filled in:
(23) God is not able to ______________.
According to orthodox theism, all of the following statements (and
many more like them) are true.
(24) God is not able to lie.
(25) God is not able to cheat.
(26) God is not able to steal.
(27) God is not able to be unjust.
(28) God is not able to be envious.
(29) God is not able to fail to know what is right.
(30) God is not able to fail to do what he knows to be right.
(31) God is not able to have false beliefs about anything.
(32) God is not able to be ignorant.
(33) God is not able to be unwise.
(34) God is not able to cease to exist.
(35) God is not able to make a mistake of any kind.
According to classical theism, the fact that God cannot do any of
these things is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, theists
claim, it is an indication of his supremacy and uniqueness. These
facts reveal that God is, in St. Anselm's (1033-1109 A.D.) words,
"that being than which none greater can be conceived." Plantinga adds
the following two items to the list of things God cannot do.
(36) God is not able to contradict himself.
(37) God is not able to make significantly free creatures and to
causally determine that they will always choose what is right and
avoid what is wrong.
These inabilities follow not from God's omnipotence alone but from his
omnipotence in combination with his omniscience, moral perfection and
the other divine perfections God possesses.
6. An Objection: Free Will and Natural Evil
At this point, someone might raise the following objection.
Plantinga can't put all the blame for pain and suffering on human
beings. Although much of the evil in this world results from the free
choices people make, some of it does not. Cancer, AIDS, famines,
earthquakes, tornadoes, and many other kinds of diseases and natural
disasters are things that happen without anybody choosing to bring
them about. Plantinga's Free Will Defense, then, cannot serve as a
morally sufficient reason for God's allowing disease and natural
disasters.
This objection leads us to draw a distinction between the following
two kinds of evil and suffering:
(38) Moral evil =df evil or suffering that results from the
immoral choices of free creatures.
(39) Natural evil =df evil or suffering that results from the
operations of nature or nature gone awry.
According to Edward Madden and Peter Hare (1968, p. 6), natural evil includes
the terrible pain, suffering, and untimely death caused by events
like fire, flood, landslide, hurricane, earthquake, tidal wave, and
famine and by diseases like cancer, leprosy and tetanus—as well as
crippling defects and deformities like blindness, deafness, dumbness,
shriveled limbs, and insanity by which so many sentient beings are
cheated of the full benefits of life.
Moral evil, they continue, includes
both moral wrong-doing such as lying, cheating, stealing,
torturing, and murdering and character defects like greed, deceit,
cruelty, wantonness, cowardice, and selfishness. (ibid.)
It seems that, although Plantinga's Free Will Defense may be able to
explain why God allows moral evil to occur, it cannot explain why he
allows natural evil. If God is going to allow people to be free, it
seems plausible to claim that they need to have the capacity to commit
crimes and to be immoral. However, it is not clear that human freedom
requires the existence of natural evils like deadly viruses and
natural disasters. How would my free will be compromised if tomorrow
God completely eliminated cancer from the face of the Earth? Do people
really need to die from heart disease and flash floods in order for us
to have morally significant free will? It is difficult to see that
they do. So, the objection goes, even if Plantinga's Free Will Defense
explains why God allows moral evil, it does not explain why he allows
natural evil.
Plantinga, however, thinks that his Free Will Defense can be used to
solve the logical problem of evil as it pertains to natural evil. Here
is a possible reason God might have for allowing natural evil:
(MSR2) God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam
and Eve's punishment for their sin in the Garden of Eden.
(Those familiar with Plantinga's work will notice that this is not the
same reason Plantinga offers for God's allowing natural evil. They
will also be able to guess why a different reason was chosen in this
article.) The sin of Adam and Eve was a moral evil. (MSR2) claims that
all natural evil followed as the result of the world's first moral
evil. So, if it is plausible to think that Plantinga's Free Will
Defense solves the logical problem of evil as it pertains to moral
evil, the current suggestion is that it is plausible also to think
that it solves the logical problem of evil as it pertains to natural
evil because all of the worlds evils have their source in moral evil.
(MSR2) represents a common Jewish and Christian response to the
challenge posed by natural evil. Death, disease, pain and even the
tiresome labor involved in gleaning food from the soil came into the
world as a direct result of Adam and Eve's sin. The emotional pain of
separation, shame and broken relationships are also consequences that
first instance of moral evil. In fact, according to the first chapter
of Genesis, animals in the Garden of Eden didn't even kill each other
for food before the Fall. In the description of the sixth day of
creation God says to Adam and Eve,
I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth
and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for
food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air
and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the
breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. (Gen. 1:29-30,
NIV)
In other words, the Garden of Eden is pictured as a peaceful,
vegetarian commune until moral evil entered the world and brought
natural evil with it. It seems, then, that the Free Will Defense might
be adapted to rebut the logical problem of natural evil after all.
Some might think that (MSR2) is simply too far-fetched to be taken
seriously. [If you think (MSR2) is far-fetched, see Plantinga's (1974,
pp. 191-193) own suggestions about who is responsible for natural
evil.] Natural disasters, it will be said, bear no essential
connection to human wrongdoing, so it is absurd to think that moral
evil could somehow bring natural evil into the world. Moreover, (MSR2)
would have us believe that there were real persons named Adam and Eve
and that they actually performed the misdeeds attributed to them in
the book of Genesis. (MSR2) seems to be asking us to believe things
that only a certain kind of theist would believe. The implausibility
of (MSR2) is taken by some to be a serious defect.
7. Evaluating the Free Will Defense
What should we make of Plantinga's Free Will Defense? Does it succeed
in solving the logical problem of evil as it pertains to either moral
or natural evil? In order to answer these questions, let's briefly
consider what it would take for any response to the logical problem of
evil to be successful. Recall that the logical problem of evil can be
summarized as the following claim:
(16) It is not possible for God and evil to co-exist.
When someone claims
(40) Situation x is impossible,
what is the least that you would have to prove in order to show that
(40) is false? If you could point to an actual instance of the type of
situation in question, that would certainly prove that (40) is false.
But you don't even need to trouble yourself with finding an actual x.
All you need is a possible x. The claim
(41) Situation x is possible
is the contradictory of (40). The two claims are logical opposites. If
one is true, the other is false; if one is false, the other is true.
If you can show that x is merely possible, you will have refuted (40).
How would you go about finding a logically possible x? Philosophers
claim that you only need to use your imagination. If you can conceive
of a state of affairs without there being anything contradictory about
what you're imagining, then that state of affairs must be possible. In
a word, conceivability is your guide to possibility.
Since the logical problem of evil claims that it is logically
impossible for God and evil to co-exist, all that Plantinga (or any
other theist) needs to do to combat this claim is to describe a
possible situation in which God and evil co-exist. That situation
doesn't need to be actual or even realistic. Plantinga doesn't need to
have a single shred of evidence supporting the truth of his
suggestion. All he needs to do is give a logically consistent
description of a way that God and evil can co-exist. Plantinga claims
God and evil could co-exist if God had a morally sufficient reason for
allowing evil. He suggests that God's morally sufficient reason might
have something to do with humans being granted morally significant
free will and with the greater goods this freedom makes possible. All
that Plantinga needs to claim on behalf of (MSR1) and (MSR2) is that
they are logically possible (that is, not contradictory).
Does Plantinga's Free Will Defense succeed in describing a possible
state of affairs in which God has a morally sufficient reason for
allowing evil? It certainly seems so. In fact, it appears that even
the most hardened atheist must admit that (MSR1) and (MSR2) are
possible reasons God might have for allowing moral and natural evil.
They may not represent God's actual reasons, but for the purpose of
blocking the logical problem of evil, it is not necessary that
Plantinga discover God's actual reasons. In the last section we noted
that many people will find (MSR2)'s explanation of natural evil
extremely difficult to believe because it assumes the literal
existence of Adam and Eve and the literal occurrence of the Fall.
However, since (MSR2) deals with the logical problem of evil as it
pertains to natural evil (which claims that it is logically impossible
for God and natural evil to co-exist), it only needs to sketch a
possible way for God and natural evil to co-exist. The fact that
(MSR2) may be implausible does not keep it from being possible. Since
the situation described by (MSR2) is clearly possible, it appears that
it successfully rebuts the logical problem of evil as it pertains to
natural evil.
Since (MSR1) and (MSR2) together seem to show contra the claims of the
logical problem of evil how it is possible for God and (moral and
natural) evil to co-exist, it seems that the Free Will Defense
successfully defeats the logical problem of evil.
8. Was Plantinga's Victory Too Easy?
Some philosophers feel that Plantinga's apparent victory over the
logical problem of evil was somehow too easy. His solution to the
logical problem of evil leaves them feeling unsatisfied and suspicious
that they have been taken in by some kind of sleight of hand. For
example, J. L. Mackie one of the most prominent atheist philosophers
of the mid-twentieth-century and a key exponent of the logical problem
of evil has this to say about Plantinga's Free Will Defense:
Since this defense is formally [that is, logically] possible, and
its principle involves no real abandonment of our ordinary view of the
opposition between good and evil, we can concede that the problem of
evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism
are logically inconsistent with one another. But whether this offers a
real solution of the problem is another question. (Mackie 1982, p.
154)
Mackie admits that Plantinga's defense shows how God and evil can
co-exist, that is, it shows that "the central doctrines of theism" are
logically consistent after all. However, Mackie is reluctant to
attribute much significance to Plantinga's accomplishment. He
expresses doubt about whether Plantinga has adequately dealt with the
problem of evil.
Part of Mackie's dissatisfaction probably stems from the fact that
Plantinga only gives a possible reason for why God might have for
allowing evil and suffering and does not provide any evidence for his
claims or in any way try to make them plausible. Although sketching
out mere possibilities without giving them any evidential support is
typically an unsatisfactory thing to do in philosophy, it is not clear
that Mackie's unhappiness with Plantinga is completely warranted. It
was, after all, Mackie himself who characterized the problem of evil
as one of logical inconsistency:
Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational
support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts
of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one
another. (Mackie 1955, p. 200)
In response to this formulation of the problem of evil, Plantinga
showed that this charge of inconsistency was mistaken. Even Mackie
admits that Plantinga solved the problem of evil, if that problem is
understood as one of inconsistency. It is, therefore, difficult to see
why Plantinga's Free Will Defense should be found wanting if that
defense is seen as a response to the logical problem of evil. As an
attempt to rebut the logical problem of evil, it is strikingly
successful.
The dissatisfaction many have felt with Plantinga's solution may stem
from a desire to see Plantinga's Free Will Defense respond more
generally to the problem of evil and not merely to a single
formulation of the problem. As an all-around response to the problem
of evil, the Free Will Defense does not offer us much in the way of
explanation. It leaves several of the most important questions about
God and evil unanswered. The desire to see a theistic response to the
problem of evil go beyond merely undermining a particular atheological
argument is understandable. However, we should keep in mind that all
parties admit that Plantinga's Free Will Defense successfully rebuts
the logical problem of evil as it was formulated by atheists during
the mid-twentieth-century.
If there is any blame that needs to go around, it may be that some of
it should go to Mackie and other atheologians for claiming that the
problem of evil was a problem of inconsistency. The ease with which
Plantinga undermined that formulation of the problem suggests that the
logical formulation did not adequately capture the difficult and
perplexing issue concerning God and evil that has been so hotly
debated by philosophers and theologians. In fact, this is precisely
the message that many philosophers took away from the debate between
Plantinga and the defenders of the logical problem of evil. They
reasoned that there must be more to the problem of evil than what is
captured in the logical formulation of the problem. It is now widely
agreed that this intuition is correct. Current discussions of the
problem focus on what is called "the probabilistic problem of evil" or
"the evidential problem of evil." According to this formulation of the
problem, the evil and suffering (or, in some cases, the amounts, kinds
and distributions of evil and suffering) that we find in the world
count as evidence against the existence of God (or make it improbable
that God exists). Responding to this formulation of the problem
requires much more than simply describing a logically possible
scenario in which God and evil co-exist.
9. Other Responses to the Logical Problem of Evil
Plantinga's Free Will Defense has been the most famous theistic
response to the logical problem of evil because he did more to clarify
the issues surrounding the logical problem than anyone else. It has
not, however, been the only such response. Other solutions to the
problem include John Hick's (1977) soul-making theodicy. Hick rejects
the traditional view of the Fall, which pictures humans as being
created in a finitely perfect and finished state from which they
disastrously fell away. Instead, Hick claims that human beings are
unfinished and in the midst of being made all that God intended them
to be. The long evolutionary process made humans into a
distinguishable species capable of reasoning and responsibility, but
they must now (as individuals) go through a second process of
"spiritualization" or "soul-making," during which they become
"children of God." According to Hick, the suffering and travails of
this life are part of the divine plan of soul-making. A world full of
suffering, trials and temptations is more conducive to the process of
soul-making than a world full of constant pleasure and the complete
absence of pain. Hick (1977, pp. 255-256) writes,
The value-judgment that is implicitly being invoked here is that
one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering
temptations, and thus by rightly making responsible choices in
concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than
would be one created ab initio in a state either of innocence or of
virtue…. I suggest, then, that it is an ethically reasonable judgment…
that human goodness slowly built up through personal histories of
moral effort has a value in the eyes of the Creator which justifies
even the long travail of the soul-making process.
Unlike Plantinga's response to the logical problem of evil, which is
merely a "defense" (that is, a negative attempt to undermine a certain
atheological argument without offering a positive account of why God
allows evil and suffering), Hick's response is a "theodicy" (that is,
a more comprehensive attempt to account for why God is justified in
allowing evil and suffering).
Eleonore Stump (1985) offers another response to the problem of evil
that brings a range of distinctively Christian theological commitments
to bear on the issue. She claims that a world full of evil and
suffering is "conducive to bringing about both the initial human
[receipt of God's gift of salvation] and also the subsequent process
of sanctification" (Stump 1985, p. 409). She writes,
Natural evil—the pain of disease, the intermittent and
unpredictable destruction of natural disasters, the decay of old age,
the imminence of death—takes away a person's satisfaction with
himself. It tends to humble him, show him his frailty, make him
reflect on the transience of temporal goods, and turn his affections
towards other-worldly things, away from the things of this world. No
amount of moral or natural evil, of course, can guarantee that a man
will [place his faith in God]…. But evil of this sort is the best
hope, I think, and maybe the only effective means, for bringing men to
such a state. (Stump 1985, p. 409)
Stump claims that, although the sin of Adam—and not any act of
God—first brought moral and natural evil into this world, God
providentially uses both kinds of evil in order to bring about the
greatest good that a fallen, sinful human being can experience: a
repaired will and eternal union with God.
The responses of both Hick and Stump are intended to cover not only
the logical problem of evil but also any other formulation of the
problem as well. Thus, some of those dissatisfied with Plantinga's
merely defensive response to the problem of evil may find these more
constructive, alternative responses more attractive. Regardless of the
details of these alternatives, the fact remains that all they need to
do in order to rebut the logical problem of evil is to describe a
logically possible way that God and evil can co-exist. A variety of
morally sufficient reasons can be proposed as possible explanations of
why a perfect God might allow evil and suffering to exist. Because the
suggestions of Hick and Stump are clearly logically possible, they,
too, succeed in undermining the logical problem of evil.
10. Problems with the Free Will Defense
A. Even though it is widely agreed that Plantinga's Free Will Defense
describes a state of affairs that is logically possible, some of the
details of his defense seem to conflict with important theistic
doctrines. One point of conflict concerns the possibility of human
free will in heaven. Plantinga claims that if someone is incapable of
doing evil, that person cannot have morally significant free will. He
also maintains that part of what makes us the creatures we are is that
we possess morally significant freedom. If that freedom were to be
taken away, we might very well cease to be the creatures we are.
However, consider the sort of freedom enjoyed by the redeemed in
heaven. According to classical theism, believers in heaven will
somehow be changed so that they will no longer commit any sins. It is
not that they will contingently always do what is right and
contingently always avoid what is wrong. They will somehow no longer
be capable of doing wrong. In other words, their good behavior will be
necessary rather than contingent.
This orthodox view of heaven poses the following significant
challenges to Plantinga's view:
(i) If heavenly dwellers do not possess morally significant free
will and yet their existence is something of tremendous value, it is
not clear that God was justified in creating persons here on Earth
with the capacity for rape, murder, torture, sexual molestation, and
nuclear war. It seems that God could have actualized whatever greater
goods are made possible by the existence of persons without allowing
horrible instances of evil and suffering to exist in this world.
(ii) If possessing morally significant free will is essential to
human nature, it is not clear how the redeemed can lose their morally
significant freedom when they get to heaven and still be the same
people they were before.
(iii) If despite initial appearances heavenly dwellers do possess
morally significant free will, then it seems that it is not impossible
for God to create genuinely free creatures who always (of necessity)
do what is right.
In other words, it appears that W3 isn't impossible after all. If W3
is possible, an important plank in Plantinga's Free Will Defense is
removed. None of these challenges undermines the basic point
established above that Plantinga's Free Will Defense successfully
rebuts the logical problem of evil. However, they reveal that some of
the central claims of his defense conflict with other important
theistic doctrines. Although Plantinga claimed that his Free Will
Defense offered merely possible and not necessarily actual reasons God
might have for allowing evil and suffering, it may be difficult for
other theists to embrace his defense if it runs contrary to what
theism says is actually the case in heaven.
B. Another problem facing Plantinga's Free Will Defense concerns the
question of God's free will. God, it seems, is incapable of doing
anything wrong. Thus, it does not appear that, with respect to any
choice of morally good and morally bad options, God is free to choose
a bad option. He seems constitutionally incapable of choosing (or even
wanting) to do what is wrong. According to Plantinga's description of
morally significant free will, it does not seem that God would be
significantly free. Plantinga suggests that morally significant
freedom is necessary in order for one's actions to be assessed as
being morally good or bad. But then it seems that God's actions could
not carry any moral significance. They could never be praiseworthy.
That certainly runs contrary to central doctrines of theism.
If, as theists must surely maintain, God does possess morally
significant freedom, then perhaps this sort of freedom does not
preclude an inability to choose what is wrong. But if it is possible
for God to possess morally significant freedom and for him to be
unable to do wrong, then W3 once again appears to be possible after
all. Originally, Plantinga claimed that W3 is not a logically possible
world because the description of that world is logically inconsistent.
If W3 is possible, then the complaint lodged by Flew and Mackie above
that God could (and therefore should) have created a world full of
creatures who always did what is right is not answered.
There may be ways for Plantinga to resolve the difficulties sketched
above, so that the Free Will Defense can be shown to be compatible
with theistic doctrines about heaven and divine freedom. As it stands,
however, some important challenges to the Free Will Defense remain
unanswered. It is also important to note that, simply because
Plantinga's particular use of free will in fashioning a response to
the problem of evil runs into certain difficulties, that does not mean
that other theistic uses of free will in distinct kinds of defenses or
theodicies would face the same difficulties.
11. References and Further Reading
References
Clark, Kelly James. 1990. Return to Reason: A Critique of
Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Flew, Anthony. 1955. "Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom." In
Anthony Flew and Alasdair MacIntyre (eds.) New Essays in Philosophical
Theology. New York: Macmillan.
Hick, John. 1977. Evil and the God of Love, revised ed. New York: Harper & Row.
Küng, Hans. 1976. On Being a Christian, trans. Edward Quinn. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday.
Kushner, Harold S. 1981. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New
York: Schocken Books.
Lewis, C. S. 1943. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan.
Mackie, J. L. 1982. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1955. "Evil and Omnipotence." Mind 64: 200-212.
Madden, Edward and Peter Hare. 1968. Evil and the Concept of God.
Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
McCloskey, H. J. 1960. "God and Evil." Philosophical Quarterly 10: 97-114.
Peterson, Michael L. 1998. God and Evil: An Introduction to the
Issues. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Plantinga, Alvin. 1974. The Nature of Necessary. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Plantinga, Alvin. 1977. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Strobel, Lee. 2000. The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the
Toughest Objections to Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Stump, Eleonore. 1985. "The Problem of Evil." Faith and Philosophy 2: 392-423.
Further Reading
Adams, Robert Merrihew and Marilyn McCord Adams, eds. 1990. The
Problem of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howard-Snyder, Daniel, ed. 1996. The Evidential Argument from Evil.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Peterson, Michael L., ed. 1992. The Problem of Evil: Selected
Readings. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
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