Tag Archives: Alvin Plantinga

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What is the Free Will Defense to the Problem of Evil?

Is the existence of evil a good reason not believe in God?

One of the most formidable challenges to the Christian faith is the problem of evil and suffering. In reality, there are actually several “problems” or versions of this objection. There are emotional and personal versions, but those are not the subject of this post.

evil_plantingaWhat I want to do is briefly share a response to the logical problem of evil that I have found to be very helpful and satisfying. Here is the essence of the objection: It is logically contradictory for the Christian God and evil to coexist.

In other words, it would be like a saying a square circle exists or a married bachelor exists. Once you properly define, explain, and understand the terms then it is obviously impossible.

All that is needed to dispose of the charge of logical incoherence is to supply a logically possible, morally sufficient reason that a good God would allow evil (i.e., a defense). Note, this doesn’t have to be the actual reason God may have. Merely a possible one.

In response to the logical problem of evil, notable philosopher Alvin Plantinga describes such a possible reason in his famous Free Will Defense:

A world containing creatures who are 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 can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all; and 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 can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that 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 removing the possibility of moral good. (From God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga)

It is widely recognized by professional philosophers that the Free Will Defense has “solved” the logical problem.

To read more about this fascinating discussion check out God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga.

If you found this post helpful, then you would enjoy this short video I shot discussing the problem of evil.

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There is no such thing as a religiously neutral intellectual endeavor

There is no such thing as religiously neutral intellectual endeavor — or rather there is no such thing as serious, substantial and relatively complete intellectual endeavor that is religiously neutral. – Alvin Plantinga

This is a very important point to bring up. After all, as Christians we have a point of view. A perspective on God in general and Jesus in particular. Plantinga’s point is that if you give serious thought to ultimate questions, you can’t be neutral. Neutrality in and of itself is not a virtue. Too much is at stake.

But what this observation doesn’t mean is that if you have a point of view about ultimate reality, you can’t be objective. We should always be honest about where we are coming from but we must also allow evidence and reason (reality) to correct our point of view. This is the kind of critical realism that allows us to make genuine progress in discovering more about the way reality actually is.

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