scholarly journals God and the Playpen: On the Feasibility of Morally Better Worlds

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 266
Author(s):  
Cheryl K. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Actual World ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Horrendous Evil ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Free Will Defense ◽  
Better Than

According to the free will defense, God cannot create a world with free creatures, and hence a world with moral goodness, without allowing for the possibility of evil. David Lewis points out that any free will defense must address the “playpen problem”: why didn’t God allow creatures the freedom required for moral goodness, while intervening to ensure that all evil-doing is victimless? More recently, James Sterba has revived the playpen problem by arguing that an omnipotent and benevolent God would have intervened to prevent significant and especially horrendous evil. I argue that it is possible, at least, that such divine intervention would have backfired, and that any attempt to create a world that is morally better than this one would have resulted in a world that is morally worse. I conclude that the atheologian should instead attack the free will defense at its roots: either by denying that the predetermination of our actions is incompatible with our freely per-forming them, or by denying that the actual world—a world with both moral good and evil—is more valuable than a world without any freedom at all.

scholarly journals KEBEBASAN KEHENDAK DALAM AL-QUR’AN: STUDI TAFSIR MU’TAZILAH

el-'Umdah ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-200
Author(s):  
Muhammad Rizky HK
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Modern Era

This article will describe the quranic interpretation of Mu’tazilite on theological verses which talked about free will. As a rationalist sect in Islamic tradition, Mu’tazilite offered different perspective, which has been known as a more logical sect than a mainstream thought in Islam. As a result, they came with a different perspective on a lot of theological aspects. Mu’tazilite believes, that human have a freedom to choose, Human has a free will. They are free to choose between good and evil. There’s no divine intervention in human act. In modern era, Existensialism came with same statement that human should be free. Existensialist believes that human existensce preceed their essence. This paper will describe the similarity of these two and would try to identificate mu’tazilite method of interpretation with existensialist point of view. This article use qualitative research method with descriptive analysis approach through the collection of related literature studies especially The thought of Jean Paul Sartre and Soren Kierkegaard, Two biggest existensialist. The results of this study indicate that the conception offree will has relevance with Islamic tradition itself, and have a relation wih western philosophy.

Plantinga's version of the free-will argument: the good and evil that free beings do

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
KENNETH EINAR HIMMA
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Logical Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Evidential Problem Of Evil ◽  
Good And Evil

AbstractAccording to Plantinga's version of the free-will argument (FWA), the existence of free beings in the world who, on the whole, do more good than evil is the greater moral good that cannot be secured by even an omnipotent God without allowing some evil and thereby shows the logical compatibility of God with evil. In this essay, I argue that there are good empirical and moral reasons, from the standpoint of one plausible conception of Christian ethics, to doubt that Plantinga's version of the FWA succeeds as a theodicy. In particular, I argue that, given this understanding of Christian ethics, it seems reasonable to think it false that free beings are doing more good than evil in the world. While there are surely possible worlds in which free beings do more good than evil, this material world seems clearly not one of those. Thus, while Plantinga's version might succeed as a defence against the logical problem of evil, it will neither rebut the evidential problem of evil nor, without more, ground a successful theodicy that reconciles God's existence with the evil that occurs in this world.

scholarly journals Let's Play GOLF!

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Libertarian Freedom ◽  
Free Will Defense

A central feature of the “free will defense” as developed by Alvin Plantinga is his response to the claim that God can create a world containing creatures with libertarian freedom that contains no moral evil. Plantinga’s response appeals to the notion of “morally significant freedom” according to which free creatures, in order to do moral good, must be capable of moral evil. In this paper, I argue, first, that morally significant freedom is not required for free creatures to do moral good and, second, that other recent attempts to necessitate a creaturely capability for evil likewise fail. The upshot of my paper is that the free will defense simply won’t work because it is possible and feasible for God to create a world containing libertarianly free creatures capable of moral good and yet containing no moral evil.

scholarly journals Evil and Free Will: Contemporary Free-Will Defense and Classical Theism

2020 ◽  
Vol IV (4) ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Igor Gasparov
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Divine Omnipotence ◽  
Voluntary Consent ◽  
Virtuous Character ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Free Will Defense

The article considers contemporary free will defences, proposed by A. Plantinga, R. Swinburne, according to which the existence of a world in which there is free will is something more valuable than the existence of a world in which there is no free will. It is shown that contemporary forms of free will defences share with atheistic arguments from evil an anthropomorphic model of God, in which God is thought as an individual among other individuals, although endowed with attributes such as omniscience and omnipotence to an excellent degree. It has also been shown that another important point of similarity between contemporary free will defences and atheistic arguments from evil is that both attempt to assess what our world would be like if created by such an individual. In contrast to atheistic arguments from evil, contemporary free will defences argue that divine omnipotence and omniscience are subject to some greater restrictions, as usually assumed, especially due to God's desire to give some of his creations the ability of free choice, which logically implies the possibility and even necessity of the existence of evil. It is demonstrated that classical theism does not share the anthropomorphic model of deity typical for many contemporary philosophers of religion. Classical theism rejects both the anthropomorphic model of deity and the unaccountability of free will to God as the supreme good. On the contrary, it assumes that free decision was initially an opportunity for the voluntary consent of man which had an innate aspiration towards God as his supreme good. Nevertheless, due to the creation of man out of nothing, this consent could not be automatic but implied forming a virtuous character, and man's transition from a state in which he was able not to sin, to a state in which he would be not able to sin.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura W. Ekstrom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Skeptical Theism ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Close Investigation ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

This book focuses on arguments from suffering against the existence of God and on a variety of issues concerning agency and value that they bring out. The central aim is to show the extent and power of arguments from evil. The book provides a close investigation of an under-defended claim at the heart of the major free-will-based responses to such arguments, namely that free will is sufficiently valuable to serve as the good, or to serve prominently among the goods, that provides a God-justifying reason for permitting evil in our world. Offering a fresh examination of traditional theodicies, it also develops an alternative line the author calls a divine intimacy theodicy. It makes an extended case for rejection of the position of skeptical theism. The book expands upon an argument from evil concerning a traditional doctrine of hell, which reveals a number of interesting issues concerning fault, agency, and blameworthiness. In response to recent work contending that the problem of evil is defanged since God’s baseline attitude toward human beings is indifference, the book defends the essential perfect moral goodness of God. Finally it takes up the question of whether or not it makes sense to live a religious life as an agnostic or as an atheist.

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