Because I am now a priest, I’m often asked to field religious questions. A friend of mine recently sent me the following question via email:¹
Dear Mitch:
I have been watching a lot of YouTube conversations/debates/discourses on the problem of evil. On most of them, the theist debaters/discussionists have been making what I think are the weakest, worst, most frustrating arguments — things like — God makes good out of bad (although we can’t always see it), there’s a reason for evil but we just don’t know it, if you take way God there is no basis for calling anything evil, yadda yadda yadda. For me, the problem of evil has never really been a big problem (from a purely philosophical standpoint). It all comes down to freedom. For there to be genuine love, there must be freedom. Love cannot be coerced or compelled. It must be freely given. Therefore, if you want a world with love, there must be freedom. Freedom means freedom to do evil as well. The difference between the theist and atheist becomes very simple — the theist says that love is worth the cost and the atheists says it is not. Why does no one make this argument? Am I missing something?
Yours,
Mark
Dear Mark,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. The Free Will Defense or FWD (first/best formally answered by Plantinga I think), is the best defense. I think it’s not often used by lay people because (a) it’s hard to state simply, and (b) many people just don’t find logical arguments compelling.
In short, it’s too nerdy.
But for modern, hard philosophers like William Lane Craig, the world’s most prominent Christian apologist, the FWD is the go-to defense against the Problem of Evil or POE. There are only a couple of challenges to the FWD, one of which is answered by God’s “middle knowledge” (posited by the Jesuit Luis de Molina in the 1500s). Craig, a Protestant, actually calls himself a Molinist now. Craig better be careful reading the Jesuits — he might end up a Catholic!
Anyway, when atheists and struggling Christians hit me with the POE, I un-nerdify the FWD as follows:
“How do you feel when people make you do things you don’t want to do?” I ask.
“They don’t like it. Actually, they hate it.”
“Right. Forcing you makes you resentful, doesn’t it?” I reply. “You can actually provoke rebellion against good just by forcing and pushing. Now, do you think a person intent on evil would tend to become more or less resentful if pushed?”
“More,” they answer.
“Exactly. God can’t force people to be good because forcing people is itself evil. Forced compliance creates resentment, breeds rebellion, and entrenches bad behavior. Any parent, teacher, manager, coach or leader will tell you that you can’t make folks be good. People are like rope — you can pull ’em but you can’t push ’em.”
“But what about the other evils, like fires, floods, birth defects, disease, and all of that?” they ask.
“In order to prevent naturalistic evils — fire, flood, earthquake, disease — the universe would have to be a stale, dead, ugly, clockwork mechanism. And in that clockwork reality there would be no freedom of movement for humans, plants and animals, and therefore no free will and no beauty. That’s not good either. God didn’t want to create a creepy, totalitarian, nightmare puppet theater. No, what God created is a majestic and beautiful universe in which the possibility exists that, in the fullness of time, everyone and everything may voluntarily and freely choose to be good and loving. And the beauty and wonder of that possibility — of all creation singing together in chorus! — is so incredibly great and lovely that it justifies even the worst acts of evil and suffering.”
Our old friend C. S. Lewis pretty much hits this ball out of the park! See video below.
Yours in Christ,
Mitch+
¹ Email edited and name changed to protect anonymity.
Robert Mitchell Jr. 