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God, Freedom, and Evil

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Alvin Plantinga, O'Brien Philosophy Professor at Notre Dame, shook the philosophy of religion world with this book when it was first published in 1978. His debunking of the atheistic evidential argument from evil is strictly a DEFENSE, not a THEODICY. A defense is merely a logical way out. A theodicy would attempt to give the specific reasons God allows evil. Plantinga does not claim to know the thoughts of God, so by offering a defense, he modestly shows that it is logically compatible for God to coexist with evil. His argument is NOT one by analogy (contra another reviewer), rather it is a strict application of the rules of logic.

Even though the book is more accessible to the public than most of his others, I imagine that someone without any basic training in philosophy may struggle with the read (but a struggle is not a good excuse not to read a good book!). In addition to the defense against evil, his exposition of the Ontological argument is very interesting, and worthwhile for anyone who intends to properly understand that argument. Those in the field of philosophy have almost universally accepted it as the theistic solution to the problem of evil. If you are an atheist, I challenge you to study his arguments to understand the rational case he is making. This will definitely be an exciting and fun read for the philosopher, as well as to the thinking and outspoken theist and atheist.

(By the way, if you are looking for a good THEODICY - try MAKING SENSE OUT OF SUFFERING by Peter Kreeft, philosophy professor at Boston College.)

God, Freedom and Evil is a short work, originally published in the mid-1970s, wherein Plantinga addresses issues pertaining to the existence of God. The book draws upon the author's prior works, "The Nature of Necessity" and "God and Other Minds". For readers new to this area of thought Plantinga is one of the most widely respected and read contemporary philosophers.

A large part of the book is dedicated the so-called problem of evil. That is, the question of whether or not the existence of evil is compatible with the existence of an all-knowing all-powerful and wholly good God. In addressing this issue Plantinga focuses on the question of whether evil and God can logically co-exist - it is not a theodicy which seeks to explain the existence of evil. With regard the former more modest question the author is quite successful in proving that evil and God are not incompatible as had been previously argued - written nearly 30 years ago it has yet to be challenged in any significant way. Plantinga can rightfully take credit in helping this question largely disappear amongst serious thinkers. Arguments in this area now tend to be focused on the level of evil rather than its mere existence (i.e. is there too much evil to be consistent with the existence of God). As an earlier reader commented, I too find the author's argument about transworld depravity awkward - it removal, however, does not serious impact Plantinga position.

In the remainder of the book Plantinga offers some brief thoughts on the classic arguments of natural theology - I found this part of the book less helpful. Plantinga indicates that he finds the ontological argument more compelling than either the argument from design or the cosmological argument. I tend to disagree with his views in this regard. Although with time I increasingly appreciate a certain force behind the ontological argument, it still strikes me somewhat as an artificial linguistic construct. On the other hand, I find the other two arguments more compelling than Plantinga does (I share his thought that, even if successful, the cosmological argument can offer little on the nature of God). To be fair to Plantinga, this work was composed prior to recent scientific developments that have strengthened the argument from design (particularly in the world of cosmology but, also to a limited degree in the biological sciences). A look at some of Plantinga's more recent work is also worthwhile.

Overall a good short book by an outstanding philosopher who effectively altered the argument surrounding the existence of evil. I highly recommend this book to all students of philosophy and religion. J.L. Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism is also worth a look for a dissenting view.

Some have called Alvin Plantinga this, and, whether you agree with him or not, the title is certainly warranted. In this book, 'God, Freedom, and Evil', Plantinga analyzes several mainline arguments of both natural theology and natural atheology. He finds all atheistic arguments wanting and most theistic arguments wanting. However, Plantinga eventually settles to the crux of the matter: the problem of evil. After showing that the problem of evil is obviously NOT a deductive problem--that is, from the existence of evil is does not necessarily follow that God doesn't exist--he utilizes the Free Will Defense to combat inductive arguments against theism. Plantinga ultimately concludes that the Free Will Defense, modified and elaborated to include considerations of possible worlds, successfully answers the problem of evil.

The arguments in this book, especially Plantinga's account of Transworld Depravity and other complex issues regarding possible worlds, are quite cumbersome. Still, if one is willing to take to work to a quiet corner and faithfully think through its contents, he will not be disappointed.

Adam Glover

The argument that destroyed the Logical problem of Evil...


Leibniz's Lapse: Contrary to Leibniz, there are possible worlds that God cannot actualize

Here's an informal proof.

Imagine a situation S in which Curley is free to take, or to refuse, a bribe. Suppose God wants Curley freely to refrain from taking the bribe in S. The most he could do to bring this about would be to make Curley free in S. Can God get what he wants? That depends on which of the following propositions is true. (Note that one of them must be true, and the other false,)

(t) If Curley were free in S, then Curley would take the bribe.
(r) If Curley were free in S, then Curley would not take the bribe.

(Terminological note: (t) and (r) are among Curley's "counterfactuals of freedom.")

If (t) is true and God makes Curley free in S, then Curley will take the bribe and God won't get what he wants. Only if (r) is true will Curley do what God wants him to do.

Now let Wt be a possible world in which God makes Curley free in S and Curley freely takes the bribe. And let Wr be a world in which in which God makes Curley free in S and Curley freely refuses the bribe. If (t) is true, then God cannot actualize Wr. If, on the other hand, (r) is true, then God cannot actualize Wt. Since either (t) or (r) must be true, it follows that God can't actualize one or the other of these worlds--there is at least one possible world which he cannot actualize.

TWD ("transworld depravity")

For each possible person, and for each situation in which that person might exist and be free, there is a complete set of true conditional propositions (like (t) and (r)) about what that person would do if she were free in that situation. We will call these a person's "counterfactuals of freedom."

Now the sad truth about Curley may be this: His counterfactuals of freedom are such that in no matter what situation God places him, if God gives him morally significant freedom in that situation, he would freely do at least one wrong action. He doesn't have to. Curley is free, after all. But God knows that he would. Curley suffers from TWD.

Of course, there are possible worlds in which Curley is significantly free and never goes wrong. But God can't actualize those worlds without Curley's help, and Curley's counterfactuals of freedom are such that God knows that such help is not going to be forthcoming. Paradoxically, it might be that only Curley can do what's required to actualize one of those worlds.

How the FWD solves the logical problem of evil

Remember? The problem was to show that the following propositions are logically consistent.

(1) God exists--and is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good.

(2) There is evil in the world.

Plantinga supposes we can do this by finding a proposition implicit in the free will defense that is consistent with (1), and together with (1) entails (2). Now we can see what that proposition is. Here it is:

(3) God actualized a world in which there are free creatures who produce some moral goodness; AND all possible persons suffer from TWD, so that God could not have actualized a world in which there were free creatures who produced moral goodness and no moral evil.

It's possible that both (1) and (3) are true. Together they entail (2). it follows that (2) is consistent with (1). QED.

So why doesn't God just make different counterfactuals of freedom true?
Because then they wouldn't be counterfactuals of freedom. For God to fix your counteractuals of freedom for you would be tantamount to making do what he prefers.
God is stuck with the counterfactuals of freedom that happen (as a matter of contingent fact) to be true.

Does that mean that God isn't omnipotent?

Not at all. If the counterfactuals of freedom have a truth value at all, then for each possible person some complete set of counterfactuals must be true. Whichever set that is, no one, no matter how powerful, can make a completely different set of counterfacutals of freedom true.

(As note, much of the material in this book can also be found in "The Nature of Necessity"by Plantinga. This is a very condensed and less technical version of that book)

In this book Plantinga is attempting to answer the *logical problem of evil* and nothing else. The logical problem, briefly stated and according to Mackie, is as follows:

(1) God is omnipotent
(2) God is wholly good

and

(3) Evil exists

The main idea is that this set, taken as a whole, involves a contradiction.

While this simple set of propositions might appear inconsequential, this was one the major problems in philosophy of religion for some time. And until Plantinga, this (often called "the logical problem of evil") was one of the main arguments used against the coherence of traditional theism. Plantinga's main argument details with rigor why this set is not a contradiction (e.g., free will, metaphysics of modality, etc).

Because of this book (or the longer, more academic version "The Nature of Necessity") philosophers have all but stopped discussing the logical problem of evil. This rarely rarely happens in philosophy which is a testament to Plantinga and his book. Buy it, read it and spread the word. It is not logically inconsistent to believe that a good and all-knowing God would allow evil.

Plantinga brings some of the best thought done recently in the philosophy of religion down to the level of anyman willing to think. His free will defense appears to refute the problem of evil on at the very least a strictly logical ground. The ontological argument is probably one of the most enjoyable and strange things for me to read about, and while I know Plantinga's treatment of it will not be the last word on it, the argument from Anselm to Plantinga comes close to convincing me. Another interesting benefit of the book is that I became familiar with thinking modally about subjects which has been surprisingly helpful.

My only complaint might be is that some specific objections or perhaps the evidential problem of evil could have recieved a little more attention, but doing so would have made the book longer and its shortness is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

This book is not for emotional comfort or anything like that. This book is strictly dealing with philosophic issues at an intellectual level. Very short and very rewarding I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to think seriously about God.

Plantinga seems to have written this book mainly to spare people who are interested in philosophical theology rather than metaphysics from having to read "The Nature of Necessity". It is more concise and somewhat more accessible, but its main strength is that it concentrates on a single narrowly defined topic--the existence of God. The theological arguments involved are the same as those in "The Nature of Necessity", and they are presented with the same wit, rigor, and forceful clarity that characterizes that book. Those who are interested in Plantinga's inimitable brand of tough-minded philosophical theology will find it very useful.

I've read this book but do not own it currently.

Probably one of the best books on the free will-type argument. I'm not so sure an explanation for evil is needed, myself. It appears to me that if God does not exist then real evil does not exist. So if God doesn't exist then the argument from evil is useless, the premise that evil exists is invalidated. But if God does exist then obviously the argument is useless. This is the only thing I think presuppositionalism has right.

The reviewer with the diatribe below misses important points and basically represents the bad argumentation of atheists perfectly. The biggest problem is that free will and determinism may, indeed, be compatible, but to program humans so they would freely choose only the non-evil choices would be to invalidate that freedom altogether. There's no real freedom in being told "Jump off the cliff or get pushed off the cliff". This basically treats human beings as a means to an end, and it would seem that that is morally inferior to REAL freedom(i.e the ability to do both good and evil). The second problem is that the Cosmological argument NEVER says ALL things need a cause. The Kalam version says that all things that have a beginning need a cause, and the contingency variations say that all wholly contingent facts need a cause, mixed contingents and necessary facts don't need a cause, necessarily. For the writer to bring up Bertrand Russel is amusing because theists put his arguments away decades ago. The great thing is that Russel's argument admits the premises, things that begin need causes. He escapes by saying that theists say God is eternal and thus doesn't need a cause. So he says, why couldn't the universe be eternal and therefore be uncaused? It sure could be eternal! But it's not! It's funny that Russel should even suggest that it could be eternal when he was one of the earliest supporters of relativity theory, which had invalidated the idea that the universe was eternal a couple decades before he wrote "Why I am not a Christian". Possibly our detracting friend could pull out the more sophisticated objections of Mackie in "The Miracle of Theism". Quite frankly Mackie is the only objector that I take seriously. It's too bad he's no longer with us. Another thing is the absolutely weird idea of calling a natural disaster "Evil". It would seem to me that evil is something that can only be actualized by a mind, something with intent. Does the universe have intentions!? It would seem not. Natural disasters, like earthquakes, hurricanes, all serve very good purposes. In fact, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc, are all elements in your standard argument from Fine-Tuning. Earthquakes sifting minerals up from the earth's crust and the ocean floor allow for more diversity of the types of extant life. So basically you can only argue against the free will argument by invalidating your premises, setting up a straw man, etc. And argue against the Cosmological Argument by setting up a straw man as well. When atheists deal with the arguments as they appear, then we can take them seriously.

On one good note, I would agree that we can't throw the blaim of evil on Satan or Demons, that would seem silly. On the one hand, Satan and Demons are never given that kind of power. Satan tempts, and that's basically the extent of his power, demons can "possess"(leaving aside the discussion of what that means, exactly) but they don't have absolute power over any individual.

In conclusion, Plantinga's book is as strong as ever, and it appears that his detractors continue to desparately twist themselves into logical pretzels to try and skirt around his answers. Which is no surprise, something that's so obvious to most people as the existence of God would be hard to argue against, it's so intuitive that it's going to take alot better arguments from atheists to shake it than are currently available. I mean, come on, more people deny that there's anything you can call truth than there are that deny there is a God.

It is pretty clear from the bible that God could have done his creation in another way. The scripture is clear that God will create a new heaven and earth, in which there will be no death, mourning, pain, or suffering. So the big question for theodicy is why we have this intermediate state in which pain and suffering are clear to everyone? The free will defence says that God allows his creatures to love Him, out of free will. For me the ultimate goal of God is to share Himself with His creatures for eternity. Why? Out of love. To enjoy God for eternity. God has within Himself, the source of life for all eternity. The free will defence does not have to answer the question, why God allows suffering in this an intermediate state, in which we all live.

Unfortunately, no one seems to address this problem, but for me this is the big problem for theodicy. In other words, God is clearly capable of creating a universe without suffering, but instead He chose this intermediate state, in which suffering is possible, including Jesus, as our human representative. Plantinga does not address this issue.

Essential reading--one of the classics in modern philosophy of religion. Plantinga's presentation of the "free will defense" against the problem of evil takes up the first part of the book. Contra philosophers like J.L. Mackie and numerous others who have argued that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the creation of the world by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God, Plantinga forcefully argues for the logical possibility that such a God could not have created a world in which beings with significant moral freedom always choose the good, and that therefore, any world created by such a God will contain some degree of moral freedom unless it be populated by beings lacking significant moral freedom. Since the good of moral freedom can be believed logically to outweigh the evil that results from exercise of that freedom, the existence of evil in the world is logically compatible with the existence of the posited God. Plantinga makes it very clear that this is not a theodicy--not an attempt to "justify" the actions of God re the evil in the world--but is rather merely an attempt to show that those who believe that belief in both God and evil is not inherently illogical. While some philosophers have raised issues with the particular model of free will advocated by Plantinga (an incompatibilist model, over against the "compatibilism" of thinkers like Mackie and Antony Flew), most have accepted that Plantinga's free will defense does provide a logically satisfactory response to the problem of evil.

The second part of the book is Plantinga's presentation of the ontological argument for the existence of God. Here, Plantinga is (it seems to me) far less persuasive. His modal version of the argument is in some ways more refined than the classic version of St. Anselm, but I find it even more obviously tautological. Plantinga's, like all ontological arguments, boils down to an assertion that any being who exists necessarily, exists. But this is obvious. The modal ontological argument offers no additional evidence that there is such a thing as a
necessary being.