shelby said
SA, who wonders whether dear Uber might not be headed for a padded room... given the "turn" his tone is taking here... |
sizemik, your post above (no 3847) got me thinking and this is what I turned up
| Problem of evil Main article: Plantinga's free will defense In The Nature of Necessity, Plantinga presents his free will defense to the logical problem of evil. Plantinga's aim is to show that the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good God is not inconsistent with the existence of evil, as many philosophers have argued. In a truncated form, Plantinga's argument is as follows: He argues that it is greater for a being to possess free will, as opposed to being non-free. And because a God cannot guarantee the benevolence of a truly free being without intervention or influence, thus removing free will, it follows that for a being to have true free will that they must be capable of moral evil else such a being would be only capable of moral good, which in itself is as Plantinga stated: "Entirely paradoxical". Plantinga goes on to argue that a world with free will is more valuable than a world without such, therefore God has reason to create a world which has the capability of evil. Thus because of this the existence of evil counts "neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness", rather it is an error by the creature in their exercise of such freedom. [ 26 ] According to Chad Meister, professor of philosophy at Bethel College, most contemporary philosophers accept Plantinga's argument. [ 27 ] The problem of evil is now commonly framed in evidential form which does not involve the claim that God and evil are logically contradictory or inconsistent. [ 28 ] [ 29 ] However, some philosophers continue to defend the cogency of the logical problem of evil. [ 30 ] |