The Free Will Defence Flashcards
(7 cards)
Free will defence
God gave up control of humans, giving them free will to choose their own destiny and to bring about the greater good.
It is because of free will humans have responsibility. Without FW all praise and blame would be pointless
Valuable qualities are developed in humans thus our ability to choose our actions
LINKS TO CHARACTER BUILDING IN VIRTUE ETHICS
Advantages
In order for humans to develop, we need to experience pain and learn from the consequences.
From experience int and watching others suffer, humans develop valuable qualities like courage, compassion and resilience
Moral evil is the price we pay for having FW but FW is worth it cuz of the positive qualities a person has potential to develop
FW principles
For humans to have genuine FW we must have
1) permission to do evil
2) ability to do evil
3) opportunity to do evil
Howver, this goes against aquinas synderis rule
Free wil necessarily leads to moral evil cuz without the potential to commit evil actions, FW will be an illusion.
This doesn’t matter though as it is worth the evil for us to have FW
Mackies response to FW
An all loving god should hv made humans to choose their own destiny good thing every time. This way they hv FW and there would be no moral evil cuz without
How does plantinga refute Makcie
In order to hv real freedom, humans need to hv a real choice.
This real choice would not exist if humans could only ever ‘choose’ the good
God is omnipotent, because he can do everything logically possible, but it is not logically possible that people can both have FW and always choose the good
Why ones planing a fail to solve natural evil
God allowed natural evil as a result of Adam and Eve
This arguemnt is unscientific and relies on mythological narrative of Adam and Eve so its rejected by most philosophers
Advantages of FWT and natural evil
Just like us, nature has been made w the ability to act freely, god is only letting nature follow the laws by which it works
Through natural disasters we develop second order goodness like, compassion and courage
Gods plan
