4.25.2005

The Problem of Evil and Freedom of the Will

An important reason for believing in incompatibilist free will is that it offers an answer to the problem of evil.

The problem of evil is thus:

1) God exists. God is an omniscient, omnipotent agent.
2) An agent with the power to prevent an evil event has a moral obligation to do so.
3) God has an obligation to prevent all evil events.
4) God does not prevent all evil events.
5) God is not fulfilling all his moral obligations.
6) God is not good.

Any Christian who is serious about the life of the mind must face this problem at some point. Some deny the omniscience and omnipotence of God. Some deny that evil events exist. My view is that God, in granting us incompatibilist free will, voluntarily abrogates his omnipotence.

Calvinism comes under heavy fire from the problem of evil, because the origin and control of one’s character and actions comes from God ultimately. We can imagine a Mr. Rogers world, in which everyone is disposed to do good from birth. Why didn’t God create that world? It seems clearly superior to ours. God’s responsibility in (3) can in part be fulfilled by creating the Mr. Rogers world. It won’t do any good to appeal to the Fall. The Fall is the responsibility of Adam and Eve’s choices. Choices are caused by character and character is caused by God: we are back to square one. We ask God, Why didn’t you create Adam and Eve with different characters? It would have caused us all less pain.

If incompatibilist free will holds, evil initiated by humans is no longer a problem. Because God has restricted his powers by creating us the way we are, the buck stops with humans, and they hold an objective responsibility. The causal chain stops with the person. God cannot intervene in our character formation without violating our autonomy. This does still leave evil events that are causes in the natural world, like tsunamis and earthquakes and poisonous snakes. However, natural evil is clearly very distinct from moral evil, and a different solution must be sought for it.