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Critical Analysis of FWD

So it would seem that Plantinga's analysis:
(1)
God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent.
(33a)
Everyone suffers from transworld depravity.
Is logically consistent with:
(2)
There is evil

However, what if you make a conjunction (1) with ``Jesus was a sinless human being.'' Very few Christian theists would refute the truth of that premise.[11, Sec 1.3] Clearly, it's at direct odds with Plantinga's statement that ``everybody suffers from [transworld depravity].''[8, p. 211]

Another objection is in the afterlife, or heaven. Many theologians believe in the coming life (the afterlife.) God cannot make a perfect heaven without removing our free will. [2, Sec 3.2] But if he gives us free will, then God will give us the same set of problems to bring about evil! In fact, everything will start all over again with man (accidently or not) choosing evil. If he values free will so much as to allow evil, then why take away this ``ultimate goodness'' from us in Heaven?[1, Sec 3.3]

Another objection encountered that has the free will defence fail is one of God's motives. It states that God can logically achieve any goal that he wants. Yet, he chooses evil (or evil indirectly through God's created beings) to achieve the goal of ``true worship.'' He could have used some other method to bring about true worship other than evil.

This objection holds up to the light that God still created evil, even if indirectly. To bring the analogy down to Earth (so-to-speak) consider: Guns don't kill, people do.[4] In order to overcome this objection, the causal link between God and evil in humans must be overcome (something which is beyond the scope of this essay.)


next up previous
Next: Conclusion Up: Free Will Defence Previous: Free Will Defence
Elmo Recio 2000-08-30