{"agent_id":"plantinga","agent_name":"Alvin Plantinga","slug":"the-free-will-defense-and-the-problem-of-evil","label":"The Free Will Defense and the problem of evil: is God's existence logically compatible with the evil there is, and does the evidential weight of horrendous suffering yield a probabilistic argument against theism?","topic":"The Free Will Defense and the problem of evil","question":"Is God's existence logically compatible with the evil there is, and does the evidential weight of horrendous suffering yield a probabilistic argument against theism?","position":"The Free Will Defense is a *defense* (a demonstration that God's existence is logically compatible with evil), not a *theodicy* (an account of God's actual reasons for permitting evil). The defense uses three premises: libertarian freedom (a free act is not sufficiently caused by anything external to the agent); the truth of counterfactuals of freedom (*F-conditionals*) about what every possible free creature would freely do under specified circumstances, known to God via *middle knowledge*; and that it is possible — possibly true — that every free creature God could have actualized suffers from *transworld depravity*: in every possible world in which they exist as free, they freely go wrong at least once. Granted those possibilities, God may have been unable to actualize a world containing free creatures who never go wrong, even though God is omnipotent. The probabilistic argument from evil is engaged through *theistic skepticism*: our cognitive access to God's possible reasons is severely limited, and the inference from 'we see no justifying reason' to 'there is no justifying reason' is unwarranted.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The Free Will Defense is a *defense* (a demonstration that God's existence is logically compatible with evil), not a *theodicy* (an account of God's actual reasons for permitting evil).","n":[1,2,3]},{"t":"The defense uses three premises: libertarian freedom (a free act is not sufficiently caused by anything external to the agent); the truth of counterfactuals of freedom (*F-conditionals*) about what every possible free creature would freely do under specified circumstances, known to God via *middle knowledge*; and that it is possible — possibly true — that every free creature God could have actualized suffers from *transworld depravity*: in every possible world in which they exist as free, they freely go wrong at least once.","n":[4]}],[{"t":"Granted those possibilities, God may have been unable to actualize a world containing free creatures who never go wrong, even though God is omnipotent.","n":[]},{"t":"The probabilistic argument from evil is engaged through *theistic skepticism*: our cognitive access to God's possible reasons is severely limited, and the inference from 'we see no justifying reason' to 'there is no justifying reason' is unwarranted.","n":[5]}]],"texts":"*God and Other Minds* (1967) Chapter 5; *The Nature of Necessity* (1974) Chapter IX 'God, Evil, and the Metaphysics of Freedom' — the technical statement of the Free Will Defense; *God, Freedom, and Evil* (1974) — the popular statement; 'The Probabilistic Argument from Evil' (*Philosophical Studies* 1979); 'Self-Profile' (1985, in Tomberlin–van Inwagen *Profiles 5*) Section 3A on the Problem of Evil; 'Supralapsarianism, or O Felix Culpa' (in van Inwagen ed., *Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil*, Eerdmans 2004) — the late theodical excursion. Reception: J. L. Mackie's 'Evil and Omnipotence' (*Mind* 1955) as the canonical logical problem; Robert M. Adams's 'Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil' (*APQ* 1977) — the Adams rejection of *F-conditionals* as truth-bearing; Richard Swinburne's *Providence and the Problem of Evil* (1998) — the alternative Christian-philosopher reply that retains FWD without Molinism; Richard Gale's *On the Nature and Existence of God* (Cambridge 1991) and his Cambridge-volume chapter — the 'freedom-canceling control' critique; William Rowe's evidential-argument articles (*APQ* 1979 onwards); Peter van Inwagen's *The Problem of Evil* (Oxford 2006); Marilyn McCord Adams's *Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God* (1999).","works":["*God and Other Minds* (1967) Chapter 5","*The Nature of Necessity* (1974) Chapter IX 'God, Evil, and the Metaphysics of Freedom' — the technical statement of the Free Will Defense","*God, Freedom, and Evil* (1974) — the popular statement","'The Probabilistic Argument from Evil' (*Philosophical Studies* 1979)","'Self-Profile' (1985, in Tomberlin–van Inwagen *Profiles 5*) Section 3A on the Problem of Evil","'Supralapsarianism, or O Felix Culpa' (in van Inwagen ed., *Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil*, Eerdmans 2004) — the late theodical excursion"],"reception":"J. L. Mackie's 'Evil and Omnipotence' (*Mind* 1955) as the canonical logical problem; Robert M. Adams's 'Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil' (*APQ* 1977) — the Adams rejection of *F-conditionals* as truth-bearing; Richard Swinburne's *Providence and the Problem of Evil* (1998) — the alternative Christian-philosopher reply that retains FWD without Molinism; Richard Gale's *On the Nature and Existence of God* (Cambridge 1991) and his Cambridge-volume chapter — the 'freedom-canceling control' critique; William Rowe's evidential-argument articles (*APQ* 1979 onwards); Peter van Inwagen's *The Problem of Evil* (Oxford 2006); Marilyn McCord Adams's *Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God* (1999).","status":"The logical problem of evil is widely conceded disarmed by the FWD; the philosophical journal record from the 1970s onward shows Mackie-style logical-incompatibility arguments mostly abandoned even by atheologians. The evidential or probabilistic problem of evil remains very much alive — Rowe, Schellenberg, and the horrendous-evils revival (McCord Adams) press it in various forms. Among Christian philosophers, the Molinist apparatus is itself contested: Adams (1977) argues *F-conditionals* cannot have determinate truth-values and rejects middle knowledge; Swinburne accepts contingent *F-conditionals* but denies God can know them prior to creative decisions. The FWD does not strictly require Molinism in every formulation, but my preferred version uses it. Gale's freedom-canceling-control critique misreads what *middle knowledge* claims and overextends the analogy with human- manipulation cases.","era":"1932-present","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Analytic Theist","page":"p. 57","canonical":"","quote":"Such an attempt to specify God's reason for permitting evil is what I earlier called a theodicy; in the words of John Milton it is an attempt to \"justify the ways of God to man,\" to show that God is just in permitting evil. Augustine's kind of theodicy might be called a Free Will Theodicy, since the idea of rational creatures with free will plays such a prominent role in it.","label":"The Analytic Theist, p. 57"},{"n":2,"work":"God, Freedom, and Evil","page":"p. 37","canonical":"","quote":"Neither a defense theodicy, of gives hint to what God's for or a course, any as reason some specific evil—the death or suffering of someone close to you, for example —might be. And there is still another function—a sort of pastoral function!!—in the neighborhood that neither serves.","label":"God, Freedom, and Evil, p. 37"},{"n":3,"work":"Alvin Plantinga","page":"p. 51","canonical":"","quote":"In Flew's piece, for example, the question is clearly whether the existence of the evil the world contains is logically compatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good God.","label":"Alvin Plantinga, p. 51"},{"n":4,"work":"The Analytic Theist","page":"pp. 59–60","canonical":"","quote":"As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.","label":"The Analytic Theist, pp. 59–60"},{"n":5,"work":"Alvin Plantinga","page":"p. 233","canonical":"","quote":"Or so it is argued. The problem of evil as presented in this argument is a logical problem because it is about the consistency of (1) and (2). It is also an abstract problem in that it is not concerned with any particular kind or sort of evil. It does not depend on Auschwitz or the notorious Lisbon earthquake, nor on how much evil there is in the world.","label":"Alvin Plantinga, p. 233"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"belief-in-god-as-properly-basic","label":"Belief in God as properly basic: must theistic belief be grounded in evidence to be rational, or can it be a properly basic belief produced by a properly functioning sensus divinitatis?"},{"slug":"warranted-christian-belief-and-the-aquinas-calvin-model","label":"Warranted Christian Belief and the Aquinas/Calvin model: can specifically Christian belief — the trinity, incarnation, atonement, resurrection — be warranted in the same way generic theistic belief is, or does the move from theism to Christianity require a different kind of justification?"},{"slug":"modal-metaphysics-transworld-identity-and-the-modal-ontologi","label":"Modal metaphysics, transworld identity, and the modal ontological argument: are possible worlds abstract states of affairs that the actual world instantiates, do individuals retain numerical identity across them, and does the modal ontological argument show theistic belief rational?"},{"slug":"the-evolutionary-argument-against-naturalism","label":"The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: is the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory self-defeating, and does the inscrutability of P(R | N&E) yield a defeater for every belief the naturalist holds, including N&E itself?"},{"slug":"religious-exclusivism-in-the-face-of-religious-diversity","label":"Religious exclusivism in the face of religious diversity: can exclusivist Christian belief remain warranted when the believer is sincerely aware of equally devout adherents of other religions, or does pluralism defeat exclusivist warrant?"}]}