DanielCC wrote:

But the argument does not require the existence of beings with free will (the rabbit example for instance) so even if the appeal to free will does work in the case of humans there’s still more work to be done.

It doesn't require it, but the existence of being with free will trumps it since it is not only a possible, but an actual world. I don't think it's plausible to say that if a world of evil rabbits exists and that trumps God's omnipresence and omnibenevolence that it also trumps them when it comes to creatures with free will, as I've shown. 

So one thing is clear, the conclusion of that argument cannot be generalized to all possible worlds because it is not possible that God cannot exercise his omnipotence and omnibenevolence in one possible world, but can in another. Since from the observable world we can observe and conclude we have free will and that God can exercise his omnipotence and omnibenevolence in this world, we see that gratuitous evil is possible, thus the argument number 3 and 4 are simply not true thus the argument number 6 isn't true.

I'll stop spamming now.

 

seigneur wrote:

If the appeal to free will works for humans, it works for everybody, because rabbits don't argue about free will and evil. Such problems do not exist for rabbits.

What do you mean by this? The rabbit example is presented as an example of natural evil as opposed to moral evil. Would you:

1. Deny the rabbit scenario is possible (and if so why)

2. Deny that the rabbit scenario is evil?

(For the rabbit scenario I would deny that it is possible in a way that constitutes gratuitous evil, however this due to an internal incoherancy in that set of states-of-affairs itself rather than A priori because of its incompatibility with Divine Goodness as per WLC)

seigneur wrote:

For me personally it has also been very difficult to understand how the 'problem of evil' is a problem in the first place. For instance, the 'problem' assumes that Creator has duties towards creatures, not the other way round. It assumes that Creator's duty is to make creatures feel good. Wrong assumption.

As to the second part: it's not a case on something external imposing a duty on God but certain actions following of intrinsic necessity from the Divine Nature.
 
( I too think that the problem of evil is by and large a pseudo-problem but as so much ink is split over it one ought to try to thrash it out once and for  all)
 

Last edited by DanielCC (8/04/2015 6:05 am)

Another response to the modal problem of evil is that this is the only—the best—possible world, and that God cannot be culpable for any evil because He could not have created another way. 

The argument runs something like: God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good. There is a best possible world. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good, and there is a best possible world, by Nature God must create the best possible world. Hence, by Nature God must create the best possible world. Hence, God creates the best possible world.

Many theists deny premise two. They, for example, argue that if being is convertible with good, God can always duplicate balanced ecosystems to increase a world's goodness—thereby value. If God can always increase a world's goodness, the notion of “the best possible world” is like the notion of “the highest natural number”—nonsense. 

But I'm not sure we should let this go easily. For instance, consider really good books like Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. It may be possible to write good books increasingly longer than For Whom the Bell Tolls, but eventually the books' length would become an aesthetic liability. If worlds are similar to books in this respect, it's possible that eventually raising the number of beings in a world lowers the world's value, or at least doesn't add any value. This may even be for similar reasons[1]. 

What's more, if there is an infinite series of ever better worlds, there is also a world that's far better than our world that God could have created but didn't. Suppose there is an argument justifying this. It's hard to see how any such argument couldn't also justify God being able to create a world that's far worse than ours. So, it seems we should resist this argument against the premise that there is a best possible world. 

Instead, one might argue there are distinct kinds of best possible of worlds. Consider once more the books and worlds analogy. Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is a really good novelette, but lengthening it to a novel would almost certainly ruin it. There are, however, novels as good as The Old Man and the Sea. They're just not good novelettes. They're good novels. 

Along similar lines, a work of ten thousand pages almost certainly makes a poor novel, but maybe it makes an excellent ultra-novel. If the situation is similar with worlds, it may be there is no one best possible world. 

But perhaps distinct kinds of worlds are equal only in terms of their beauty. Perhaps the greater number of beings in an ultra-novel-like world still makes it a better possible world than novel-like or novelette-like worlds. Unless there is a series of increasingly large kinds of worlds (ultra-novel, ultra-ultra-novel, ultra-ultra-ultra-novel, ...), the ultra-novel-like world would therefore be the best possible world.[2]

Another problem with “best of all possible worlds” theodicies is that they entail necessitarianism. If only one world is possible, then everything that happens does so necessarily. But surely, there could have been one more person, one more blade of grass, one more atom. Surely, I could have had a sandwich for lunch yesterday instead of soup. Surely, it's not metaphysically impossible for something other than what has happened to have happened. 

One way for best possible world defenders to keep talking about possibility is for them to adopt David Lewis's modal realism. They could then claim we live in the only possible reality, and talk about possibility in terms of counterparts and Lewisian possible worlds (possibilia). 

Since Lewisian possibilia are necessary beings[3] other than God, upholders of a strong doctrine of creatio ex nihilo may want to resist theistic modal realism. If there are necessary beings other than God, they aren't freely created by God. If a strong doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is correct, everything that exists is God or freely created by God. Hence, if a strong doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is correct, there are no necessary beings other than God. Hence, if a strong doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is correct, there are no Lewisian possibilia. 

It's not, however, clear to everyone theological arguments for the strong doctrine are decisive[4], and some theists may not have theological commitments. For them, what's important is that since necessary beings aren't the kinds of beings that can be created in the first place, not being able to create possibilia is no more a problem for God's omnipotence—or Perfect Being Theology—than rocks too heavy for Him to lift are. 

Besides, there is no reason theistic modal realists need follow David Lewis in this matter. Suppose theistic modal realism is correct and every possible world exists. If God prevents evil in one world, it necessarily happens in another world because He necessarily creates every possible world. The creation of all possible worlds necessarily follows from God's Nature and if that's a problem for His Freedom, it's a problem for all replies that use His Nature (ie. Goodness) to restrict Him from doing or not doing in general. Hence, God cannot be held responsible for even worlds of diseased rabbits. 

Since evil is a deprivation of and therefore parasitic on good, there is also a case to be made (another time, though; I have things to do today) that there simply can't be as much evil in the totality of possibilia as good[5]. Along with factors like the convertability of being, it may even be that the good of God creating every possible world outweighs any deficits from Him doing so. 

I reject extreme modal realism and the best possible world theodicy. In fact, to some degree, I reject theodicies. But I thought the best possible world reply deserved to be mentioned.  


[1]Especially if, as many more Platonic classical theists thought, beauty is convertible with good.
[2]The "novels analogy" is from Pruss.
[3]In the possible worlds sense. Lewis treats actuality (also used in the possible worlds sense) as indexical, but every possible world exists no matter which possible world you are in.
[4]For instance, Peter van Inwagen argues that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo involves restricted quantification. For him, when we say God freely creates everything, we mean it in the same sense as when we say “All the beer is in the fridge.”
[5]At the very least, every “evil” world (or world with “deprivations of good”) is matched by an equally good world. Plus God, Who is Absolute, Perfect Goodness, and could not have an evil counterpart.

Last edited by John West (8/11/2015 3:13 pm)