Angrillori

I'm so glad you posted, since this is something I've been thinking about quite a lot lately. Here's what I've come up with.

If god is omniscient, has knowledge of the future, and is omnipotent, then it isn't a problem to create a world with free will and with no evil. In fact, it is a statistical certainty.


There are and will be a finite number of people living, ever. In their finite lifetimes, these people will face a finite number of choices.

Before god created the universe, he knew what choices each person would encounter, and how they would decide in every possible set of circumstances, and what future decsions each possible decision would lead to. (Remember, inifinite knowledge, and future knowledge?)

Given a finite number of choices, and a finite number of possible outcomes we do certainly have a lot of paths to deal with. (Think of a tree with branchings at each decsion every person ever made), Excitingly though, we still have a finite tree.

With infinite knowledge then, god can easily weed through the finite number of these potential universes to only create the one in which every person chooses the 'non-evil' act, freely and of their own will. He HAS to choose one of them if he's going to create a universe! The world he creates WILL follow one and only one 'possibility-path,' and god gets to decide which one, through the conditions he sets, is followed.

This is the most important point to bring home: He can select conditions such that any path in the tree of choices is the one that happens and he HAS to choose one! He can full well choose the path where no person chooses any evil action over all time, or the path where no one ever chooses a good action over time, or the path where 17 people choose 3,465 evil actions, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that he knows all possible scenarios and all possible consequences.

As analogy, imagine you have a garden with a large number of plants, some of which are completely diseased, some of which are mostly diseased, some of which are mostly healthy, and some of which are perfectly healthy from root to flower. At some point, you can and must choose one plant to live. If you are perfectly aware of the health status of every plant, which do you choose?

As further clarification, look at the situation on a small scale: two people and two decisions.

Person A is faced with choice 1 with two possible alternatives, E1 an evil alternative, and G1 a good alternative. Now, I know, with absolute certainty, that in one scenario he will choose action G1, and in another he will choose action E1. Person B is faced with choice 2, where, in one situation he will choose (I already know ahead of time remember) choice G2 and in another scenario he will choose E2.
Given an infinite set of scenarios, from which I MUST choose one, is there any reason to choose the scenario where choices E1 and E2 are picked? Or, more importantly, is there a strong enough reason to pick E1 and E2 OVER G1 and G2?

Now, you may be thinking: "What if the two choices are mutually exclusive? What if one scenario leads both to person A choosing evil and person B choosing good?" The beauty is infinity! We have an infinite number of scenarios to play with! Given finite possibilities and infinite attempts, everything is possible!

So god exists and consciously chose evil into the world, or he isn't omnimax, or he doesn't exist. As long as the biggest possible counting number you can imagine of is less than inifinity, these choices are a statistical certainty.

Radorth

Quite an assertion given that there are so many variations in beliefs- e.g. I believe that every person will have the freedom to choose Christ to save them or not, at some point. It is essential that God give us complete freedom to make that chice at least, even if he has to allow evil. I believe in "original sin" if it defined as something we all keep doing in disobedience- through igorance, misbelief or choice. I do not believe in a hell where there are flames burning flesh, if that is what you mean by "literal."

Individually or as a group? There seems to be some disagreement.

(Not that I care much)

Rad

The_Ist

IMHO, there is a distinct difference between Person G and the person, created by God, who never chooses evil. I will refer to the latter as person H.

During Person G's entire existence as a moral being, he always possessed the ability to commit evil.

Person H, however, NEVER possesses the ability to commit evil. If he possesses this ability at any time, then the possibility exists that he would choose to commit evil. But since God created him so he would never do so, then there is NO logically possible world in which he would. Accordingly, Person H has no ability to perform evil. And since he can't perform evil, he has no moral free will.

That is the fundamental difference between G and H: G has the ability to commit evil, while H never does.

I think it necessarily does. If one is created with no logically possible future that includes the performance of evil, he cannot do so, and thus lacks moral free will.

Jamie_L

The_Ist:

I do understand where you're coming from. However:

Person G, as I initially described him has the following properties:
Free Will
Never chooses evil.

Such a person is clearly conceivable. He is not logically impossible. What you are saying is God, despite being omnipotent, cannot create this person.

You are saying, a person cannot have the following three properties:
Created by God
Free Will
Never Chooses Evil

But, we agree that a person with Free Will can choose good every time. God (if real) can create people with Free Will, we agree on that. So, suppose:

God creates a person with Free Will.
The person with Free Will chooses good every time.

Then, this person does have all three properties:
Created by God
Free Will
Never Chooses evil.

So, either God can create Person G or he can't. And if he can't, then the result is that God is incapable of creating a person who both has Free Will and never chooses evil. But being incapable of never choosing evil means at least one choice in that person's life is necessarily evil, which denies Free Will.

No matter how I look at it, it seems you are presenting a paradoxical definition of Free Will.

Jamie

ManM

Jamie,
I've been struggling to place your last post for me in the context of your first post.

Originally, you indicate a belief that this situation is logically possible. However, now it seems that you do not believe an omnipotent God can create a being with free will. Does this not defeat the purpose of asking the question in the first place? If an omnipotent God cannot create a being with free will in the first place, He would likewise not be able to create one with free will that would never choose evil.

With regard to the search for the location of our freedom, I agree with much of what you wrote. Choice would make no sense without options. Options seem to be generated independently of the chooser. Does that mean the chooser has no say in which option he prefers? It may be that the chooser is just presented with the stronger option. Or it may be that certain desires are a natural part of the chooser, and separating the chooser from his values is an error that is leading to all of the confusion. Or perhaps it is a much simpler scenario where freedom of choice comes simply through the power to not act on a desire. And what about those Buddhists who desire to be without desire? Who knows?

hinduwoman

Does God have free will? Since he is omnibenevolent can he choose to do evil?

The_Ist

No, this is not what I'm saying. See below.

No. It is possible for such a person to exist. I am saying that a person cannot have these properties:
Created by God so that he will never perform evil
Free Will

These two persons are distinctly different. The former always had the ability to perform evil, but never did. The latter never had the ability to perform evil, because God determined beforehand that he would not (and thus he never has moral free will). I am arguing against the latter person.

But this in no way proves your point. Though he didn't, at any point throughout his life, this person COULD HAVE chosen evil, because he had free will. But if God creates the latter person I described above, this person NEVER could have chosen evil, because it was determined beforehand that he wouldn't.

You aren't understanding the fundamental difference between these two cases.

1) God creates a being with free will. This being just so happens to always choose good. The fact that this occured, however, is not because God determined/decided for it to happen, but because of the PERSON. In this case, the person's essence (as he was created) includes "free will," not "never choosing evil."

2) God creates a being that he decides beforhand will never perform evil. God is determining/deciding for it to happen now, and it will happen because of GOD, not the person. In this case, the person's essence (as he was created) includes "never choosing evil," not "free will."

See above. The being you describe in the first sentence is possible; God creates him with free will, but the fact that he never chooses evil is DUE TO THE BEING ITSELF, AND NOT GOD. What you are describing, i.e., God deciding beforehand that all of his created beings will never perform evil, results in beings that never choose evil DUE TO HOW GOD MADE THEM, NOT DUE TO THE BEINGS THEMSELVES. Don't you see the difference in the cause of the result? In the former scenario, it is the created being; in the latter scenario, it is God.

Philosoft

That's interesting. A common apologetic says that, somehow because of individual free will, God can know future outcomes of all possible worlds without having caused them. Granting, for the moment, the truth of this proposition, we notice a couple of things:

1. As Christian theology classically asserts that this world is the only objective reality, God must have instantiated only one of the possible worlds.

2. The instantiation of a possible world must have been either an arbitrary act or a willful act.

~An arbitrary act would strongly suggest that God is not interested in the metaphysical "outcome" of the world - something Christianity generally denies.
~A willful act indicates that God favors a particular metaphysical "outcome." If this is true, it seems that it would have been possible for God to instantiate world W, wherein person P never performs evil, yet retains free will (according to the apologetic). Presumably, there cannot be an external reason why God cannot instantiate W - any failure on God's part to instantiate W must be necessitated by God's character (whatever that may be).

Jamie_L

Actually, I am. What I am pointing out is that in trying to define these two types of people, paradoxes are being created. If Person G is logically possible, God ought to be able to create him. However, according to your arguement, God can't create him.

Free Will is a property God can give his creations. A morally pure nature is another property. You are arguing that God can't give both of these to his creations. But if this is true, then it denies the possible existence of Person G - because he has a morally pure nature.

You attempt to get around this by saying humans grant themselves a morally pure nature, or not, through their free will. But how do people influence their nature in this way? And what nature do they start with? God must give people some starting point, or our attempts to craft our own nature will be arbitrary.

Angrillori defines this problem from a different viewpoint very well. God's choices influence everything. Philosoft points these problems out again in yet another way. Either God influences his creations, or his creations are arbitrary.

Jamie

The_Ist

The problem I have with this is that if God instantiates one particular possible world out of all possible worlds, then the ones not instantiated become, thereafter, impossible. So a person living in this "chosen" world really doesn't have free will, because all possible worlds in which he deviates from the one originally instantiated by God are no longer possible. He can only take one course of action, which seems to fly in the face of free will.

I guess I would disagree specifically with your first point. If a world is not objectively real, it does not follow that it is impossible. Presumably, God willfully chose the "starting materials," so to speak, and from this point numerous "branches" of possible worlds proceed, stemming from the free will choices of beings interacting in the world. Therefore, at the time of instantiation, there were possible worlds in the future that didn't come to fruition objectively, because the free will choices of human beings didn't lead to that specific world.

I would agree that the initial creation of the world and human beings was not arbitrary.

As I described above, I don't think person P would retain free will at all.

Think of a man walking down a trail. Ahead, the trail breaks off and goes in, say, 15 different directions. For some reason, you want him to specifically take the one all the way to his left. So you completely block off the other 14. How, in any way, does this man have a free choice with regard to what trail to take? Similarly, if God instantiates one particular possible world, and "blocks" the other "trails," there can be no free will.

As I have said, if God instantiates one particular possible world, it would seem as though he negates free will. But if free will is negated by god instantiating W, then the world instantiated would NOT be W, because the former world has no free will choices, while the latter does. Therefore, it would seem impossible for God to willfully instantiate a particular world in which free will existed, without altering that world to not having free wills.

Define "morally pure nature." Does it mean "never chooses evil, though possesses the ability to do so," "cannot choose evil," or something else? There's a big difference between those first two. If the first is what you mean, then a being's moral nature is not defined until his existence as a moral being ends - he cannot definitively be said to have a "morally pure nature" until he dies, because during his entire life he possesses the ability to choose immorally. Therefore, God COULD NOT create a being with this type of moral stature, because it is something defined by a being's totality of existence, and not how he is created.

If you mean the second, then such a being does not possess moral free will.

According to the way you've described person G, I think you're going for the first definition - a being that always possessed the ability to perform evil, but never does. I've described above why God could not create a person with such a nature, because it isn't something that comes through creation, but from one's total existence. You may also want to consider what I've said above to Philosoft, concerning how the instantiation of one particular possible world seems to deny free will.

If "morally pure nature" refers to the first definition above, then humans obviously play a part in shaping their moral nature, because they always have the ability to perform evil. Consider:

I am about to die. I am making the last moral choice of my existence. I have been been completely moral up until this point. However, I've always possessed the ability to choose evil.

If I choose the moral path with this last choice, I die as a being with a "perfect moral nature." If I act on my ability to perform evil, I die as a being with an imperfect moral nature. Therefore, my "moral nature" is in my hands.

To answer your second question, I would posit that God created humans with free will, the inclination to do good, but also the ability to perform evil.

See above. God can willfully determine the "starting materials," without determining what will happen after time 0.