The Nature of God — Free Will and The Problem of Evil

In a previous article on the problem of evil we discussed the hubris of the person attempting to attribute to themselves all knowledge — as if they don’t understand why God acts the way He does, it doesn’t make any sense at all. Naturally, the only way that logic works is if the person possesses all knowledge themselves — making themselves into a sort of Deity.
And the last thing the atheist wants to do is acknowledge the existence of God (even if it’s themselves).

Thus, their argument on the problem of evil falls apart logically, without even considering the substance of their argument. But let’s consider a different angle to the problem, and this time we’ll use a slightly longer version of the same argument on the problem of evil.

Before we begin, we’ll deal with one other issue, that of God creating evil. Since evil exists, and God created everything, God created evil. That’s not true; for the reasons see the article did God create evil for the answer — we’ll not derail this discussion for that sidebar.

  1. God exists
  2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good
  3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.
  4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.
  5. An omnipotent being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
  6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
  7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.
  8. Evil exists (logical contradiction).

Step number six causes the problem. For if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God has some reason to allow evil to exist, the argument falls apart. So what possible reason could a God of that nature have to allow evil to exist? In other words, why not create a cosmos where no one has the possibility to do evil? Why not create a utopia where we all live happily ever after?

Free will.

It’s that simple. Sure, God could create a cosmos where you had no choice but to follow Him and live in His presence, but if such a universe existed the (potential) atheist would be the first to shake their fist at God and proclaim “you gave me no choice — that’s not fair!” And he’d be right — forced love is rape.

So God gives you a choice, you can do good or evil, accept Him or reject Him, live in heaven or not. It’s all your choice. But by God allowing you to make that free will choice, it also means you have the capability to choose poorly, or do evil things.

Yet God respects your choice and does not force Himself on anyone. If you don’t want Him, fine. If you do, fine. You’re a free agent and can choose your own destiny. So yes, God could prevent you from doing evil, but then you’d be nothing but a puppet. So God allows you to choose, knowing some will choose Him, others won’t.

What could be more reasonable than being pro-choice?

Filed Under: Doctrine

Recommended Citation:
Yeager, Darrin "The Nature of God — Free Will and The Problem of Evil" (2024-05-19 17:20),
https://www.dyeager.org/post/nature-of-god-part7-free-will.html
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