The Free Will Defense Against the Problem of Evil: Refuted?

[Nerdologist]

I think that free will fails to resolve the problem of evil whether or not it actually exists. The real issue is that a perfectly good God supposedly brought evil into existence on purpose. How could a perfectly good being do that? It could have prevented evil entirely. Yet it created evil creatures and then blamed the existence of evil on them, punishing them for what it knew would result from its creation.

[JediDillon]

The New Wineskin

As some of you may already know, I enjoy playing devil's advocate when I see arguments from those debating Christians that I feel are lacking. When confronted with the problem of evil, I often present the idea of free will. However, I was given a very strange counter-argument to this rebuttal that I thought was very interesting. Simply put, the person who responded to me stated that free will contradicts the idea of omniscience. Most people would point out that knowing what will come does not mean that that person did not choose freely. However, he rebutted this by saying that, if one is certain something can happened, than that person cannot freely choose the other option, as he is "destined" (if you will) to choose one over the other.

What are you thoughts on this argument?
Do you think he is right? Wrong?
Do you have any rebuttals to this idea?

Yeah I do. It states in the Bible that God will not touch the soverign will of man, but at the same time knows his heart and his deeds. This is how I see destiny, we all have the freedom to choose who to follow and that is God or the Devil. The Devil not wanting you to see the love and mercy of God tries to seperate you from him by tempting you to do things that are bad. Now, becasue God is omniscient he already knows what is going to happen and what decisions you will make in your life. God lets you choose to allow him to guide your life or to allow you to selfishly follow your own ends only to screw up in the end. He doesn't want to do this, but being a just God he has to. Kinda like letting your kids make their own decisions even though you don't want them to make bad ones, but they have to learn.

Now no one truly knows God's plan and what will happen at the end of times, but God is fair, and loving and as Jesus died for all sins hopefully there is hope for us all. This is how I see destiny. We can choose God or we can choose ignorance out of out own free will.

[Panda-Harlequin]

The problem of Free Will versus the Omniscience of a supposed deity has always been a tricky one. On one hand, you have the idea that a Deity has irrefutable knowlege of the future and, as such, no one really has a choice, as the choice is written in stone long before you ever made it. On the other hand, in these self same religions, many preach that the person in question is freely able to shape their fate without fear of Divine interference. However, how can both be true? Actually, there are many ways both can be true.

1. Omniscience definition problem:

Many assume that, just because a person's Deity of choice knows everything that this must mean that all our choices are set in stone, unfixed, and unchanging because the one timeline has already been mapped out with our decision lodged firmly in place. However, that may not be the case. The Deity may not know exactly what choice you are going to make and may simply know every possible choice you could make in any given situation.

2. Free Will definition problem:

Many also assume that, just because we have free will, that the timeline must be ever-changing and fluid depending on our radical decisions that we must make like "Do I have a banana or a pomegranate for breakfast?" The truth of the matter is that humans, as a specie, have proven ourselves to be remarkably predictable creatures. As such, it would be child's play for something that is inside our head and all around us to determine our choices ahead of time and act accordingly. It doesn't mean we didn't make the choice. It just means our choice was easy to predict.

3. Illusion of choice:

Finally, I will give you a hypothetical. The choices we make are, in fact, pre-ordained. However, as we are unaware of this fact, we still have the illusion of choice in the same way that any creature being manipulated by psychology or what have you is being manipulated without its actual knowlege.

[Reidmarr von Brugge]

The New Wineskin

As some of you may already know, I enjoy playing devil's advocate when I see arguments from those debating Christians that I feel are lacking. When confronted with the problem of evil, I often present the idea of free will. However, I was given a very strange counter-argument to this rebuttal that I thought was very interesting. Simply put, the person who responded to me stated that free will contradicts the idea of omniscience. Most people would point out that knowing what will come does not mean that that person did not choose freely. However, he rebutted this by saying that, if one is certain something can happened, than that person cannot freely choose the other option, as he is "destined" (if you will) to choose one over the other.

What are you thoughts on this argument?
Do you think he is right? Wrong?
Do you have any rebuttals to this idea?

"If information is the substance, causation, necessity, and base foundation to all that exists, would an omniscient entity not literally be everything and anything in, or of existence?"

How does one "know" how to create existence, or reality itself into existence if one's self requires it?

Its a paradox.

[Arnbjore Gierdotson]

I think its entirely possible you're all over-thinking this. Just because God knows what path you choose doesn't mean it affects your choice. For instance, I knew before I opened my bag of beef jerky earlier that the mere sound would bring my dogs running to me to beg for some. Now, just because I knew they would didn't mean they were somehow pigeon holed into the response. I know them and I the sound of a bag means food to them so I could say with 100% certainty they'd be at my feet in seconds. But, they could have both just laid there and ignored it. The choice was still there's to make.

[Lucky~9~Lives]

Sayrin Zuai

I know them and I the sound of a bag means food to them so I could say with 100% certainty they'd be at my feet in seconds. But, they could have both just laid there and ignored it.

It would have only been 100% certain that they'd be at your feet in seconds if the possibility of them not being at your feet was 0% - which is not the case if they could have both just lain there and ignored it.

Unless they were already lying at your feet.

[azulmagia]

I just stumbled across my notes of Norman Mailer discussing theological matters. Here's Mailer on free will, while discussing theodicy in general:

"That's the best single, strongest argument. But theologians wriggle out of it. They put God back in control at the end of the philosophical day."

He also says that theological misdirection rears up at the commencement of the thesis that God is in control of our fates from beginning to end.

[Avgvsto]

I like to think that God makes the pages but we write the stories.

[chingate]

You destine yourself before incarnating.

[Saiuu]

I always thought of omniscience being something that people can't really comprehend, though since we are quite familiar with knowing things, we think we can comprehend it and just imagine our knowledge extended infinitely. However, I think that it really only makes sense to say that God would have to exist outside of time since he existed before the Universe, and thus before time, and will continue to exist after time. And since he exists outside of time, there is no difference to him between know and when Jesus died on the cross besides simply where things lie in space-time similar to how a pieces of furniture occupy different parts of a greater room. Obviously, my lousy attempt at describing this paradox highlights that people can't even begin to comprehend what God is like except for on the most basic level. Going back to the original level, I would say that God knows what we will do because he is timeless, but that since our human will operates on a lower level than God's will, we can still be held accountable for our actions. In summary, it is my belief that God is so incredibly greater than man that man has no chance at understanding God, nor can man judge God's morality and ethics since in trying to apply man's ethics to God, that would be like trying to apply plant ethics to a person.

[bluespinach]

I think free will is a very complicated illusion so no one really chooses anything ever and the thought choice pool you would have otherwise is always small. The choice pool can't be infinite, we're finite beings in a finite world for one.