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    It is impossible even for an omnipotent being to make it ... — Carmelics
    Home/Problem of Evil
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    It is impossible even for an omnipotent being to make it the case that someone freely chooses to do what is right.

    Problem of Evil
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.According to the libertarian conception of free will, free will is incompatible with determinism.
      ?

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    • 2.If free will is incompatible with determinism, then no being—not even an omnipotent one—can determine that someone freely chooses to do what is right.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Compatibilist free will, defended by Hume, Frankfurt, and Dennett, holds that freedom requires acting from one's own desires without external compulsion, not the absence of causal determination.
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    • 2.If compatibilism is true, an omnipotent being could arrange the causal history of an agent such that the agent's own character reliably produces right choices, satisfying both freedom and moral goodness.
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    • 3.Plantinga's free will defense therefore presupposes libertarianism without arguing for it, making the impossibility claim conditional on a contested metaphysical assumption, not a necessary truth.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Middle knowledge, as developed by Luis de Molina, holds that God knows counterfactuals of creaturely freedom—what any free agent would choose in any circumstance—prior to any creative act.
      ?

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    • 2.If Molinism is coherent, God could actualize a world-segment in which creatures with libertarian free will would, in fact, freely choose rightly across all morally significant situations.
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    • 3.Robert Adams's objection that counterfactuals of freedom lack truth-makers does not establish impossibility but only epistemic or metaphysical uncertainty about Molinist providence.
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    Problem of Evil

    Related

    According to the libertarian conception of free will, free will is incompatible ...Compatibilist free will, defended by Hume, Frankfurt, and Dennett, holds that fr...If Molinism is coherent, God could actualize a world-segment in which creatures ...If compatibilism is true, an omnipotent being could arrange the causal history o...
    +4 moreShow less
    If free will is incompatible with determinism, then no being—not even an omnipot...Middle knowledge, as developed by Luis de Molina, holds that God knows counterfa...Plantinga's free will defense therefore presupposes libertarianism without argui...Robert Adams's objection that counterfactuals of freedom lack truth-makers does ...

    Similar

    It is impossible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to perform a m...88%If free will is incompatible with determinism, then no being—not even ...81%Therefore, although there may be an omnipotent and omniscient person, ...79%The mere existence of evil cannot be incompatible with the existence o...78%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: evil
    View source passageHide passage
    But there is also another reason why that claim is problematic, which arises out of a particular conception of free will—namely, a libertarian conception. According to this view of free will, and in contrast with what are known as compatibilist approaches, free will is incompatible with determinism, and so it is impossible even for an omnipotent being to make it the case that someone freely chooses to do what is right.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The premises logically entail the conclusion via modus ponens, and both premises are clearly present in or directly entailed by the source passage's explication of the libertarian conception of free will.

    Confidence: The argument is clearly laid out in the text: the libertarian view of free will entails that determined free choices are a contradiction, so omnipotence cannot guarantee free right choices.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit