Is free will responsible for the evil that occurs in the world? Most theists would say yes to this question. It can be argued that because God gave humans the ability to make the wrong choice or the right one, it follows that evil can be the direct effect of poor decision making. God could have made a world in which the creatures he created would only do the right thing all the time but most would agree that we would be no better off than robots in this kind of environment and that a world of free agents is better than this kind of scenario. God also could have made a world in which the decisions we made only had a minimal effect on the whole of humanity or what Robert Swinburne refers to as a “toy world”. Free will can be directly traced to evil then but also to the good that can be found in it. Aquinas believed that God is the cause of everything good, bad, or indifferent and that it does not affect his omnipotence in the slightest because God is not good by human standards of morality but good in the sense of all that is good directly flows from him and all that is desirable can be found in him. There is no easy explanation for the evil that exists in the world but even a good parent can be seen as an example of letting their child go through some hardships to learn valuable life lessons. If the child learns from the hardship not to make the same mistake they will be better equipped for adulthood; does it follow then that God allows for us to make wrong choices with the hopes and expectations that we will learn from them but that some never learn from the mistakes and so the problems get compounded? This type of reasoning doesn’t explain away things like hurricanes and volcanos, but to this Aquinas believes that God only works within the boundaries of nature and that this also is not reflective on the goodness of God.
I agree with the notion that free will is an extremely gray area to define within the realms of philosophy. I have my own opinions on it, and agree with the comparison to a child learning through hardships. This discussion will be interesting to say the least.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree that free will is responsible for evil in the world. God gave us free will to make living on this earth more enjoyable. Not having free will to make choices would be a robot lifestyle (like stated above). How people use their free will is up to them and yes evil things do come from these decisions but that is not enough evidence to blame free will for the evil in the world.
ReplyDeleteI think that God gave us free will, and perhaps that with our free will we do produce evils in the world. However I do not think we should blame God for our evils. For instance, when the DMV issues you a drivers license(granting you free will). and you go out and get hammered with your friends and decide to drive drunk and get in a fatal accident... is it the DMV's fault for issuing you your 'free will'?
ReplyDelete