Wednesday: The Freewill Defense
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 12th of February 2025
However much we don’t understand of God’s ways and thoughts, Scripture does reveal some things that help to address the problem of evil. One avenue for addressing the logical problem of evil is known as the freewill defense.
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The freewill defense is the view that evil is the result of the misuse of creaturely free will. God, then, is not to blame for evil, because evil is the result of creatures misusing the free will that God has given us for good reasons. Why, however, would God give such free will? In this regard, C. S. Lewis once wrote that “free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other. . . . And for that they must be free.”—Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1960), p. 52.
Read Genesis 2:16-17. How do these verses display the moral freedom granted to Adam and Eve?
Why command them unless they had free will to begin with? Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and since then our planet has been filled with evil. In Genesis 4:1-26, the next chapter after the Fall narrative, the terrible consequences of sin are seen in the murder of Abel by his brother. The narrative of the Fall shows how the misuse of Adam and Eve’s free will brought sin and evil into the history of our planet.
All through Scripture, we see the reality of free moral will. (See Deuteronomy 7:12-13; Joshua 24:14-15; Psalms 81:11-14; and Isaiah 66:4.) Every day of our lives, to one degree or another, we ourselves exercise the free will given to us by our Creator. Without free will, we would not be recognizably human. We would be more like a machine, or even a mindless robot.
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Sony Corporation has created a robot dog called Aibo. It will not get sick, not get fleas, not bite, not need shots, and not shed fur. Would you trade your flesh-and-blood dog for an Aibo? If not, how might your choice help you better understand why God created us as He did, with free will—despite the risks? |
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The notion that God can do anything is not quite true. Consider this question: "Can God build a stone so large he cannot lift it." The issue is that the question creates a logical contradiction. We should consider the creation of intelligent beings in the same light. To create intelligent loving beings and not give them the power of choice is a contradiction.
The discussion by C S Lewis referenced in today's lesson study is quite right.
The question of intelligence and free choice has resurfaced in our discussions of Artificial Intelligence and while the current AI entities are quite smart, they are essentially statistical search engines. The ethicists among us though forsee the problem arising where AI entities may cross the boundary and start thinking for themselves and making free choices. The issue is the boundary is quite blurry and is compounded by political and commercial control. Some of the discussion about AI ethics has made us aware of the roots of the problem of evil. (I might add a link to some Christian discussion sites on this later.)