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365DaysOfPhilosophy 259 — Evil And The Free Will Defence
Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to dear, kind God! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! — “The Problem of Evil ” in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
If God has given humanity free will, we are able to choose for ourselves how we behave and have to face the consequences of such. Rather than be mindless drones who do what God intends us, and therefore have everything good or bad preordained, the payoff for having free will is facing the ramifications that our choices can have.
However, how do we really know that we have free will? Is there an ultimate test that demonstrates that we’re not just on a path that a God wants us to be on? It may be that our genetics or experiences have some influence, but without true evidence of a God who makes us behave the way we do, there’s still questions.
But do we really have free will if we are still overseen by a God? If God is in charge of the ‘punishments for bad behaviour’, are we in control in any fashion? What of huge tragedies, like natural disasters, or the death of innocents, like babies or even horrors like the Holocaust? It is difficult to support the idea of divine intervention if there was no God to step in at those times.
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Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to dear, kind God! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! — “The Problem of Evil ” in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
If God has given humanity free will, we are able to choose for ourselves how we behave and have to face the consequences of such. Rather than be mindless drones who do what God intends us, and therefore have everything good or bad preordained, the payoff for having free will is facing the ramifications that our choices can have.
However, how do we really know that we have free will? Is there an ultimate test that demonstrates that we’re not just on a path that a God wants us to be on? It may be that our genetics or experiences have some influence, but without true evidence of a God who makes us behave the way we do, there’s still questions.
But do we really have free will if we are still overseen by a God? If God is in charge of the ‘punishments for bad behaviour’, are we in control in any fashion? What of huge tragedies, like natural disasters, or the death of innocents, like babies or even horrors like the Holocaust? It is difficult to support the idea of divine intervention if there was no God to step in at those times.