Posted: Apr 25, 2012 2:37 pm
proudfootz wrote:JHendrix wrote:proudfootz wrote:I'm at a loss to figure out how a being with no free will is able to create beings with free will.
I mean, if free will is good - how is it humans supposedly have a good that this god does not have?
If free will is not good then why would a god create it?
It seems theology is constantly creating conundrums for itself as it reels from one ad hoc explanation to another in a futile effort to extract itself from the difficulties posed by its most recent pronouncement...
I wouldn't want to make the argument that the Christian god as described in the Bible or by apologists doesn't have some kind of Free Will. Even with the limit on god's actions by his perfect holiness (ie. he can only do what's good). By the Christian definition he can still have some kind of Free Will - like he could have made all roses blue instead of most being red for example.
The problem comes when you have a Triple-O being that is perfectly holy by its very nature, and it's nature defines what is good (a circular reference in its own right), create things that are by their nature NOT perfectly holy, ie able to go against god's nature, which is what defines what good is.
That's one of the problems - criticize the naive concepts of this god in the bible or as expressed by common believers (this god is basically a human with super powers) and we get a retreat into apologetics and theology. In practical terms no one seems to act as if the airy 'god of the philosophers' is true - the ground of being or pure act or whatever that means.
The free will defense against evil doesn't work if a god can have free will and still only be constrained to doing good - because then it must be explained why god's creatures could not also have free will and only do good. We're told evil is a necessary condition of free will, thus a world with evil in it is better than one without it because apparently a world with free will is much better than one without.
It seems to me whichever way this gets argued it paints the apologist into a corner.
I think we're in agreement here. It seems like the argument I have in the OP has been done before, I've just not seen it argued against any apologists in a debate, like say WLC, when they use the Moral Argument, which according to their own books, is the most successful argument they've got for convincing people of the existence of their god.