With true freedom comes the capacity to abuse it and to cause suffering and pain. This defense states that while God is all-powerful, that doesn’t mean that he can do the impossible and create contradictions, like providing free will to humanity and also preventing humans from committing evil actions. God could not create humans who were inherently free, while also unable to do any wrong. God chose to create humanity with free will, and with that there is no guarantee that humans will always choose to do what is right. This theodicy is the deciding factor for many to believe that there can be an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God, and evil in the same world. However, there are many criticisms and contradictions for this theodicy.
One of the main criticisms of the free will defense is that God himself has free will but not the capability to do evil according to most theology. If this is the case then why couldn’t God have created humanity this way? Theology also says that the afterlife is a place where humanity is free, but cannot commit evil acts. Again, if this is true, then why couldn’t God put these stipulations on life that exists now? It doesn’t make sense that God could create an environment with free will and no evil one place and not be capable of doing it for life that currently …show more content…
A world with freedom inherently has evil present, but why wouldn’t you limit the amount of free will if that also meant that the amount of unnecessary evil would decrease. Ultimately the amount of freedom that humanity experiences is not worth the amount of evil it causes. If God could limit free will enough to only allow minor evils and not major pain causing evils, why wouldn’t he? Along with the excessive amount of moral evil present that this theodicy talks about, there is a significant amount of natural evil that is completely disregarded which God is still responsible for.
The last argument against the free will defense is that it assumes a libertarian view of freedom, where God does not know or predetermine the actions that humanity takes. Critics argue that if you take a compatibilist view of freedom, humanity will freely choose what they want based on their desires. God, however should have an ultimate influence over our desires and therefore has control over what goes on. This view allows for the options that God could have made humanity free while also choosing to do good on all occasions as a result of internal