Reason and Religion - Platinga on the "Free Will" defense

Jake Bishop

Feb. 5, 2001

Plantinga

The Free Will Defense

Plantinga uses logic to examine and refute Mackie’s “problem of evil” argument. On page 262 in the text, he uses the following three statements from the set derived from Mackie’s argument to show that it is not necessarily true.

(19c) An omnipotent and omniscient good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

(20) There are no non-logical limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

(21) If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then he can properly eliminate every evil state of affairs.

Plantinga states (21) must be shown as not necessarily true, and uses a logic experiment to show that it is logically not possible for God to remove some evil if that evil is necessary for some greater good to occur, and removing that good to remove the evil would in itself be an evil action.

The problem with this last statement is that Plantinga forgot his earlier statement, (20). If God has no non-logical limits, then the logical impossibility of God removing some evil without causing another evil is irrelevant; God, in His omnipotent power, could illogically remove the first evil and retain the good.