Video Transcript: Free Will?

We're now going to take up the freewill defense against this argument called the problem of evil. We're going to look at it a little more closely. And I'm going to tell you why I think it does not succeed. It's true. I think that God has given us  freewill, genuine freedom to make decisions. freedom to choose our path in life  There are a lot of factors that come into that that affect us. But we have free  rational decisions that we can make among theories, for example, which is what  we're doing right now. So there's no question in my mind that that's true that  God has created us with freewill. There is no text of the Bible that says that. But  it seems to be everywhere presupposed. You did that? You could have done  other because you didn't do this evil. God is pleased because you didn't do this  good. God is not pleased. That kind of thing. He holds you responsible you and  me because we have the freedom to do other otherwise than what we did. So  while that's not indealt, I do think that this argument falls short when trying to be  a reply to Porphyries argument that's still behind me on the board, namely, that if God to has all and only perfections. That he would be perfectly good, he would  be perfectly powerful. But if there's a God who's perfectly powerful over creation, and is perfectly good, then how could there be undeserved suffering? God  would want to stop it if he's good, and he could stop it. If he's all powerful. That  was their argument that we looked at. And the free will defense as that has been mounted, says, people have free will and they do evil, wicked things, immoral  behavior, unjust, unloving, and it causes other people to suffer. That's the  biggest source of undeserved suffering that there is on the planet. And there are  other observed sufferings that are caused by natural disasters. But those may  still be the result of evil Free Will choices, namely, the evil free will of Satan and  his cohorts. So let's take a look at whether this really replies to the heart of the  argument. First of all, I don't see why it would be the case, that if God created us with free will, he couldn't also have given us such good natures, that we would  always freely choose to do what's good, rather than evil. And that's not a trivial  point. Because the Scripture tells us that in God's final kingdom, that's exactly  how human beings will be, we will all we will all every one of us be made over in  the image of Christ, we will be like Him, the one who there never was any sin. It  doesn't say God will take away our free will, in order to make us like Jesus  Christ. It says, our natures will be renewed, we'll be more fully what it is to be a  human than ever before. And we'll live with Him forever and be like Him, for we  shall see Him as He is. So if God didn't do that, at the end, why couldn't they  have done it at the beginning? Why not make people with free will but make  them with such good natures? That they choose to do the good? Which is  exactly what'sNnew Testament does say about Jesus Christ. He never sinned.  He perfectly kept God's covenant. So right off the bat, I have trouble here. The  fact that we have free will doesn't excuse the undeserved suffering because  God could have made us so that we do choose freely, but we always want want  the good. And it seems to me there's a problem with saying that Satan's freewill 

is the cause of the natural evils that we suffer in the world. Is that really true? Do we have any scripture for that? No, not directly. We sometimes have the evil one our enemy, trying to make things difficult for somebody. But there's nothing to  suggest that all natural evils are like this. Indeed, there's something to denies it.  I'm calling now Isaiah the prophet quotes God as saying, I the LORD, create  light. I create darkness. I create blessing and I create disaster. I the LORD do all these things. So even if Satan does do things he can only do them if God  permits and God takes the responsibility. He says, Yeah, I let him do that. It's the responsibility is mine. I create blessing. I create disaster. So that seems to me to count against the Free Will defense also. Once again, we're brought back to the  critique that I made of the soul making defense and the defense that says,  permitting undeserved suffering maximizes good. Whatever can be  accomplished by God having given us freewill. And natures that can sin, he  could just as well have accomplished by giving us free will and natures that can't sin like, he will, as he will in heaven, and as Jesus Christ was in his lifetime. So I just don't see how this this escapes the fact that God could prevent undeserved  suffering that he doesn't prevent. So let's take a look then. Take a break. think  this over. When you come back, we'll take a look at the book of Job and see  what it has to say and will mount a defense that comes out of the Cappadocian  reformational philosophy theology, rather than the triple A theology