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