On Guard: by William Lane Criag ✝️

The Freedom of the Will
The notion of freedom under discussion
here is called libertarian freedom. Some
philosophers would say that the essence of
libertarian freedom is the ability to choose
between action A or not-A in the same
circumstances. An arguably better analysis
of libertarian freedom sees its essence in
the absence of causal determination of a
person’s choice apart from the person’s own
causal activity. That is to say, causes other
than the person himself do not determine
how that person chooses in some set of
circumstances; it is up to him how he
chooses. This conception of freedom is very
different from the voluntarist or compatibilist
view, which defines freedom in terms of
voluntary (or noncoerced) action, so that
an action’s being causally determined is
compatible with its being “free.” The notion
of freedom operative in this chapter is
libertarian freedom, which precludes God’s
determining how we shall freely choose.
desires. So there will be any number of possible worlds that
God cannot create because the people in them wouldn’t
cooperate with God’s desires. In fact, for all we know, it’s
possible that in any world of free persons with as much
good as this world, there would also be as much suffering.
This conjecture need not be true or even probable, but
so long as it’s even logically possible, it shows that it is
not necessarily true that God can create any world that
He wants. So assumption 3 is just not necessarily true.
On this basis alone, the atheist’s argument is logically
fallacious.
But what about assumption 4, that If God is allloving,
He prefers a world without suffering? Is that
necessarily true? It doesn’t seem like it. For God could
have overriding reasons for allowing the suffering in the
world. We all know cases in which we permit suffering
in order to bring about a greater good (like taking our
child to the dentist). The atheist might insist that an
all-powerful being would not be so limited. He could
bring about the greater good directly, without allowing
any suffering. But clearly, given freedom of the will,
that may not be possible. Some goods, for example,
moral virtues, can be achieved only through the free
cooperation of people. It may well be the case that a
world with suffering is, on balance, better overall than a
world with no suffering. In any case, it is at least possible,
and that is sufficient to defeat the atheist’s claim that 4
is necessarily true.
The point is that the atheist, in asserting 3 and 4, has
taken on a burden of proof so heavy that it’s unsustainable.
He would have to show that free will is impossible and
156 J On Guard