a reply to:
ServantOfTheLamb
Here you go.
Just a wiki copy since this is not an original idea and neither of us cane up with this arguement. I chose wiki because it is simple. This is not
the forum on my cell (just had labrum surgery) to have a formal debate.
If you would like to set a date and go for it on a forum with philosophy students or a moderator let's do it.
Critics of Plantinga's argument, such as philosophers J. L. Mackie and Antony Flew, have responded that it presupposes a libertarian, incompatibilist
view of free will (free will and determinism are metaphysically incompatible), while their view is a compatibilist view of free will (free will and
determinism, whether physical or divine, are metaphysically compatible).[31][32] The view of compatibilists such as Mackie and Flew is that God could
have created a world containing moral good but no moral evil. In such a world people could have chosen to only perform good deeds, even though all
their choices were predestined.[13] Plantinga dismisses compatibilism, according to which a person is free if, and only if she could have done
otherwise if she wanted to do otherwise by saying that it is "altogether paradoxical".[33] He thinks that "this objection... seems utterly
implausible. One might as well claim that being in jail doesn't really limit one's freedom on the grounds that if one were not in jail, he'd be free
to come and go as he pleased".[34] Regarding Flew's criticism Plantinga concludes that "his objection is in an important sense merely verbal and thus
altogether fails to damage the free will defense."[35][clarification needed]
The problem of natural evil Edit
Another issue with Plantinga's defense is that it does not address the problem of natural evil, since natural evil is not brought about by the free
choices of creatures. Plantinga's reply is a suggestion that it is at least logically possible that perhaps free, nonhuman persons are responsible for
natural evils (e.g. rebellious spirits or fallen angels).[25] This suggestion assigns the responsibility for natural evils to other moral
actors.[36]
"Omnipotent God" of Alvin Plantinga has limited power Edit
A recent objection to the defense is due to Geirsson and Losonsky,[37] who question the interpretation of the fourth assertion in the definition of
transworld depravity ("If S´ were actual, P would go wrong with respect to A"). This is a contingent fact: it is true in the actual world, but false
in the world W. So one may ask if this contingent fact was up to God or not. If it was caused to be true by God, one may wonder why God actualized a
world in which this person is transworld depraved when God could have actualized a world where this person, at least with respect to this action,
would not suffer from such conditional depravity. If on the other hand, the fact is not up to God, we must accept that an omnipotent God has no power
over contingent facts about the world; after all, there do exist possible worlds where the conditional statement in question is not true. Geirsson and
Losonsky note that Mackie's reasons for rejecting Plantinga's defense were quite similar:
But how could there be logically contingent states of affairs, prior to the creation and existence of any created beings with free will, which an
omnipotent God would have to accept and put up with? This suggestion is simply incoherent.[38]
Despite these objections, many philosophers[5][6] consider Plantinga's defense, with its implicit libertarianism, to be a strong reply to the logical
problem of evil.[39] However, other philosophers argue that Plantinga's defense is unsuccessful.[40][41][42][43]