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Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense is a logical argument developed by the American analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga and published in its final version in his 1977 book God, Freedom, and Evil. [1] Plantinga's argument is a defense against the logical problem of evil as formulated by the philosopher J. L. Mackie beginning in 1955.
The greater good defense is more often argued in response to the evidential version of the problem of evil, [141] while the free will defense is often discussed in the context of the logical version. [142] Some solutions propose that omnipotence does not require the ability to actualize the logically impossible.
A defence attempts to demonstrate that the occurrence of evil does not contradict God's existence, but it does not propose that rational beings are able to understand why God permits evil. A theodicy shows that it is reasonable to believe in God despite evidence of evil in the world and offers a framework which can account for why evil exists ...
The argument goes that the free will defense can only justify the presence of moral evil in light of an omnibenevolent god, and that natural evil remains unaccounted for. Hence, some atheists argue that the existence of natural evil challenges belief in the existence, omnibenevolence, or omnipotence of God or any deity. [4]
Plantinga's adapted Augustinian theodicy, the free will defence – which he proposed in the 1980s – attempts to answer only the logical problem of evil. Such a defence (not a "theodicy" proper) does not demonstrate the existence of God, or the probable existence of God, but attempts to prove that the existence of God and the presence of evil ...
In 1955 he published "Evil and Omnipotence", which summarized his view that belief in the existence of evil and an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good god is "positively irrational". [ 18 ] Mackie's views on this logical problem of evil prompted Alvin Plantinga to respond with the " free-will defense ", which Mackie later responded in his ...
He also criticised the idea of life after death, [2] [3] the free will defence to the problem of evil, [2] [3] and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. [32] [2] "What I want to examine is the contention that the debate about the existence of God should properly begin from the presumption of atheism, that the onus of proof must lie upon the ...
Evil, by one definition, is being bad and acting out morally incorrect behavior; or it is the condition of causing unnecessary pain and suffering, thus containing a net negative on the world. [1] Evil is commonly seen as the opposite, or sometimes absence, of good.