DOI: 10.12730/is.1277893 ISSN: 1309-1786
A Reply to Morriston’s Objection to Plantinga’s Free Will Defense
Ferhat TAŞKIN - Religious studies
- Cultural Studies
The logical problem of evil holds that the existence of the theistic God who is considered omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Since there exists evil in the world, the existence of the theistic God is then logically impossible. Alvin Plantinga has argued that if God has a good reason to allow the existence of evil, the logical problem of evil fails. And the good reason that God has had is the great value of significant freedom–the freedom to choose between moral good and evil. Wesley Morriston objects that Plantinga’s free will defense is incompatible with one of the components of his ontological argument that God is omnibenevolent in every possible world. My aim in this paper is to show that Morriston mistakenly assumes that the free will defense theorist holds the account of significant freedom as for both human and divine freedom. If I am right, Plantinga’s free will defense can meet the objection Morriston has raised.