Free Will Defense Research Paper

The problem of evil is widely considered to be the most powerful argument against the existence of God. The central issue of the problem of evil is whether evil, as it exists now, either proves that God as he’s traditionally seen, does not exist or the belief in such a God is irrational. This problem challenges theists who believe in the existence of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, but also face the reality of the evil around them. In this paper, we will be looking at the logical problem of evil confronting the Theist. In addition, we will look at the Free Will Defense and its attempt to explain why God permits evil.

The logical problem of evil states that the existence of God is logically incompatible with the existence

It seems as though they would answer in two ways, either they dismiss the argument altogether or that the theist would have to give something up. If they choose to say that God can coexist with evil, then God either: “Knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, is powerful enough to prevent it, and yet does not prevent it, he must not be perfectly good. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows how to eliminate or prevent it, wants to prevent it, and yet does not do so, he must not be all- powerful. If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil and suffering, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about all of the suffering or know how to eliminate or prevent it—that is, he must not be all-knowing (Beebe).” This is the case where the theist has to give up something which is one of God’s attributes. However, these are not the only two options left for theist in order to have God and evil to coexist. Some theist would suggest that “it is possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil (Beebe).” If God does have a sufficient reason to allow evil, this gives us the logical possibility of God coexisting with evil. Since the logical problem says that God and evil are logically incompatible, the addition of God’s moral sufficient reasoning for allowing evil rules out the conclusion that God does not