The Free Will Defense
If God is all-powerful and all-good, why does evil exist at all?
Why it matters
The problem of evil is the most emotionally and intellectually weighty objection to theism. 's Free Will Defense is widely credited with ending the logical problem of evil as a live threat: it showed that God and evil are not logically incompatible. The evidential version remains, but the conversation has fundamentally shifted.
The main case
: even an omnipotent God cannot do what is logically impossible. Genuinely free creatures who can choose good must be able to choose evil. A world with free moral agents (and therefore real love and real moral value) requires the possibility of evil. God's creating such creatures is consistent with his goodness if the goods of freedom outweigh the costs of possible evil. This is a DEFENSE (showing compatibility) rather than a THEODICY (explaining why actual evils occur). Philosophers now broadly grant that the logical problem of evil fails; the live question is the evidential problem (do particular evils make theism improbable?).
Argument map
Genuinely free creatures who can love must be able to choose evil.
A world with free moral agents has goods (genuine love, moral responsibility) unavailable in a world without them.
God could have good reason to create free agents knowing some will choose evil.
The existence of evil is logically compatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God.
Could God not have created free agents who freely always choose good?
Plantinga argues this is not obviously possible: "transworld depravity" — some possible set of truly free agents might, in every feasible world, choose evil somewhere.
Free will does not explain natural evil (earthquakes, disease).
Standard responses: soul-making (Hick), consequences of angelic rebellion (Lewis), laws-of-nature constraints on a life-permitting universe (Van Inwagen).
Claim · Evidence · Objection · Response
1.The logical problem of evil is no longer considered a winning argument.
Widely acceptedEvidence
- 's God, Freedom, and Evil (1974) is widely acknowledged as decisive.
- Atheist philosopher William Rowe: "granted incompatibilism, the logical problem fails."
- Contemporary discussion has largely shifted to the evidential problem.
Strongest objection
"Popular atheism still deploys the logical problem."
Response
The professional philosophical consensus is that the logical problem fails. Popular atheism is typically a lagging indicator.
- God, Freedom, and Evil — Alvin Plantinga (1974)scholarlyFind on Amazon
- The Problem of Pain — C.S. Lewis (1940)popularFind on Amazon
2.The evidential problem is real but not decisive.
DebatedEvidence
- Rowe-style arguments identify apparently pointless evils (the suffering fawn).
- Responders (Wykstra, Bergmann) invoke "skeptical theism" — limited human access to the full reasons.
- Cumulative-case theists note positive evidence for God must be weighed against negative evidence from evil.
Strongest objection
"Skeptical theism is convenient special pleading."
Response
Skeptical theism applies a general epistemological principle: we often cannot see the reasons for another's actions, even human ones. Applied to an infinite mind, it is modest rather than ad hoc.
- God, Freedom, and Evil — Alvin Plantinga (1974)scholarlyFind on Amazon
- The Problem of Pain — C.S. Lewis (1940)popularFind on Amazon
What scholars debate
's defense is widely recognized as ending the logical problem. The evidential problem remains live (Rowe, Draper). Theistic responses draw on soul-making (Hick), skeptical theism, and Christ-centered theodicies that locate God in the suffering (Moltmann, ).
Reflection
- 1.Does free will require the possibility of evil?
- 2.How should we weigh the goods of freedom against its costs?
- 3.What is the difference between a defense and a theodicy — and why does it matter?
Key sources
- God, Freedom, and Evil — Alvin Plantinga (1974)scholarlyFind on Amazon
- The Problem of Pain — C.S. Lewis (1940)popularFind on Amazon
- Reasonable Faith — William Lane Craig (2008 (3rd ed.))scholarlyFind on Amazon
Featured thinkers
A founding figure of the revival of Christian philosophy in the 20th century, known for Reformed Epistemology, the Free Will Defense, and the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.
Twentieth-century Oxford and Cambridge scholar whose works on moral reasoning, joy, and the reasonableness of Christianity shaped modern apologetics.
A leading contemporary defender of the Kalam cosmological argument and the historicity of the resurrection.
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