Suppose someone says: Free will is sufficient to explain the presence of apparently gratuaitous evil in the world We can then ask: Do you believe in heaven? Is heaven a perfect place? Is there free will in heaven? Is there evil in heaven? If they answer Yes to the first three and No to the last question then we can suggest that: within their own view, the presence of free will alone doesn't in fact explain evil by itself and there must be some further reason for evil in the world. If they answer Yes to the first two and No to the last two then we can go back and ask why there is free will in our world if in a perfect world (heaven) there is no free will. If they answer No to either of the first two questions then this line of questioning is done. Do we really have free will if god will kill you for exercising your free will?

Heaven makes no sense except as a relief to people who lived a hard life of toil and drudgery. I could never have an eternally blissful afterlife knowing that billions of others are suffering, let alone those of my close friends and family who didn't join me are. This is the reason reason Christians feel compelled to convert people. My concept of eternally blissful afterlife would be the possession of a button to push to achieve an orgasm at any time or place. The Omnipotent and Omniscient Deity That Created You, and Knew What You Were Going To Do Before He Created You, Is Angry With You and Will Sentence You To Eternal Torture Per the basics of the Christian god, free will cannot exist. It's called the paradox of free will. This assumes the god is all-powerful, all-knowing and created the universe. Before the god created the universe, he had full knowledge of everything that would transpire in the universe over its entire span of existence. Foreknowledge means the universe is exactly how the god intended it to be... there's no random element in the universe, no roll of the die, no free will. For this god, the act of creating the universe is not a beginning. In the god's mind, he's created the whole universe throughout its span of existence in time. Creating the universe is also creating its middle and end in that one act of creation. Christians who believed in predestination (that from birth your fate in the afterlife is already decided) at least were logically consistent with the basic framework of their god.

Send comments to: hjw2001@gmail.com