Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense Regarding The Problem Of Evil:

[JAG**]

Man's Free Will is responsible for all the evil in the would.
God created a perfect world.
God created perfect human beings.
God gave human beings a Free Will.
Human beings used their Free Will to choose to do evil.
Human beings choosing to do evil is the reason we have
natural disasters and evil in the world-- and the reason
we have The Curse upon the Earth.

Many atheists blame the God of the Bible for all the natural disasters
and all the evil in the world.

You may ask, "How can atheists blame the God of the Bible for evil
when atheists do not believe that God exists?
Answer: They postulate that "if God does exist" then He is evil
because the Bible presents God as being Omnipotent {all powerful}
and therefore He could have created a world without any evil if He had
wanted to do that. He did not want to do that, therefore He is evil.

So? So there are many atheists who have said that the
God-That-Does-Not-Exist is responsible for all the evil in the world.

What does that mean? Well again atheists do not believe that God exists
but, for the sake of argument, they say that if the God of the Bible
does exist, then He is responsible for all the evil in the world because
He is Omnipotent and could have designed a world without evil.

I just recently read a lengthy thread on another forum where
an atheist and many of his fellow atheists blamed the God of
the Bible for inflicting the COVID-19 virus on humanity.

Yes, sure! Again, I know that atheists do NOT believe that God
exists. But they, for arguments sake, argue against the God of
the Bible and say that "if He does exist", He would be evil because
He could prevent evil, but chooses NOT to prevent it.

Has anyone read the books written by the infamous "New Atheists"?
There are 4 of them. Their names are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris,
Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

The atheist Richard Dawkins is an especially vile talking atheist.
Here is what the atheist Richard Dawkins said about the God of
the Bible:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser;
a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully.” ― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Again, the "New Atheists" do not believe that God actually exists.
But they say that "if He does exist" He is evil as I explained above.
I keep repeating this because a large number of Internet posters
endlessly state that "Atheists do not believe that God exists" as if
we did not know that. We do know that.


Back to what some atheists have said about the
God-That-Does-Not-Exist . . .

They have specifically and clearly and emphatically declared
that the God of the Bible IS responsible for the evil in the
world.

Stephen Fry, an atheist, has a video on You Tube, He was
being interviewed and he was asked, 'What would you
say to God when you die and find out that Christianity
is actually true, and you are standing at the pearly gates?

Stephen Fry replied that he was going to ask God "Why he
put bone cancer in children? God, What is that all about?",
replied Stephen Fry.

Stephen Fry's video went viral and has become infamous on the
Internet. You see it quoted and linked to quite often.

____________

Back to The Problem Of Evil . . .

Centuries ago Epicurus formulated The Problem Of Evil like this:


Sayeth Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not Omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”__Epicurus

The Christian analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga has a very good
rebuttal to these "New Atheists" and to Epicurus.

Sayeth the Christian Alvin Plantinga:

{You will need to "deep read" what Plantinga says below
and spend some time studying and seriously analyzing
what Plantinga has written}

As Plantinga summarized his Free Will defense:[14]

"A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely
perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else
being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.
Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or
determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so,
then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do
what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral
good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of
moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom
to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from
doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free
creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their
freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free
creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither
against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for
He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only
by removing the possibility of moral good."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_...urther_details

End quote.
___________


The "New Atheists" do not correctly understand the Biblical
doctrine of the Omnipotence {all-powerful} of God.

Epicurus did not correctly understand the Christian doctrine of
God's Omnipotence. God's Omnipotence does not mean that
He can do anything. God cannot create square circles. God
cannot make 2 + 2 = 7. God cannot give humans the Free Will
to do evil and at the same time prevent humans from doing evil.


The fatal flaw in Epicurus is he misunderstood the Christian
doctrine of the Omnipotence of the God of the Bible.

Conclusion: Mankind, NOT God, is the cause of sin, evil, and
natural disasters in the world.
 

[branchesofHim]

On 6/8/2020 at 1:21 PM, JAG** said:

Conclusion: Mankind, NOT God, is the cause of sin, evil, and
natural disasters in the world.

Indeed. Evil in this world, which was put under man's authority - who then gave it to the devil, is the source of sin and everything subsequently. Shalom.

Thank Jesus for taking that authority back!

Matthew 28:[18] And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

[JAG**]

35 minutes ago, branchesofHim said:

Indeed. Evil in this world, which was put under man's authority -

who then gave it to the devil, is the source of sin and everything

subsequently. Shalom.

Thank Jesus for taking that authority back!

Matthew 28:[18] And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All

power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Thank you for your comments and for reading my Opening Post.

By the way, I love Matthew 28:16-20. Its the Lord Jesus' Great Commission

to His Christian Church. My view is that His Christian Church will succeed 

in making disciples of all the nations before the Lord Jesus returns to this

Earth. My view is that the Lord Jesus really meant it when He told His

disciples to go and disciple the nations. He was not kidding. He was not

speaking lightly. He even told His disciples what their power would be in

order to get this task completed. That power was this: Jesus said that all 

authority both in Heaven and on Earth had been given to Him, therefore 

go and make disciples of all the nations. In another place the Lord Jesus

said that He would build His Church and the Gates Of Hell would not

prevail against it. Victory!

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by JAG**