NoNukes writes:
Well on balance I think existence is better than non existence, so given a choice between a universe with evil in it and a universe in which everyone is an automaton, I prefer this one even knowing the evil that mean do. I don't find the choice something I'd hesitate over for even a moment.
I would agree in a preference for this world over automatons.
The thing is, however, that these are not the only two choices for an all-powerful God.
Looking at the world we have now... our Free Will is restricted in certain ways that reduce the amount of evil we can perform.
For starters, I cannot simply decide to torture and snuff-out the existence of anyone I deem inferior with simply a thought. I am restricted to performing certain actions that would materialize torture and snuffing-outs.
Therefore, my Free Will of performing the evil of instant torture and snuffing-out others at my own personal thought of it is simply not allowable in this world.
So.. why are we capable of some evil and not other evil?
Why can't our level of evil be reduced just a bit more such that we still have Free Will but just a bit more evil is restricted and impossible?
I can commit the evil of punching my sister in the arm because she ate my cookie.
Let's keep that evil in our world as it provides us some Free Will.
But why not disallow the evil that allows a man to force himself on another person and rape them?
Just that evil we will remove... remove the desire from any man to ever want to force themselves on another person and rape them.
All the rest of the evil can still remain.
Free Will will be reduced by some small, tiny fraction (because we can no longer choose to do this rape-evil).
But our Free Will was already restricted from doing certain instant-thought-evils anyway... what's one more tiny restriction in order to get rid of an incredibly heinous evil?
Therefore, we still have Free Will, we're not automatons, and the entire world is better for it.
Why didn't God do that?
Was God not powerful enough to do that?
Was God not beneficial enough to do that?
Why did God specifically decide to keep rape-evil in our world? What purpose is it serving other than hurting innocent people and allowing some small, insignificant fraction of Free Will to continue to be unrestricted?
There is no "Free Will Defense."
There is no such thing as "this world of choice vs. a world of automatons."
The facts are that we have a world in which evil exists.
If some all-powerful being actually willfully created this world in which such evil exists and it was also in their power to create a slightly-different world in which there was slightly-less evil... then this all-powerful being most certainly is not all-beneficial towards humans.
It is simply a delusion to think that an all-powerful, all-beneficial-towards-humans God exists as the creator of this Universe.
Such an idea is fundamentally at fault with the facts of our existence.
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