Mackie's Free Will Defence and Rejection and Plantinga's Defence

What is Mackie’s Free-will Defence?

Mackie claims that God is a fourth-order good, that created humans with freedom (which is a third-order good) which allows us to use second-order goods or evils (sympathy and patience vs jealousy and lust). Second-order goods maximise first-order goods (happiness and pleasure) and minimise first-order evils (pain and suffering) whereas second-order evils maximise first-order evils and minimise first-order goods.

Therefore Mackie justifies the existence of evil with the fact that God created us with freedom, allowing us to freely choose what is right and develop our moral character.

How does Mackie reject his own FWD?

1. It is logically possible for a person to freely choose what is right all of the time.

2. God could have created all humans so that they would freely choose right all of the time.

3. However God did not.

4. Therefore: god either lacks the power to do so or is not loving enough to do so. Either way the FWD fails and God does not exist.

What is Plantinga’s defence to the FWD?

Plantinga argues that there must be a morally sufficient reason (MSR) to permit evil and that this MSR is libertarian free will.

Plantinga demonstrates through his possible worlds (PWs):

PW1→ Complete free will which causes pain and suffering

PW2 → No free will with no evil or suffering

PW3 → Complete free will but in a way that everyone always chooses right

Plantinga claims that PW3 is not possible as:

a) God creates persons with morally sufficient free will

b) BUT God casually determines them toc choose what is right in every situation and avoid what is wrong.

c) There is no evil or suffering.

HOWEVER to have complete free will people must be able to do morally bad actions whenever they want but in PW3 they can’t. THEREFORE PW3 is really PW2.

What is Mackie’s MSR2?

God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam and Eve’s punishment for their sin in the Garden of Eden.