Free Will in Philosophical Theology by Timpe Kevin

Author:Timpe, Kevin.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441196767
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2013-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

6.3 Warding off objections

In the previous section, I’ve shown how virtue libertarianism can be used to defend the traditional view of heaven. I’ve also shown how that view, at least in broad outline, bears important similarities to the views of Augustine and Aquinas. Nevertheless, one might still think that there are objections to such a view. In the present section, I raise what I think are the most pressing objections and show why they do not ultimately pose a problem for the virtue libertarianism I’ve developed above.

An initial objection to this view is suggested by Michael Martin, who writes that “it is doubtful” that the traditional view can be reconciled with “standard defenses against the Argument from Evil such as the Free Will Defense.”41 He elaborates as follows:

The FWD [i.e., the Free Will Defense] provides an explanation of why there is so much moral evil: human beings misuse their free will and cause evil. God does not interfere with these choices for to do so would be to interfere with free will . . . If God could have actualized a world with free will in which Heaven is an essential part, it is difficult to see why He did not actualize a world with free will that is heavenly in its entirety.42

Martin argues here that if God could make a world with heaven as a proper part, He could make a world that is wholly and entirely heavenly. But then, why didn’t He? Why allow all the horrors of the world? Those evils aren’t necessary for the good of free will, on the traditional account, since heaven has free will and heaven has none of those horrors. Think of it this way: consider the world at some time, t, after the Final Judgment, when all the redeemed are in heaven, and all the damned (if such there be) are in hell. Why couldn’t God create the world with t as its first instant? Creating such a world would avoid all the evils of the world, but still include the great good of free will. Dean Zimmerman also raises (but doesn’t ultimately endorse) a version of this objection. Zimmerman writes: “Christian libertarians typically believe that, in the end, the saints are incapable of sin. If the ideal state, for humans, is one in which we cannot choose badly, why did God not ‘cut to the chase,’ enabling us to see right and wrong clearly, and giving us an overwhelming desire to do what is right?”43 If there is no good answer to this objection, the present view will have the same disadvantage as the compatibilist solution—it makes the logical problem of evil more intractable.

For the virtue libertarian, it doesn’t follow from God’s ability to actualize a world that contains freedom and no moral evil or sin as a proper part that God can ensure a world that contains freedom and no moral evil or sin in its entirety. If a non-divine agent is free and has a moral character that

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