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The best possible world?
Critics of Christianity contend that it is all well and good that Christians argue God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, nonetheless, evil remains all the same. Last time we stated that the task of the Free Will Defense is to show no logical contradiction between two premises: 1), There is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good God, and 2) there is suffering in the world. Even so, the question inevitably comes: “If God is the Creator of everything, and God is all-powerful, then couldn’t God have created a world with no evil?” When it comes down to it, this is the heart of the question, isn’t it? In response, skeptics lean one of two ways: either God is not all-powerful, or God does not exist. At any rate, the answer to the question is yes; God could have created a world with no evil. Having done so, however, the evil-free world that God could have created would have come at a great price—perhaps too great.
Instead, the better question might be this: “If ‘God is good,’ and ‘God is love,’ then what morally sufficient reason might God have for creating the world in which we live”— a world of immense suffering? Considering the amount of evil in the world, is this the best possible world God could have created? That is the question the seventeenth-century philosopher Gottfried Leibnitz asked and attempted to answer. Leibnitz, understanding God as all-powerful and all-loving, reasoned that of all the possible worlds that God could have created, this one in which we live must be the best of all possible worlds. Philosopher Alvin Plantinga summarizes Leibnitz’s argument: “Being perfectly good, He must have chosen to create the best possible world He could, being omnipotent, He was able to create any possible world He pleased, He must, therefore, have chosen the best of all possible worlds, and hence this world, the one He did create, must be the best possible world.” That is, God was not derelict in His creation event.
Interestingly, the critics agree with Leibnitz but draw the opposite conclusion. Critics maintain that since the world is filled with suffering, God must not exist (or, as Nietzsche would say, “God is dead”). At any rate, while Leibnitz’s logic sounds credible, it is rejected when one can just as quickly envision a better possible world than the present one. After all, it isn’t that hard to imagine. Perhaps a world in which there were more angels. Wouldn’t that be a better world? What about a world in which there were more good people serving other people? Wouldn’t that be a better world? The point is that this is not the “best possible world” God could have created. Therefore, the best possible world theory is not a defensible position for the Christian to explain why an omnipotent God would allow evil to exist.
The bottom line is that suffering does exist, and the question is: ”Why does God allow it? Does He have a sufficient reason for allowing suffering in the world? What God did create, it is argued, was a “very good” world populated by beings He intentionally created with libertarian free will. The divine choice was simple: either create beings with free will, knowing they could misuse it, or create automatons (machines) that could only and always choose to do good. In that sense, yes, God could have created a world without evil, but it could only come about at the cost of human free will. It is argued, and accepted by most rational people, that a world in which beings have free will, along with the evil that entails, is far better than a world of beings who cannot do other than what they do. In fact, given a bit of thought, one can only conclude that every war in the history of mankind has been fought over the exercise of opposing free wills.
It would seem that God, though He is all-powerful, could not have created just any world He pleased. As philosopher John Hicks rightly notes, “God cannot make an infallible fallible creature; to make an infallible creature would undermine the moral purpose for which God created the universe.” Just as God cannot create any possible world in which there is a square circle or a married bachelor, God could not have created a world where libertarian, freewilled beings always and only choose to do good. God can make sin impossible or make human beings significantly free, but He cannot do both. They are mutually exhaustive and exclusive states of affairs.
Okay, okay! This sounds all well and good except there still appears to be an incredible amount of evil in the world—an incredible amount of vicious and horrific evil! Could not God, in all His power, intercede in human affairs to reduce or eliminate evil in the world, all the while allowing beings to maintain their free will to choose good or evil anyway?
Unfortunately, evil and suffering are important topics, and there is much more to say about the Christian defense of why God allows evil. Join us next time as we continue to look into the Christian response to the coexistence of an all-powerful and all-loving God and the existence of evil in the world. Until then, consider your stance: is God dead?
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife, Vicki, are members of the Waurika church of Christ, and live in Ardmore, OK. You can contact him at dr. kerley@ isGoddead. com.
