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Free Will and the Problem of Evil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
Hume after arguing for the compatibility of liberty and necessity, a view now known as soft determinism or compatibilism, noted that it is not ‘possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can be the mediate cause of the actions of sin and moral turpitude’. It seems that Hume is correct if the explanation must show specifically why an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity must permit certain actions that to human reason seem to be unnecessary evils. On the other hand if such specifity is not required, the soft determinist who also happens to be a theist can argue that it is possible that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds even though the reason for any specific apparent evil cannot be known. If seemingly evil choices are free in the soft determinist's sense but determined by an omnipotent and omniscient deity, then either that deity is not omnibenevolent or that deity has determined the world to have the maximum possible goodness through including seemingly evil choices in the scheme of things. Consequently if, as the traditional theist believes, the creator is omnibenevolent as well as omnipotent and omniscient, the occurrence of seemingly evil choices are necessary for maximizing the goodness of the whole.
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References
page 289 note 1 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section vnt, part II. Elsewhere Hume admits the possibility that all seeming evils may be necessary evils although this appears most unlikely to human reason. See Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion part XI.
page 291 note 1 It is not being argued that the theist who is either a soft determinist or a libertarian must deny that some choices are intrinsically bad but only that he must if consistent deny that no actual choice should be other than it is.
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