Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T20:51:17.198Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Himma on the Free-Will Argument: a critical response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

ANDERS KRAAL
ANDERS KRAAL*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, 1866 Main Mall, E370 Vancouver, B. C. V62 1Z1, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In two recent articles in this journal Kenneth Himma has launched an attack on what he describes as the ‘two versions’ of the Free-Will Argument, the first of which he describes as ‘the standard’ version and the second of which he identifies with Plantinga's Free-Will Defence in God, Freedom, and Evil (1974). In this article I argue for three main claims: (i) that Himma's objections against ‘the standard’ Free-Will Argument are directed at a straw man; (ii) that Himma's critique of Plantinga's Free-Will Defence is based on a misunderstanding; and (iii) that Himma's critique nevertheless is relevant to Plantinga's relatively neglected ‘Quantitative Free-Will Defence’ (also found in Plantinga's God, Freedom, and Evil), but fails to undermine this further defence due to its reliance on the unjustified assumption that the afterlife is irrelevant to the problem of evil.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 491 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiken, H. D. (1958) ‘God and evil’, Ethics, 68, 77–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergmann, M. (1999) ‘Might-counterfactuals, transworld untrustworthiness and Plantinga's free will defence’, Faith and Philosophy, 16, 336–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hick, J. (1988) Evil and a God of Love, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Himma, K. (2009) ‘The free will defence: evil and the moral value of free will’, Religious Studies, 45, 395–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Himma, K. (2010) ‘Plantinga's version of the free-will argument: the good and the evil that free beings do’, Religious Studies, 46, 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Snyder, D. & Howard-Snyder, F. (1993) ‘The Christian theodicist's appeal to love’, Religious Studies, 29, 185–192.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, D. & O'Leary Hawthorne, J. (1998) ‘Transworld sanctity and Plantinga's free will defense’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 44, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, D. (1998) Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Popkin, Richard (ed.) (Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett).Google Scholar
Kraal, A. (2012) ‘A Humean objection to Plantinga's quantitative free will defense’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (published online 17 10 2012).Google Scholar
Luther, M. (2006) The Bondage of the Will, Packer, J. I. & Johnston, O. R. (trs and eds) (Grand Rapids: Revell).Google Scholar
Mackie, J. (1955) ‘Evil and omnipotence’, Mind, 64, 200–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, H. J. (1960) ‘God and evil’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 10, 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppy, G. (2004) ‘Arguments from moral evil’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 56, 59–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, R. (2009) ‘Transworld depravity and unobtainable worlds’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 78, 165–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1967) God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1974) God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper & Row).Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2004) ‘Supralapsarianism, or “O Felix Culpa”’, in Inwagen, Peter van (ed.) Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 1–25.Google Scholar
Rowe, W. (1998) ‘In defense of “The Free Will Defense”’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 44, 115–120.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1979) The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
van Inwagen, P. (2006) The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitney, B. L. (1998) Theodicy: An Annotated Bibliography on the Problem of Evil 1960–1991 (Bowling Green OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green State University).Google Scholar