There is a difference between a theodicy and a defense. A theodicy gives positive reasons for believing that an instance of evil, or a kind of evil, is justified. A defense blocks us from concluding that an instance of evil, or a kind of evil, is unjustified.
A parallel distinction is made for rebutting defeaters vs undercutting defeaters. A theodicy is a rebutting defeater for the problem of evil; theodicies show why we should conclude that evils are justified. A defense is an undercutting defeater; it shows why we should not conclude that evils are not justified.
Example: Bob believes there are no aliens. A rebutting defeater would be to take Bob into Area 52 and show him alien spacecraft and alien corpses recovered from crash sites. An undercutting defeater would be to show Bob how many Earth-like planets there are in our universe, how plausible it is that there are aliens out there, and therefore why Bob shouldn’t believe there are no aliens.
So a rebutting defeater gives you reason to change from unbeliever to believer (or believer to unbeliever) while an undercutting defeater gives you reason to change from unbeliever to agnostic (or believer to agnostic).
Typically, we associate free will with Alvin Plantinga’s defense, which blocks the conclusion that evil is necessarily unjustified by showing that it’s possible that the goodness of free will outweighs the badness of evils. However, there is a free will theodicy as well which says that it’s actually the case that the goodness of free will outweighs the badness of the evils required to enable free will. But as usual, there are a number of challenges to this theodicy.
#10a - Normally it’s pointed out that free will doesn’t apply to natural evils. However, combine free will with soul-making and now you have the free response of agents in light of natural evils. We can freely choose to be virtuous in the face of natural evils or to be vicious. We can choose to despair or to have faith, to be pessimistic or to remain optimistic. We can choose to face our problems in a mature way or to run away from our problems and engage in coping mechanisms. So I’m not sure that the “natural evils” response is all that good against the free will theodicy.
However, there are evils that take away our freedom. There are two alleged goods here: freedom and free will. Freedom is having options. Free will is having the control of your actions needed for moral responsibility (to be fairly praised or blamed). Freedom is essential to living a happy life; being forced to live a life against your wishes will make you profoundly miserable. Free will, allegedly, is needed to be fairly praised for your soul-making and to have meaningful, high-stakes choices. There are evils that take away both freedom and free will. Obviously, evils that kill remove all freedom and free will of the one who dies. Evils that incapacitate do the same, and dementia happens to be one of those evils.
#10b - We typically think of animals as not having free will, and yet animals suffer evils of disease, starvation, predation, pain, and death. So this theodicy does not apply to the evils animals suffer.
#10c - Here is a point I’ve heard others make: God could allow free will without allowing the consequences. If someone forms the firm, free intention to assault a child, God could paralyze the offender until the intention is gone. God could place a force field protecting innocents from harm, or turn bullets into bubbles when they would have hurt someone. God could supernaturally inform the right people to stop evil doers, allowing the evil intentions to take place while preventing evil plans from being successful.
Now here is my point. In the Binding of Isaac story, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to God. Abraham obeys, but right before he kills Isaac, God stops him and provides a ram to sacrifice instead. Abraham receives full credit for his obedience to God despite not following through on God’s command (Genesis 22:15; Hebrews 11:17). You might say that there is something important about carrying out one’s intentions fully, but here intentions are all God needs to judge. The consequences of the intentions do not need to be actualized. Why would that be the case for Abraham but not for anyone else?
#10d - Freedom doesn’t have that much value to us. Here is another point I’ve heard others make. We imprison criminals to prevent them from doing harm. We take away their freedom because we deem freedom to be less important than other goods such as safety and living a good life.
I’ve heard Josh Rasmussen give this thought experiment: Imagine there is a bottomless pit in your front yard. If someone falls into it, they will fall forever until they die. Do you let your kids play out in the front yard? Of course not. Their freedom to play outside is not worth the risk of them falling into the pit. Likewise, a loving God would not give us freedom if it meant giving us a chance to end up in hell (assuming God does not predestine the damned to hell, which is even worse).
Here’s another point: While the above applies to the value of freedom, we have reason to question the value of free will as well. If the value of free will lies within our ability to be fairly blamed or praised, this will only be a good thing for those who end up doing good and are fairly praised. (Even this is debatable by my lights. Fair praise leads to evils of arrogance and boasting, just as fair blame leads to evils of judgment and hatred.) But for those who end up doing evil and are fairly blamed, then not only do you have the badness of evil actions, but now you have the added badness of the blameworthiness! It’s not at all obvious to me that an evil-free world without free will would be a worse world than the one we live in; if anything it seems to me that the opposite is the case.
#10e - Free Will doesn’t have much value to God. God hardens hearts (Romans 1:24, Exodus 7:13), indicating that God at times controls our intentions. If free will is so valuable to God that he is willing to allow horrendous evils to enable it, then how could God show any cavalierness to freedom?
#10f - If evil is essential to have free will, then what about heaven? If an idealized state like heaven lacks free will, then free will isn't essential to living a perfect life. But if heaven has evil in it to enable free will, then that's unacceptable because heaven is supposed to be evil-free.[*5]
#10g - There are arguments against free will. If you think those arguments are good, then you have reason to reject the free will theodicy. I'm convinced there is no free will, or at least I don't need it in my philosophy (and so we can take the Razor to it), so talk of free will as good or bad is for me a moot point. Really, I think we "praise" (love) actions for their good consequences and we "blame" (hate) actions for their bad consequences. Our key moral interests lie in our experiences. Being happy and not being miserable is far more important to us than having the control of our actions necessary for fair praise and blame. Folks often say to lack free will is to be a robot, but this is not true. Robots do not experience happiness or misery. We do.
Anti-theodicy #6: Autonomy, freedom, individuality, the ability to live according to your own preferences (within reason)—these are great goods. Dementia destroys your autonomy, your freedom, your individuality, and your ability to live according to your own preferences.
That’s the good of freedom. Then there is the (alleged) good of free will. If we think free will is a good thing, then dementia destroys that as well, as no one can be fairly praised or blamed for actions taken while under the effects of dementia.
*5 - Kevin Timpe engages Graham Oppy on this topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h39rQd3xAnI
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