#2

Response to Karen's 3rd comment on 

'The Problem of Evil'

Karen, let me start with your #3 – which reads:

“3. I am intrigued with the argument that God could have made people with free will who always choose to be good. But. It feels wrong and I'm not sure why. Something about the choice doesn't feel right. Maybe I think that the possibility of evil needs to be an actual possibility in order for there to be a real choice?”

And here again is the suppositional argument (as found in the blog) to which you are responding. 

“God, all-knowing, is able to distinguish between (i) those potential concepti which if allowed to become actual, and to mature, would ultimately mature into beings who always freely elect the good on the one hand, and (ii) those who will frequently stray on the other.  The latter potential concepti are not allowed by God to become actual zygotes.  The problem is thereby nipped in the bud, so to speak.”

The imagined world is one in which, from the beginning, God doesn’t allow potential people (with free will) who would "frequently stray" – or, really, stray even once – to be realised. He only allows those people (with free will) to be born who will always (as he knows, being omniscient) freely elect the good.  The possibility of such people doing evil is real enough alright, or  – as you put it – it’s an “an actual possibility”, and there is, accordingly, a real choice.  It’s just that – as it happens – they always choose the good. 

But, why might one suppose otherwise?  That is, why might one suspect that this alleged possibility is not a real one?  The fact is that the suspicion is a common (but I think mistaken) one.  Here is what I think is very likely behind your suspicion. 

We do think things like this: 

(1)  “If it is really known that Smith will do A, then Smith’s gotta do it.” 

And then, mistaking the acceptable meaning of (1) (a meaning I will come to), we can go on to conclude in a fatal kind of reflection,

(2) “But if Smith’s gotta do A, well, there’s no free will in that.” 

Now, heard one way, the foundational proposition, (1), is absolutely right.  But the particular hearing is crucial.  What justifies our thinking that (1) is true is this: 

(1’)  It’s gotta be true that:  If it is known that Smith will do A, then Smith will do A. 

In (1’), we aptly record one of the logical requirements of anything deserving to be called  ‘knowledge’.  If you know something, then the thing that you know is true.  And all of that has to be so.  As logicians less colloquially put these things (where “K” stands for “it is known that”, and “p” stands for any proposition whatever):

(1’’)  Necessarily, if Kp, then p.

But (1’’) is quite a different propositional type than:

(3)  If Kp, then necessarily p.

It’s different, and it doesn’t entail it either. 

The trouble is, we commonly take our colloquial way of thinking or speaking about these matters in the wrong way – in the case at hand, we take it rather literally.  The statement or thought that “If it is really known that Smith will do A, then Smith’s gotta do it” (viz. (1)) does expresses an important truth, but the truth it expresses (viz., 1’) has the form (1’’):  “Necessarily, if Kp then p”.  It is not a truth that “If Kp, then necessarily p”.  But our colloquial way of thinking/speaking leads us, in certain contexts, especially philosophical ones, wrongly – if only momentarily – to take it this way.  It’s a kind of cognitive illusion. 

To see that this is so, just consider our knowledge of ‘past truths’.  For example, I know that you wrote a comment on the previous blog.  Does it follow from that that you had to write a comment, especially in any sense of “had to” which implies you had no free will in the matter?  Nah.  My knowledge – so easy to come by – of what you did doesn’t rob you of your free will in so doing.  Knowledge isn’t like that.  If you know someone really really well, let’s say, quite a good person, then does the fact that you know what sort of thing they would do in some trying kind of situation mean that they really have no free will in the matter? 

Of course, free will may be some kind of illusion itself, but showing that will take more work than merely alluding to the fact that sometimes we know what someone will do.  When we complain, “How could you even think I would do such a thing?”, or “You should have known I wouldn’t do that!”, or even “You should have known I would have helped you out!”, surely we are not wishing upon ourselves a circumstance (the other’s knowledge) which – had they possessed it –  would have robbed us of our free will in the matter.  

*

And now for a little divertissement from Wittgenstein - though I think a relevant one.  He famously wrote about philosophical problems, saying:

“These are, of course, not empirical problems; they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognize those workings:  in despite of an urge to misunderstand them.  The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known.  Philosophy is a battle against the betwitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”

I think his last statement can be taken in two ways, both of which he intends.