Five billion? Out of a worldwide population of SIX billion?

Wow. God's process of making Christians sure has a lot of wastage, doesn't it!

A Christian might say, God is being moral according to his own standard of morality, and we should be thankful to him for allowing us personally (at least to the extent that he can) the possibility to do evil.

Moral relativity never looks good on a Xian.

Christians are very attached and appraising of the free-will-making god than an alternative one where we are "automotons," or limited psychologically to only being/desiring good.

And yet they posit an omni-max god, which makes free will impossible.

I think you're missing something that Wedge brought up. They have no problem deciding that free will means that we always incline towards evil, but they do when it is suggested that free will could mean that we always incline towards good?

Furthermore, a Christian might argue along the line that genuine freedom in choice/action necessitates real effect. In other words, we must be able to hurt each other.

I find this to be a non sequitor, especially when dealing with a god that stresses that thought crime is just as bad as real crime.

...free will, although not completely measured by the amount of options (as you note), is indisputably dependent upon amount of options.

Make up your mind.

Furthermore, a Christian might argue along the line that genuine freedom in choice/action necessitates real effect. In other words, we must be able to hurt each other. And for this to be genuine hurt, it must be the type we observe in this world where it makes innocent people suffer unjustly and debilitates many people's free wills. Since, with this definition of genuine freedom, it is logically impossible to ensure perfect freedom for everybody, God's next rational choice is to maximize our free wills. ("Our" still including angels and demons, too.)

Finally, although your comment was towards karatemack with the doctrine of hellfire, if we dismiss this doctrine (no doubt with dubious Biblical grounds, but not necessarily totally inconsistent) then we can use the comment to expand in the direction of a bigger idea: free will, although not completely measured by the amount of options (as you note), is indisputably dependent upon amount of options. And so here the theist case is salvaged if one can consistently make the assumption that what we see in the world today corresponds to the sum maximum of freedom of wills. Now the problem becomes: has God failed to collectively maximize our genuine free will (and to what degree of certainty can/do we know this)?

A general comment I would like to make, as I have learned in my efforts to play this part, is that convoluted apologetics like this tend to become stupendously unparsimonious (as seen in the grandiose presupposition of the preceding sentence), and therefore reliant upon wishful-thinking. And yet, it is frustratingly difficult to truly make an airtight disproof of a conception of God, one that no theist can find a leak in. The difficulty comes with the territory, I suppose. As Dilbert once said, "Do you ever feel like you're trying to wallpaper fog?"

Huh?

Thus God only intervenes in the world to relate to us as much as these angels and demons might, in effect maximizing collective free will.

I don't think it would be a sign of moral goodness to say that God, who has the power to ensure evil never occurs, abdicates that responsibility and instead leaves the task up to fallible, imperfect human beings. This is like saying that God expects us to pick up his slack and do the job he refuses to do.

God must work for maximum collective free will, if he is truly all-good, and to do so he must allow us to choose evil and to suffer.

I could see the rational justification of a world in which God allows people to choose evil for themselves, and to harm themselves by their own bad choices so that they may learn from experience. But as I've said, that theodicy loses whatever force it may have once you add the stipulation that people who do not choose evil can still be made to suffer unjustly, and to have their own freedom limited, as a consequence of others' bad choices.

He would be shooting for lower standards of free will if he restricted our parameters even further than is the case.

I don't agree that freedom can be measured simply by the number of options that are available to choose. (If all your options are bad ones, it doesn't matter how many you have.) My response to karatemack there was targeted to a different argument: the belief that God leaves options "open" to people, but then threatens them with eternal torture for making any choice except the one he wants them to make. A far more rational course of action, if only one option is acceptable to God, would be to make people so that they are psychologically constituted so as to always make that choice.

I agree that natural evil is not logically necessary for creating a world for free will agents. However, there is a response that I will get to momentarily.

Since Christians start with the assumption that God is all-powerful and good, they logically infer that he would not have created anything less than the best world possible. But this conclusion runs smack into the manifest imperfection of the actual world.

Here's an alternative Christian inference: God would have created the world with the best possible parameters. Following the dictate of allowing free will, God would not need to create the best possible world but prepare the world as best as possible for free-willed agents to work in. Obviously, it might seem, this world is not prepared as best as could be done by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good god. But there is a theological hypothesis which salvages consistency here: God creates angels and demons with free will and gives them some degree of dominion over the lower world of Earth and this universe. "Fallen angels" and demons would be theoretically responsible for earthquakes, diseases, as well as false religions, etc. Thus God only intervenes in the world to relate to us as much as these angels and demons might, in effect maximizing collective free will. God is no longer an impoverished infinity, but a divine recluse, not saving people from angels and themselves.

And now, there is an error in your refutation of the Free Will Defense in All Possible Worlds, Ebonmuse. In the essay, you write:

Even though our possible actions are restricted by a set of parameters, we are still free within those parameters - free will does not require infinite choice.

On the flip side, you respond to karatemack's free will theodicy (in Extinguishing the Fear of Hell) thus:

God isn't FORCING anyone to choose Hell. He is allowing them to choose it for themselves.

According to the standard interpretation of Christian theology, that is true only in the same sense that a Mafia extortionist "allows" people to "choose" to have their businesses burned down by refusing to pay him protection money.

This second piece of rhetoric gives the building block for defending the free will theodicy from your first piece. God must work for maximum collective free will, if he is truly all-good, and to do so he must allow us to choose evil and to suffer. He would be shooting for lower standards of free will if he restricted our parameters even further than is the case.

Does God take the action to deprive people of their lives? Or does he allow it to happen?

The only global flood that I know of that you believe in was certainly caused by god. Remember, god caused it to rain for 40 days and 40 nights? He did this because people were exercising their free will to be evil.

You have the free will to commit murder, and the state has the right to imprison you for it. Free will does not imply freedom from consequences.

Agreed, but with god it's a bit different isn't it? Free will, as you have said, means that we will have our choice and want to do evil. Then, god punishes us for doing evil. Yet, the free will that we were granted pushes us to do evil, does it not?

benj,

Look what happens when people get too much power. Mao, Stalin, Hitler. Domitian and Nero might be my favorites.

And of course, everyone with power would turn into a tyrant? That's not what we are talking about though. We are talking about the ability to create universes that are logically possible and contain less evil and suffering than our own. If I can even conceive of one, then god would have the power to create it and hence it is demonstrated that he didn't create the best possible world, and hence he is not omni-benevolent.

I checked out Isaiah 45:7... in several different translations. The only one I found that said God "creates evil" was the King James Version. All the rest said "creates calamity." It would be interesting to see what the original Hebrew (aramaic?) says.

You should have read the post I linked to, because it goes through all of that.

Why do you say that God causes us to sin?

lpetrich already covered one aspect of it. Another aspect is that we are sinners because that is the punishment that god levied upon us due to the actions of Adam and Eve - actions they should not be held accountable for due to their ignorance of good and evil. god creates us as sinners, therefore all the sins that we commit are done because god caused us to be that way.

I know that in Romans and elsewhere in the Bible it says that God chose us, but there are also many indications that humans do make choices and are responsible for them. So, God is not a tyrant making me serve him.

Do you really believe that? god makes up the rules and expects you to follow them. If you do, you get rewarded, if you don't, you get punished, eternally. These rules are completely made on the whim of god and he's obviously not above being petty and vindictive.

Personally, I want to spend eternity with the loving and gracious God I believe in.

This same "loving and gracious" god has ordered and committed genocide multiple times. He has endorsed slavery, subjugation of women, and has set up a system where you can not succeed except by his arbitrary "grace". This is not loving nor gracious.

About the whole sacrifice rituals. I honestly do not know why they exist. Here's a stab at it: God is perfect, and demands perfection. He cannot ignore our transgressions, so a perfect sacrifice is required for atonement.

What does a sacrifice do for absolving me of my "sins"? How does killing an innocent person somehow absolve me if I go and kill someone else? This is non-sensical. god demands perfection? Well, then god needs to wake up and realize that he created imperfect beings? Is god really that stupid as to not know that? If he is omniscient, then he certainly does know it, so it seems rather harsh to hold known imperfect beings to a standard of perfection that he knows they can not attain. Also, god can not ignore our transgressions? Why not? god can do as he pleases, as he obviously does. He set up a system where we all fail, yet he decides to choose some people to promote anyway. Again, this is non sensical and neither loving nor gracious.

It's almost like a cruel game of Let's Make a Deal, where God is showing you three doors, and behind one of those doors is heaven. And in the crowd of people in the audience, you have a group who is sharing with you their arguments why door #1 is the door to salvation, another group is sharing with you their "proof" for door #2, and yet another group has arguments for door #3. And each group has some ideas and facts that support their argument, but at the same time you have some doubts and misgivings about each group's arguments.

But not one group has any ironclad proof their door is the right one. It's all based on flimsy evidence, speculation, ancient questionable literature, and logical gymnastics used to counter evidence that strongly points to the contrary. You ask God for some clues, and he only tells you to listen to what the audience is telling you.

In the end, you choose the door based on what you thought was the best argument….only to find God saying "Sorry! Wrong door! Off you go to hell!"

Sorry, I just can't call that type of God "just" or "loving".

If you don't believe me, try arguing that there should be no such offense as criminal negligence.

ps. thanks for the backup, randall.

"'Eternal torture' is not 'just punishment.'"

Agreed. So why are you equating them? Christianity doesn't.

Except that in the Christian viewpoint, as I understand it, anyone who does not accept Christ is sentenced to an afterlife of eternal torture. And this torture is, contrary to your statement, assumed to be just punishment for not accepting Christ. Have I missed something?

I'm also still waiting for a statement on Heaven's automatons.

"If free will is inviolate to god, then why does god prevent people from free choices in regards to things like...oh I don't know, global floods? By god taking the action to deprive people of their lives, does he not end their free will?"

Does God take the action to deprive people of their lives? Or does he allow it to happen? Are those two the same? And what would free will do in the case of the flood? Free will does not imply total power; if someone is throwing a knife in me, my free will allows me to dodge out of the way, not to magically make the knife stop. God allows us to make our choices; he doesn't give us the power to do whatever we want. I don't understand why "free will" need imply "the ability to do whatever we want" as opposed to "the ability to do whatever we want with the parameters we are given."

"Did they have the free will to decide to live through the flood? Further, they were killed for exercising their free will, which seems contradictory to the argument that god holds free will to be inviolate."

Setting aside "they were killed" vs. "they died" for now...You have the free will to commit murder, and the state has the right to imprison you for it. Free will does not imply freedom from consequences.

"No wonder Jesus didn't have to suffer much, comparitively speaking. A lot worse can happen, although crucifixion ain't something anyone would want to go through."

Not that it much matters, but the claim that he "didn't have to suffer much" seems slightly ridiculous.

"What kind of person says, 'Hey, I paid your debt, except you still have to suffer and die in this lifetime, and unless you fill out the right paperwork, the payment is null anyway (applicable to most people who have ever lived).'"

The debt paid was for the second death, not the first. Physical death, according to Christian teaching, is not the worst thing that can happen, and is in fact necessary to progress to something better. Suffering is unavoidable in a world separated from God, and "The right paperwork" involves acceptance of the payment; your debt won't be paid unless you let it. That's it.

"'Eternal torture' is not 'just punishment.'"

Agreed. So why are you equating them? Christianity doesn't.