Summary Excerpts From Kenneth Boyce's Article in Faith and Philosophy:
A weakness in Plantinga’s free will defense, however, is that it does not show that theism is consistent (broadly logically
consistent) with the proposition that there are non-moral evils in the world (i.e., that there obtain morally bad states of affairs for which no creature is morally responsible). But many of us do believe that there are evils of that sort. I show how Plantinga’s free will defense can be extended so as to redress this weakness.
A weakness in Plantinga’s free will defense, however, is that it does not show that theism is consistent (broadly logically
consistent) with the proposition that there are non-moral evils in the world (i.e., that there obtain morally bad states of affairs for which no creature is morally responsible). But many of us do believe that there are evils of that sort. I show how Plantinga’s free will defense can be extended so as to redress this weakness.
…I contend that (given the supposition that God has middle knowledge) we ought to accept that it is at least broadly logically possible that propositions like Bizarre are true where by Bizarre I mean something like the following:
Bizarre: If Caesar had stubbed his toe on Feb. 14, 44BC and C had been actual (‘C’ denotes the state of
affairs including all and only those portions of the history of the world that the actual world and W share in common up to the moment that Curley accepts the bribe; where ‘W’ is a world that shares an identical history with our own up to the time that Caesar narrowly evaded stubbing his toe, but in fact Caesar does stub his toe in W; ), Curley would have freely
refused the bribe. But, if Caesar had not stubbed his toe on Feb. 14, 44 BC and C had been actual, Curley would not have freely refused the bribe.
…My argument for this conclusion will turn on the claim that if it is possible that God has middle knowledge, it is also possible that there are various bizarre counterfactual connections, outside God’s control, that link the performance of morally good actions with states of affairs that are intuitively irrelevant to the performance of those actions. There are
three lines of support for this…:
1)…Dean Zimmerman has said that proponents of middle knowledge ought to acknowledge the possibility of there being bizarre counterfactual connections between free creaturely actions and intuitively irrelevant state of affairs (such as quantum states of fundamental particles in distant galaxies and the like)…
2)…Consider Peter Van Inwagen’s useful thought experiment in which we imagine an agent making a free choice, God’s subsequently resetting the state of the universe to how things were just prior to the agent’s making that choice,
and then God’s repeating this procedure multiple times…it is at least broadly logically possible that, by sheer coincidence, some strange patterns would emerge…Now we need only imagine a ‘transworld’ version of this thought experiment…where we should believe that it is at least possible that, by sheer coincidence, odd correlations show up in the
pattern of Curley’s refusal and denials that we find across these worlds.
3) His third argument has to do with the consequence argument and is too complicated for me to rehash here.
…If Bizarre is true, there is an interesting limitation on God’s power. God is not able to bring it about that C is actual and Curley freely refuses the bribe without also (at least weakly) bringing it about that Caesar stubs his toe on Feb. 14, 44
BC…Given that God does have middle knowledge, it is possible that not only Curley’s essence, but all creaturely essences are transworldly non-morally depraved…And so, given all of the above, it is possible that:
God is omnipotent and it was not within his power to create a world containing moral good but no non-moral evil.
Bizarre: If Caesar had stubbed his toe on Feb. 14, 44BC and C had been actual (‘C’ denotes the state of
affairs including all and only those portions of the history of the world that the actual world and W share in common up to the moment that Curley accepts the bribe; where ‘W’ is a world that shares an identical history with our own up to the time that Caesar narrowly evaded stubbing his toe, but in fact Caesar does stub his toe in W; ), Curley would have freely
refused the bribe. But, if Caesar had not stubbed his toe on Feb. 14, 44 BC and C had been actual, Curley would not have freely refused the bribe.
…My argument for this conclusion will turn on the claim that if it is possible that God has middle knowledge, it is also possible that there are various bizarre counterfactual connections, outside God’s control, that link the performance of morally good actions with states of affairs that are intuitively irrelevant to the performance of those actions. There are
three lines of support for this…:
1)…Dean Zimmerman has said that proponents of middle knowledge ought to acknowledge the possibility of there being bizarre counterfactual connections between free creaturely actions and intuitively irrelevant state of affairs (such as quantum states of fundamental particles in distant galaxies and the like)…
2)…Consider Peter Van Inwagen’s useful thought experiment in which we imagine an agent making a free choice, God’s subsequently resetting the state of the universe to how things were just prior to the agent’s making that choice,
and then God’s repeating this procedure multiple times…it is at least broadly logically possible that, by sheer coincidence, some strange patterns would emerge…Now we need only imagine a ‘transworld’ version of this thought experiment…where we should believe that it is at least possible that, by sheer coincidence, odd correlations show up in the
pattern of Curley’s refusal and denials that we find across these worlds.
3) His third argument has to do with the consequence argument and is too complicated for me to rehash here.
…If Bizarre is true, there is an interesting limitation on God’s power. God is not able to bring it about that C is actual and Curley freely refuses the bribe without also (at least weakly) bringing it about that Caesar stubs his toe on Feb. 14, 44
BC…Given that God does have middle knowledge, it is possible that not only Curley’s essence, but all creaturely essences are transworldly non-morally depraved…And so, given all of the above, it is possible that:
God is omnipotent and it was not within his power to create a world containing moral good but no non-moral evil.
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